Too Much TV: Your TV Talking Points For Wednesday, May 11th, 2022
Disney earnings, Netflix movies and Chris Hayes
Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Wednesday, May 11th, 2022.
NOTES FROM DISNEY'S Q2 FY22 EARNINGS CALL
The Q2 investor's call just wrapped a bit ago and here are some of the highlights:
* Disney+ has 137.7 million total subscriptions, with about eight million added in Q2. I'd love to know how many of those subscriptions came as the result of the bundle with Hulu. It's also worth noting that much of that growth came from outside the United States.
* Speaking of the Disney bundle, ESPN+ ended Q2 with 22.3 million subscribers, adding one million over its total at the end of Q1.
* Hulu's numbers were essentially flat. It ended the quarter with 41.4 million SVOD subscribers, up from Q1's 40.9 million. But Hulu Live TV lost subscribers, dipping from 4.3 million at the end of Q1 to 4.1 million.
* Around half of Disney+ subscribers are adults without kids. The company is in the process of adding more general entertainment programs to the service, "shifting resources from around our content ecosystem as consumer behavior evolves."
* The ad-supported version of Disney+ should launch in the U.S. at the end of the year. No word yet on a price or whether all of the content available on the ad-free version will also be available on the ad-supported version.
* Disney expects its cash content spend to total as much as $32 billion. Content spend is about one third sports, the rest primarily in "general interest content that can cross platforms and content that will drive subscriber growth in certain segments."
* The company is guiding towards 230-260 million Disney+ subscribers worldwide by 2024.
* There are no current plans to raise the subscription price for Disney+, but Disney CEO Bob Chapek said "content investment may give us (Disney) the option to adjust that price. We believe we can move up and cascade up our price over time. We are pretty bullish about that."
* Chapek also said the company is well-positioned on the technology front to roll out its ad-supported Disney+ tier. Disney's experience with Hulu ad sales "substantially prepares us" for the challenges.
HAS YOUR FAVORITE PRIMETIME TELEVISION BEEN CANCELED/RENEWED?
The broadcast network upfronts kick off next week and these are the days when the fate of a number of broadcast TV shows are being decided. Here is a rundown of the decisions that have been announced so far:
ABC:
Abbott Elementary - Renewed for Season Two
America’s Funniest Home Videos - Likely To Be Picked Up
American Idol - No Decision Announced Yet
A Million Little Things - No Decision Announced Yet
Big Sky - No Decision Announced Yet
Black-ish - Ended In April After Eight Seasons
Dancing With The Stars - Renewed, Moving To Disney+
Grey's Anatomy - Renewed For Season Nineteen
Home Economics - No Decision Announced Yet
Promised Land - Canceled
Queens - Canceled
Shark Tank - No Decision Announced Yet
Station 19 - Renewed For Season Six
Supermarket Sweep - No Decision Announced Yet
The Bachelor - No Decision Announced Yet
The Bachelorette - No Decision Announced Yet
The Conners - Renewed
The Goldbergs - Renewed For Season Ten
The Good Doctor - Renewed For Season Six
The Rookie - Renewed For Season Five
The Wonder Years - No Decision Announced Yet
CBS:
B Positive - No Decision Announced Yet
Beyond The Edge - No Decision Announced Yet
Blood & Treasure - still awaiting Season 2 premiere date
Blue Bloods - Renewed For Season Thirteen
Bob Hearts Abishola - Renewed For Season Four
Bull - Ending After Six Seasons
CSI: Vegas - Renewed For Second Season
FBI - Renewed For Two Seasons
FBI: International - Renewed For Two Seasons
FBI: Most Wanted - Renewed For Two Seasons
Ghosts - Renewed For Second Season
Good Sam - No Decision Announced Yet
How We Roll - No Decision Announced Yet
Magnum P.I. - No Decision Announced Yet
NCIS - Renewed For Season Twenty
NCIS: Hawai’i - Renewed For Second Season
NCIS: Los Angeles - Renewed For Season Fourteen
Secret Celebrity Renovation - Renewed For Second Season
Survivor - Renewed For Season Forty-Three
SWAT - Renewed For Season Six
The Amazing Race - Renewed for Season 34
The Equalizer - Renewed For Two Seasons
The Neighborhood - Renewed For Season Five
Tough As Nails - Renewed For Season Five
Undercover Boss - No Decision Announced Yet
United States of Al - No Decision Announced Yet
Young Sheldon - Renewed Through 2023/2024 Season
FOX:
Bob's Burgers - Previously Renewed Through 2022/2023 Season
Call Me Kat - No Decision Announced Yet
Duncanville - No Decision Announced Yet
Family Guy - Previously Renewed Through 2022/2023 Season
Fantasy Island - Season Two Premieres On May 31st
Housebroken - Season Two Premiere Date Not Yet Announced
911 - No Decision Announced Yet
911: Lone Star - No Decision Announced Yet
Our Kind Of People - No Decision Announced Yet
Pivoting - No Decision Announced Yet
The Big Leap - Canceled
The Cleaning Lady - Renewed For Season Two
The Great North - Renewed For Season Three
The Masked Singer - No Decision Announced Yet
The Resident - No Decision Announced Yet
The Simpsons - Previously Renewed Through 2022/2023 Season
Welcome To Flatch - No Decision Announced Yet
NBC:
American Auto - No Decision Announced Yet
American Song Contest - No Decision Announced Yet
Chicago Fire - Renewed
Chicago Med - Renewed
Chicago PD - Renewed
Grand Crew - No Decision Announced Yet
Kenan - No Decision Announced Yet
La Brea - Renewed For Season Two
Law & Order - Renewed
Law & Order: Organized Crime - Renewed
Law & Order: SVU - Renewed
Mr. Mayor - No Decision Announced Yet
New Amsterdam - Renewed, But Ending Next Season
Ordinary Joe - Canceled
The Endgame - No Decision Announced Yet
The Blacklist - Renewed For Season Ten
The Voice - No Decision Announced Yet
The Wall - No Decision Announced Yet
The Weakest Link - No Decision Announced Yet
This Is Us - Series Ending On May 24th
Transplant - No Decision Announced Yet
Young Rock - No Decision Announced Yet
The CW:
All-American - Renewed For Season Five
All-American: Homecoming - No Decision Announced Yet
Batwoman - Canceled
Charmed - No Decision Announced Yet
Coroner - Season Two Premieres June 2nd
DC's Stargirl - Season Three Premiere Date Not Announced Yet
Devils - Season Two Premieres June 30th
Dynasty - No Decision Announced Yet
4400 - No Decision Announced Yet
In The Dark - Season Four Premieres June 6th
Killer Camp - Canceled
Kung Fu - Renewed For Season Three
Legacies - No Decision Announced Yet
Legends of the Hidden Temple - No Decision Announced Yet
Nancy Drew - Renewed For Season Four
Naomi - No Decision Announced Yet
Penn & Teller: Fool Us - No Decision Announced Yet
Riverdale - Renewed For Season Seven
Roswell, New Mexico - Season Four Premieres June 6th
Superman & Lois - Renewed
The Flash - Renewed For Season Nine
Tom Swift - Series Debuts May 31st
Two Sentence Horror Stories - No Decision Announced Yet
Walker - Renewed For Season Three
Whose Line Is It Anyway? - No Decision Announced Yet
SOME FREE ADVICE FOR PEACOCK
I am a big fan of MSNBC's Chris Hayes. He might not always get a lot of love inside the network's executive suites, but I'd argue that he has evolved over the years into an incredibly strong and distinctive voice on cable news. The rap against him seems to be that his show doesn't get the ratings of Rachel Maddow. Which is somewhat like arguing a band might be really good, but they're not the Beatles.
Hayes does a podcast and while I don't have time to listen to every one, he is a really intuitive interviewer and has the ability to really drill down to the nuances of any topic.
Several months ago, he did a video version of a podcast which aired during his normal MSNBC timeslot and it was quite compelling. Sort of a cross between the old Bob Costas Later interviews and a less pretentious Charlie Rose. Hayes is a policy wonk, but he's also an experienced anchor and knows how to dig deep into a subject while not devolving into policy speak.
After seeing the one-off special, it occurred to me that Hayes should do those video podcast/shows on a regular basis, perhaps for Peacock (as opposed to NBC Now, where it would just be buried). And apparently this is something Hayes has been considering as well:
I'M NOT SAYING THIS IS THE DUMBEST TAKE I'VE READ TODAY. BUT.....
Netflix tends out to bring the worst of people employed in the hot take industry. Publishing "man, look at this stupid thing about Netflix" pieces are guaranteed to get plenty of pageviews and social media shares. Even if the post itself is misleading or just monumentally dumb. Which brings us to "10 Flops That Are Huge Hits On Netflix," a ScreenCrush post that - to be fair - is genetically designed to be the perfect bit of streaming media clickbait:
So far in 2022, Netflix has released more than 50 original movies — an average of about three new features every single week. And yet if you peruse the company’s data website, where you can see the top ten movies and shows in every single country around the world where Netflix is offered, you’ll see that despite all those new titles made expressly for the company and its customers, the most popular movies on Netflix right now by and large aren’t originals.
Now, there's an article to be written about why catalog movies are so popular on Netflix, but this isn't it. Instead, it's a reason to dunk on the craziness of the fact that 2017's King Arthur: Legend Of The Sword is popular in Estonia or 2006's Perfume: The Story Of A Murderer is doing surprisingly well in Qatar, Kuwait, and Jordan.
The headline is meant to suck readers in who are looking for stories that reinforce their "Netflix subscribers aren't watching Netflix originals" conventional wisdom. But nearly the entire list is comprised of films that are popular in some small country and region. And honestly, that's what you would expect to see. Netflix doesn't license a lot of new catalog movies each month, but the ones they do grab tend to be films with recognizable names starring in films that underperformed at the box office. They're the streaming industry's equivalent of clickbait. Subscribers see a movie like 2013's R.I.P.D., realize it stars Ryan Reynolds and Jeff Bridges, and decide to give it a try. And while some of these films are pretty terrible, many of them failed at the box office for reasons that had nothing to do with their quality.
This trend is even more prevalent in smaller global markets, where many of these films either received minimal distribution or no distribution at all. So these are new films, as far as those Netflix subscribers are concerned.
Does Netflix still struggle with its original movie slate? You bet! But this article won't help with that conversation. Unless you're discussing Netflix's subscriber base preferences in Norway or Kenya.
GRAPH OF THE DAY
Using data from S&P Global’s Kagan research group, Axios shows the disconnect between subscriber declines and resulting fees collected per cable subscriber. I can't help but think that this trend is not sustainable, although none of the outcomes would be good for the cable TV industry:
ODDS AND SODS
* Season two of Netflix's Floor Is Lava premieres on June 3rd.
* Starz has renewed the drama Shining Vale for an eight-episode second season.
* Buried deep in a vault somewhere is the official White House record collection.
* Season four of Virgin River is coming to Netflix on July 20th, 2022.
* Paramount Global and its streaming service Paramount+ have cut a deal with Lionsgate for the exclusive U.S. subscription VOD rights to CBS’ hit comedy Ghosts. In addition to Paramount+’s existing in-season rights to Ghosts, the new deal will make the service the official year-round SVOD home for all episodes of the show beginning in Fall 2022.
* For the first time since 2019, Fox News will host the Fox & Friends All-American Summer Concert Series. The 14th installment of the series starts on Friday, May 27th, and will feature Flo Rida, Kool & The Gang and Lynyrd Skynyrd.
WHAT'S NEW FOR WEDNESDAY
Here's a quick rundown of all the new stuff premiering today on TV and streaming:
Brotherhood Season Two Premiere (Netflix)
42 Days Of Darkness (Netflix)
Messy History Of American Food (Discovery+)
Operation Mincemeat (Netflix)
Our Father (Netflix)
The Challenge: All-Stars Season Premiere (Paramount+)
The Circle Season Four Premiere (Netflix)
The Getaway King (Netflix)
The Ignorant Angels Series Premiere (Hulu)
The Quest Season Premiere (Disney+)
The Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills Season Twelve Premiere (Bravo)
Workin' Moms Season Six Premiere (Netflix)
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.