Too Much TV: Your TV Talking Points For Monday, March 31st, 2025

Content recommendation algorithms will not save us

Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Monday, March 31st, 2025:

PRODUCTION NOTES
I wanted to give you a heads-up about a change in the newsletter beginning tomorrow. Right now, each M-F newsletter includes the headline: "Too Much TV: Your TV Talking Points For <insert date>"

I'm changing that to "Too Much TV: <insert some relevant headline>" But the opening sentence - similar to the one at the top of this newsletter, which includes the date - will continue.

I'm making the change for a couple of reasons. Shortening the headline a bit is almost always a good idea. But as this newsletter expands, I'm finding that the daily newsletters are being shared widely, and they can bounce around in email inboxes for days and sometimes weeks. As an example, I just noticed that one newsletter from about a month ago had about 20,000 views over the weekend. So stripping out the date from the subject line will be helpful when it's shared. Plus, adding an actual relevant headline is SEO-friendly. Although that is a lot less valuable in 2025.

To be honest, I'm also still battling my way through some health issues and that has pushed back the time when I get this out some nights. So a lot of readers aren't looking at it until early the next morning anyway. So stripping out the date just makes sense all the way around.

CONTENT RECOMMENDATION ALGORITHMS WILL NOT SAVE US
Whether you are talking video or music streaming services, content discovery is always a challenge. Placing content you hope will engage subscribers in front of the right people is increasingly necessary, but also problematic.

I would argue that if you want to see what computer-driven content discovery will look like on your favorite SVOD in a couple of years, look at what the music-oriented subscription-based services are doing right now. And there are some cautionary lessons to be learned.

I've written before about my unhappiness with some of Spotify's recent content recommendation efforts, but today I wanted to focus on Sirius XM, which has apparently decided it is going to try and see how much they can ruin my user experience before I decide that I'll just buy a stack of old CDs instead.

As you likely know, Sirius XM is a satellite radio service that is primarily used in vehicles (despite its efforts to expand into the at-home market). There are a number of genre-specific music channels available, along with news, talk radio, and sports. Several hundred channels are available in your vehicle, with a couple of hundred more available if you use the Sirius XM mobile or smart TV app.

Sirius XM has run into the same problem that terrestrial radio stations have been battling for 40 years. The channels with the most engagement - the ones that are most listenable - have some level of human curation. Because AI can program a genre-specific station with maybe 80 or even 90 percent accuracy. But it also makes some boneheaded choices based on what it thinks it knows about a particular piece of music. And when it gets it wrong, that misstep is often quite noticeable.

The service has cut back on its staff substantially in the past couple of years and leaned heavily into machine-based programming. And as it has, I've noticed a couple of very obvious issues. One is that certain songs will suddenly pop up in a rotation on a dozen different channels, with some of the connections a bit of a stretch. Billy Joel's "Allentown" on the classic rock channel? Okay, I guess. Solo hits by Sting and Sheryl Crow on the New Wave channel? I mean, I like the songs fine. But it's a bit jarring to go from Depeche Mode to "Soak Up The Sun."

And Sirius XM has also added a number of "star-themed" channels. Those channels work if they have some curation and POV. The Bruce Springsteen "E-Street Radio" channel works well, as did the Billy Joel pop-up channel. But most of the other channels exist only so a celebrity can promote the service to fans. Channels such as those devoted to Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood sound as if they were programmed by a four-year-old piece of AI. Which is not good.

This is part of the problem that Hulu has right now. Its recommendation system is insanely wrong much of the time. It recommends ten-year-old titles when new originals are available, suggests I watch live "favorite" channels I have never watched even once and about fifty percent of the time, it stubbornly refuses to remember where I stopped when I last watched an episode.

AI can be a helpful tool. But it is still nowhere close to the place where it can replace human curation.

That's also the case with FAST apps such as Fawesome, which has some interesting titles but you'll often only discover them by accident.

And along those lines, I'll have a bunch of program recommendations of my own in tomorrow's newsletter.

BIG TROUBLE IN ZASLAV CITY
There have been persistent rumors for months that an activist investor at Warner Bros. Discovery has been pushing the company to add new board members and move faster on restructuring its business in the hopes that it might spin off or sell its cable networks.

On Monday, that pressure became public when the company added tech investor Anton Levy to its board of directors. The Wall Street Journal's Jessica Toonkel and Lauren Thomas reported today that the activist investment group is Hedge fund Sessa Capital, which built a roughly 1% stake in the company.

There is nothing in Sessa Capital's portfolio that would suggest an expertise in the media business or even any real interest in the future of Warner Bros. Discovery. In fact, Sessa spends a lot of its time focused on retail investing and various cryptocurrency and blockchain ideas. So it's likely the hedge fund to pressure WBD management into making some moves to internally strip mine its assets in a way that might damage the company, but would also spin off money to investors.

The WSJ reporting notes that Anton Levy was identified by WBD management as a potential board member. And so it seems that he's likely been added to bring a bit more technical expertise to the company's continued efforts to separate its liner and streaming assets. Levy recently stepped down as co-president of private equity firm General Atlantic, and he remains an advisory director at General Atlantic. During his time at General Atlantic, he has led the firm's investments in technology companies such as Alibaba, CrowdStrike, Facebook, Slack and Snapchat and co-led investments in Adyen and Bytedance.

HALLMARK ANNOUNCES NEW PRIMETIME UNSCRIPTED SERIES STARRING CONNIE BRITTON
The Hallmark Channel has announced the premiere of a new unscripted series and while I haven't been able to confirm it with the company, this show was apparently originally developed to premiere on the streaming service Hallmark+ Instead, the show will now premiere on the linear Hallmark Channel and episodes will show up the following day on Hallmark+.

The Motherhood will premiere on Monday, May 5th and it is hosted by Connie Britton. Each of the six one-hour episodes follows Britton, a single mother herself, as "she connects with another single mother who is juggling the demands of work, parenting, and self-care. Over the course of a week, Britton and three coaches - DIY and home design specialist Angela Rose, parenting coach Destini Davis, and stylist Taryn Hicks - will help the mom create a better living space while helping to refresh her wardrobe and give her parenting advice."

MAX LAUNCHES IN AUSTRALIA

You've probably seen the news that Max just launched in Australia. Always Be Watching's Dan Barrett has a good rundown on what programming is actually available on launch, and it's a fascinating rundown I haven't seen elsewhere:

• It’s not short on movies, but also, once you strip out the HBO Originals, comedy specials, DC animated films, and documentaries, it does start to feel a bit light.

• For anyone complaining about a lack of older films on streaming services, Max is actually quite good in regards to this thanks to the TCM titles.

• I do wish there was an overall A-Z listing for movies on the service and it wasn’t just restricted to A-Z in genre categories.

• Dune Part 2 and the HBO series Dune Prophecy is on platform… but not Dune Part One?

• The Larry Sanders Show is not available. Nor is Deadwood, Oz, or Extras.

• Max original series Hacks isn’t available either. This one actually did surprise me.

• Uh, yes, Lucky Louie is in the library for those curious. As is John From Cincinnati.

• I had been hoping Adult Swim titles Joe Pera Talks With You and new show Common Side Effects would be there. But neither made it for day one.

• Teen shows like Genera+ion, Betty, and We Are Who We Are aren’t there either.

ODDS AND SODS
* The left-wing social media influencer known as PoliticsGirl and her husband teamed up with Timothy Snyder (author of On Tyranny) and the legendary John Lithgow to create something truly powerful. In this ten-minute video, Lithgow reads Snyder's 20 Lessons On Tyranny, and there are good points to remember no matter what your political persuasion.

* The New York Times has a piece on former mainstream TV anchors who now focus on their Substack careers, and in typical NY Times fashion, the article primarily on Substack's more casual look and lack of pancake makeup.

* FCC Chairman Brendan Carr sat down with Fox News’s Jacqui Heinrich on Monday’s edition of The Story and spoke about his agency’s probe into The Walt Disney Company, noting that if he finds Disney engaged in racial "discrimination" under the guise of DEI it "could fundamentally go to their ABC’s character qualifications to even hold a broadcast license."

* The Disney Channel and Disney+ have renewed Wizards Beyond Waverly Place for a second season. According to the network, production on the new season will begin in April.

* Chief Of War, the new historical drama series starring Jason Momoa, will premiere Friday, August 1st on Apple TV+. Chief of War follows the unification and colonization of Hawai’i from an indigenous point of view. Momoa portrays warrior Ka’iana, as he tries to unify the islands before Western colonization in the late 18th century.

* Netflix has picked up the Fernando Gaitán Yo No Soy Mendoza for Latin America. The Sony-produced and distributed series is set in Mexico City. It centers on the story of Julian Garcia, "an unassuming debt collector whose life takes a shocking turn when he is kidnapped and forced to assume the identity of a wealthy businessman with a dangerous past."

TWEET OF THE DAY

WHAT'S NEW TONIGHT AND TOMORROW

MONDAY, MARCH 31ST:
An Oprah Winfrey Special: The Menopause Revolution (ABC)
Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer (Netflix)
In Dispute: Lively v Baldoni (Investigation Discovery)
Promised Hearts (Netflix)
Rhythm + Flow Italy Season Premiere (Netflix)
Sword Of The Demon Hunter: Kijin Gentosho Series Premiere (Hidive)
Truelove (Acorn TV)

TUESDAY, APRIL 1ST, 2025:
America's Test Kitchen: The Next Generation Season Premiere (Prime Video)
Catch Me At The Ballpark! Series Premiere (Crunchyroll)
Once Upon A Witch's Death Series Premiere (Crunchyroll)
The Death Coast (History)
Would I Lie To You? (Britbox)

SEE YOU ON TUESDAY!