Too Much TV: Your TV Talking Points For Tuesday, September 6th, 2022

The case for Netflix acquiring Regal Cinemas

Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Tuesday, September 6th, 2022.

My apologies for the lateness of this edition. Substack was once again having some sort of outage, which isn’t annoying at all….Grrrr.

10 STORIES YOU SHOULD KNOW
I launched a second newsletter this morning. "10 Stories You Should Know" is an early-morning round-up of links to stories in the media business that should be on your radar for the day. Some of the links will be U.S.-based stories that were posted late in the evening or early morning. But I'm also including global stories of interest. This morning's round-up included stories from Australia and South Africa.

Here is a link to today's newsletter and if you'd like to subscribe for free, simply click this link and add it to your current subscription.

And if you have any late night/early morning links you think I should include, reply to this newsletter or email me at rick@allyourscreens.com

SHOULD NETFLIX BUY REGAL CINEMAS?
One of the beauties of writing about the streaming industry without working for a specific company is that you have the opportunity to do a bit of semi-informed speculation. A bit more knowledgeable than "What if?," but not based on actual insider information.

I ran across this real comprehensive Twitter thread today, which runs down the ups and downs of the American film studio history, including comparing present-day Warner Bros. Discovery to RKO at the time it began to crash and burn. It's worth reading the entire thing, but one of the facts that is referenced is the The Hollywood Antitrust Case of 1948, also known as the Paramount Accords. That ruling did a number of things, but the big one was to prohibit studios from also owning movie theaters. The Paramount Accords were reversed by the Supreme Court in August 2020, albeit with a two-year sunsetting period which just ended.

Which brings us to Cineworld, which owns the Regal Cinemas movie chain. Cineworld is reportedly set to go into Chapter 11, and the company is battling a myriad of challenges:

On top of that the company has debts accrued during a punishing pandemic when sites went dark for many months, as well as the prospect of a $965m (CAD $1.2bn) payout ordered by an Ontario judge last December after Canadian exhibition leader Cineplex successfully sued Cineworld for pulling out of a merger.

Greidinger is appealing the ruling and said his company acted properly in its dealings with Cineplex. The Canadian appellate courts are expected to start hearing the case in October. Some have argued the Cineworld CEO went too far in his pursuit of the Canadian giant after having bought Regal. One Hollywood studio source says he “got greedy”, adding: “Even if that judgement was cut in half, it’s still $500m that he doesn’t have.”

There are a few possibilities for Cineworld post-Chapter 11. It could close a number of U.S. screens (it currently operates more than 500 venues and 7,000 screens in the U.S.), in an effort to cut debt and stave off creditors. It could sell the U.S. subsidiary to Canadian-based Cineplex, although at this point it's not clear if that company is still interested.

However, there is another option and it's one I've been thinking of for awhile. Today's talk of the Paramount Accords reminded me that Netflix could acquire Regal Cinemas and use those screens as a way to push Netflix original films into theaters on the company's terms.

Netflix has a long-running battle with the largest U.S. movie chains over the length of the theatrical window for its original films. In other words, the number of days movie theaters have exclusive access to the film before it can be streamed. The pandemic pushed the industry standard to around 45 days. Netflix has been approaching the issue on a film-by-film basis, but when it does release a film to theaters first, it has preferred a one or two week theatrical window. Chains such as AMC and Regal have resisted compressing the window, although smaller rival Cinemark has screened some Netflix films, such as Red Notice.

If Netflix acquired Regal, it would have a natural theatrical home for its films and would be able to films on the fly. I can see a scenario where both new Netflix films and slightly older Netflix action and family films could share the multiplex with the current hits from the other movie studios. And while rival studios might not like the situation, no studio could afford to write off 7,000 U.S. screens in order to make a point about their unhappiness.

About a year ago, there was some industry speculation Netflix might buy a movie theater chain after it acquired a theater in both NYC and Los Angeles. At the time, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos dismissed the idea:

He also said he expected theaters to survive the rise of at-home streaming but that audiences would make fewer trips to their local cinema when they can watch so much programming at home.

"I think (moviegoing) will be less frequent, maybe more expensive," he said. "Using it as an event to get out of the house, people are still going to be looking for that."

But in the year since those comments, both the fate of the movie industry and Netflix have changed drastically. Owning screens would be a way to internally generate revenue without increasing content spend to any large degree. It would provide additional monetization for older films and provide an additional way to build a small-ish Disney-style bundle. Imagine offering current Netflix subscribers a concession stand discount, frequent viewing deals and other perks. Netflix could use some of the ad inventory on its new ad-supported service to promote the films, which would trim the marketing costs. 

There are a lot of questions that would have to be answered before the acquisition could happen. And Netflix owning a theater chain would likely cause an overall shift in the type of deal the streamer signs when ordering an original film. But if someone were to ask "If you ran Netflix today, what would you do?," this idea would be at the top of my "to-do" list.

THE CHALLENGES OF MONTIZING PVOD
While PVOD only picked up steam out of sheer necessity following the pandemic-induced mass theater closures, it’s now a prominent window for studios’ high-profile theatrical releases as consumers return to the cinema. A recent study Morning Consult shows that only 14% of all adults in the United States said they paid a one-time fee of US $19.99 or more in the past month for at-home access to a movie that was still playing in theaters. Still, it has the potential of being a lucrative revenue window for studios. The biggest challenge seems to be the marketing and promotional confusion when highlighting the availability of the titles:

Firstly, it’s too difficult to figure out where to get PVOD release information on social media (Warner Bros. Discovery has over 20 verified Instagram accounts as of this publication), so consolidating the number of studio accounts on major platforms could help streamline information dispersal. Secondly, the current release announcement strategies from studios on social media platforms are not aggressive enough, likely causing studios to lose out on many younger, higher-earning consumers who would otherwise pay for early digital access to these films. For example, Warner Bros. Entertainment’s Instagram account didn’t make a feed post about “Elvis” on Aug. 9, the day it became available on PVOD, while Universal Pictures’ Instagram account similarly didn’t post about “Minions: Rise of Gru” being on digital following that release. 

As I've said numerous times in this newsletter, so much of the success or failure in the media business comes down to the best execution of your marketing and PR strategy.

STREAMING SERVICES NEED TO STOP SHOWING ME THE SAME AD OVER AND OVER
The Verge's David Pierce writes that he doesn't mind commercials. What he minds are seeing the same ones repeated over and over:

There’s a perfectly rational reason for why this happens, by the way. It’s all about ad targeting. Let’s just take my own recent example, CroppMetcalfe. I’m a new homeowner, in the company’s area of service, with a 20-year-old HVAC unit that we know is going to need to be replaced soon. There’s a pretty good chance CroppMetcalfe knows that, too! I’m absolutely the company’s target market. But there aren’t that many people in my exact situation, and Peacock surely promised the company a certain number of ad impressions. If there were a million people who fit the bill, no problem. But if there are 500 of us, and a million impressions to serve, I’m going to get an awful lot of that five-star jingle.

ODDS AND SODS
* Zerlina Maxwell announced on Twitter Tuesday morning that she will be leaving MSNBC once her streaming show ends September 15th:  "I am really excited about the next chapter and I’m looking forward to moving into a space at the forefront of where the media is headed!"

* Chris Wallace’s new show Who’s Talking To Chris Wallace will debut first on HBO Max with three episodes on Friday, September 23rd. It will then premiere on CNN on Sunday, September 25th.

* One of the best things about working for myself is that I haven't had to write anything about the insane "Don't Worry Darling" press tour. But if you have to know what's going on, this piece in Vulture does a great job of spotlighting all of the lowlights.

* John Miller joins CNN as Chief Law Enforcement and Intelligence Analyst.

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

Bee & PuppyCat (Netflix)
Claim To Fame Season Finale (ABC)
Destination Paris (Paramount+)
Good Bones: Risky Business Series Premiere (HGTV)
Get Smart With Money (Netflix)
CBS News Prime Time With John Dickerson Series Premiere (CBSN)
Kiddie Kai Series Premiere (Discovery+)
Queen Sugar Season Premiere (OWN)
Rodrigo Marques: King Of Uncouth (Netflix) 
Sheng Wang: Sweet and Juicy (Netflix)
Teen Mom: The Next Chapter Series Premiere (MTV)
UFOs (MHz Choice)
Untold: The Race Of The Century (Netflix)
What We Do In The Shadows Season Finale (FX)
Who Really Killed Michael Jackson? (Fox)

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.