Too Much TV: Your TV Talking Points For Wednesday, September 14th, 2022

Are you team English language television or team global?

Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Wednesday, September 14th, 2022.

PROGRAMMING NOTES
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BOB CHAPEK REALLY WANTS TO INTEGRATE HULU
After months of doing a bit of a dance about whether Disney plans to roll Hulu into Disney+, CEO Bob Chapek said on Wednesday that once the company controls all of Hulu, he sees an integration of the two services as almost inevitable:

Speaking at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia & Tech Conference on Wednesday, Chapek said he was interested in a faster timeline to acquiring Comcast’s remaining stake in Hulu before the 2024 deadline and his desire to remove the “friction” for consumers when they have to jump between the Disney+ and Hulu apps to access content.

“There’s a little bit of consumer friction there in terms of having to go out of one app and into another and so I think we, long term, we can avoid that. But 2024 is not that far away,” Chapek said. “We’d have to have full ownership of Hulu to integrate it into Disney+. We would love to get to the endpoint earlier, but that obviously takes some level propensity for the other party to have reasonable terms for us to get there. And if we could get there, I would be more than happy to try to facilitate that.”

I hate these conference appearances by media company executives, because it allows them to essentially just issue mission statements without anyone being able to ask follow-up questions.

I'm sure that Disney would like to "reasonable terms" for Comcast's share of Hulu. But given that Disney is contractually committed to paying a fair market price that is determined by a third party, Comcast executives would have to be insane to agree to sell for a lower price just so they can their billions from Disney a year or so earlier.

But aside from that, there are so many other questions I have about these statements. What does this mean for Hulu Live TV? Does Chapek really believe the combination of the two services and the "decreased friction" will offset the current sizeable revenue stream provided by Hulu?

I suspect that the integration is driven in large part by the onset of an ad-supported Disney+ plan. Hulu's ad-supported offering is extremely lucrative, with an ARPU (average revenue per user) that is close to $13.00. That figure is one reason you see the service offering so many deals on its ad-supported tier. Each new subscriber is almost money in the bank. Translating that success to Disney+ has to be a longterm goal for the company.

NETFLIX TO USE TUDUM FESTIVAL TO SHOWCASE GLOBAL AMBITIONS
When it comes to Netflix and non-English original content, there are two camps. Camp one argues that native English-language audiences still prefer programming in English and focusing too much non-English language originals is bad business. Camp two (and I'm in this one) argues native English-language audiences are showing an increasing appreciation of global originals. And even if they weren't, given that Netflix's business is growing primarily outside of North America and Europe, regional originals are the best option to grow subscribers.

If you want to know in which camp Netflix falls into, you only have to look at the lineup for this year's virtual fan convention Tudum, which will take place in four different regions over a 24-hour period on September 24th.

In a press release announcing the event, Netflix promises Tudum will offer the streamer’s fans an "exciting day of exclusive news, never-before-seen footage, trailers, and first looks, as well as interviews with Netflix’s biggest stars and creators. The free virtual event is a celebration of Netflix fandom and is dedicated to sharing the scoop on over 120 fan-favorite shows, films, specials and games from across the globe."

Here is the schedule of events:

• At 11:00 am KST (7:00 pm PT September 23), Tudum kicks off with an exciting show out of Korea.

• At 11:00 am IST (10:30 pm PT, September 23), fans will be treated to a fun look at what’s ahead from India.

• At 10 am PT, Tudum kicks off as a two-part show with Part 1 out of the United States and Europe, and Part 2 at 11:30 am PT out of Latin America, including surprises from other countries. 

• At 1:00 pm JST September 25 (9:00 pm PT September 24), our stars from Japan will close out Tudum with a celebration of our Japanese entertainment.

Here are some of the TV shows that will be highlighted:

1899 • 3 Body Problem • Alice In Borderland • Belascoarán • Berlin • Bridgerton • Class • Dead To Me • El Amor Después Del Amor • El Reino • Elite • Emily In Paris • First Love • Glitch • Guns & Gulaabs • Heartstopper • Jojo’s Bizzare Adventure Stone Ocean • Love Is Blind: Brazil • Lupin • Manifest • Money Heist: Korea – Joint Economic Area • Nayanthara: Beyond The Fairtytale • Never Have I Ever • Outer Banks • Physical: 100 • Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story • Rana Naidu • Scoop • Shadow And Bone • Soup • Squid Game • Stranger Things • The Crown • The Fabulous • The Makanai: Cooking For The Maiko House • The Umbrella Academy • The Watcher • The Witcher • The Witcher: Blood Origin • Triada • Vikings: Valhalla • Wednesday • You • and many more! 

And some of the movies:

20th Century Girl • Ardiente Paciencia • A Través Del Mar • Beyond The Universe • Carga Máxima • Chor Nikal Ke Bhaga • Enola Holmes 2 • Extraction 2 • Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery • Guillermo De Toro’s Pinocchio • Heart Of Stone • Kathal Khufiya • Matrimillas • Monica, O My Darling • Qala • The Redeem Team • Slumberland • The School For Good And Evil • They Cloned Tyrone • Your Place Or Mine • and many more! 

And these Netflix original games:

Compass Point: West • Destra: The Memories Between • Kentucky Route Zero • Nailed It! Baking Bash • Stranger Things: Puzzle Tales • Triviaverse

I'm very bullish on the global television sector. There has been some phenomenal growth in interest internationally and whether American reporters like it or not, it's where the future of the streaming industry lies.

NETFLIX'S NEW ALGORITHM OFFERS OPTIMAL RECOMMENDATION LISTS FOR USERS WITH FINITE TIME BUDGET
I will admit that I only somewhat understand this discussion, but it's a super fascinating glimpse at the complexities involved in tweaking a recommendation engine:

The simulation is very helpful to study and better understand the problem. With simulation, various recommendation algorithms are trained and compared. To evaluate the performances a simple metric is used at is the average number of success of the generated stater referred to as play rate. In addition to play rate, it is important to consider the effective slate size: one of the ways to improve the play-rate is to construct lafer effective slates, this metric is important to understand the mechanism of recommendation algorithms.

It's difficult to find people willing to discuss this stuff in public and to be honest, a lot of it is extremely tech heavy. But I feel that the more we understand how the backend of streamers work - particularly when it comes to various algorithms - the easier it will be to accurately assess how good of a job a streamer is doing with things such as recommendations and content discovery.

ONE STORY, TWO VERY DIFFERENT DESCRIPTIONS OF THE STORY'S AUTHOR

WHAT'S NEW FOR WEDNESDAY
Here's a quick rundown of all the new stuff premiering today on TV and streaming:

Broad Peak (Netflix)
El Rey, Vicente Fernandez (Netflix)
Heartbreak High (2022 Reboot) (Netflix)
Hell Of A Cruise (Peacock)
NFL Slimetime (Nickelodeon)
Sins Of Our Mother (Netflix)
The Catholic School (Netflix)
The Handmaid's Tale Season Premiere (Hulu)
The Lørenskog Disappearance (Netflix)
The NFL Pile On (Prime Time)

Click Here to see the list of all of the upcoming premiere dates for the next few months.

SEE YOU THURSDAY!

If you have any feedback, send it along to Rick@AllYourScreens.com and follow me on Twitter @aysrick.