Too Much TV: Your TV Talking Points For Tuesday, February 8th, 2022

We are all Gumby

Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Tuesday, February 8th, 2022. 

PROGRAMMING NOTE
Today's newsletter is shorter and getting to you a bit later in the day. I had a medical procedure done this morning and while it's nothing serious, I am currently short on time and energy. Thanks for understanding and I'll be back at full strength tomorrow.

FOX ACQUIRES THE ANIMATED FRANCHISE 'GUMBY'
Fox Entertainment has acquired the iconic animated character Gumby, and all his friends, from the estate of Joseph Clokey, son of creator Art Clokey. The deal includes all rights to the popular franchise, including film, television and streaming, consumer products, licensing, publishing and all other categories.  In addition, Fox has acquired the full library of Gumby animated series, specials, movies and content, which will expand Tubi’s current offerings of the franchise.  

I'm not quite sure what a reimagined, modern take on Gumby would look like and I'm also not sure how well known Gumby is to anyone under the age of 40. But it's a good addition to Tubi and assuming that the acquisition costs weren't too high, there's not much of a downside to the deal for Fox.

On a related note, Gumby had a bit of a second coming in the late 1980s, thanks to Eddie Murphy's Gumby impression of Saturday Night Live. One of the projects that came out of that momentary revival was the very weird album "Gumby," which featured songs about the green one from an unsettling range of performers ranging from Jonathan Richman to Frank Sinatra Jr. The quality of the performances is predictably uneven, but the Flo & Eddie tune "We Are All Gumby" is a great Beatles-inspired song that deserved to be a big hit.

READER MAILBAG
I received a lot of feedback about my thoughts in yesterday's newsletter about Netflix and whether they should launch an ad-supported version of the service:

“First of all, Netflix is getting more per subscriber than any of its rivals and the first thing that would happen if Netflix rolled out an AVOD is that some percentage of those people would shift to a cheaper plan.”

Hulu and Paramount+ have higher ARPU on their ad-supported tiers, i.e., the likely revenue upside of ads is more than the difference between the ad-free and ad-supported monthly subscription fees.

I don’t necessarily think Netflix will or should launch an ad-supported tier, but that’s about brand identity — premium, kid-friendly, differentiates from AVODs, etc. — and Netflix’s ability to serve ads and not at all about ARPU.

It's true, I probably should have been more clear about this. But I was trying to make two points. First, Netflix is charging the highest subscription fee of any major mass market streamer in the industry. And while Netflix may well make enough of an ARPU with its ad-supported tier to offset the loss of the higher subscription fee, doing so would essentially shred its current business model. It would be more than a branding problem. It's similar to Fox News shifting from a per subscriber carriage fee to a direct subscriber model. It might work out in the long run, but it's a change that has the possibility of being an extinction-level misstep.

And in the case of Hulu, the ad-supported version of the service has always been its primary success story. There was never a concern that the ad-supported version was going to impact the non-ad tier revenue stream. And because Hulu's ad-supported tier has been so profitable, you've seen significant discounting to get people into the ecosystem.  None of that really applies to a service such as Netflix.

And then there's this note, which is certainly short and to the point:

Dear Mr. Ellis

You're an idiot.

NEWS FROM HULU
Tuesday's TCA presentation was by Hulu.

There wasn't much in the way of "news" from the sessions, other than the premiere of a couple of trailers and some premiere dates: The Girl From Plainville (March 29th), season two of Woke (April 8th), the third and final season of Love Victor (June 15th) and Conversations With Friends (May)

ODDS AND SODS
* The six-episode supernatural documentary The Ghost Town premieres Friday, March 11th on the Travel Channel.

* HBO has renewed How To With John Wilson for a third season.

* Amazon has renewed the action series Reacher for a second season.

* HBO Max has renewed South Side for a third season.

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

American Masters: Marian Anderson-The Whole World In Her Hands (PBS)
Child of Kamiari Month (Netflix)
Jeopardy! National College Championship (ABC)
Love Is Blind Japan Series Premiere (Netflix)
Love & Hip-Hop: Lineage And Legacy (VH1)
Ms. Pat: Y'All Wanna Hear Something Crazy? (Netflix)

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

SEE YOU WEDNESDAY! 

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