Too Much TV: Your TV Talking Points For Friday, February 17th, 2023

I not sure this A.V. Club review is really a review.

Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Friday, February 17th, 2023.

JUST A REMINDER
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PERHAPS OUR CHAT AI OVERLORDS CAN HELP WITH CONTENT DISCOVERY
ChatGPT is easy to dismiss right now. There are a myriad of stories about how inaccurate AI-written stories can be, how easy it is to convince an AI to spout racist thoughts or even fall in love with you.

But after speaking with some people who are a lot smarter than me, I am becoming convinced that AI chat has the potential of being a smartphone-level game changer for all sorts of industries. While it may be a few years before I'd trust AI to write a best-seller, it's easy to imagine situations where software which is able to search millions of pages of data and spit out a coherent answer would be extremely helpful.

Content discovery remains one of the core issues in the streaming business.

But imagine if you could open up you Netflix app and ask the UI "I'm looking for an action movie like 'Terminator.' Something with killer robots."

And the AI would provide several suggestions, as well as asking  a follow-up question or two in order to narrow down the choices. 

There are several obvious upsides to this use of Chat AI. Because the AI is learning as it goes, each progressive answer would become more refined and useful to subscribers. And while traditional search suffers from a lot of challenges related to content tagging and context, the AI could be trained to ignore bad results and to track if a subscriber actually watched the suggested title. 

It's not the perfect solution for problems with content discovery, but because of the powerful ways ChatGPT can be taught to learn and apply context in its answers, it provides a short cut to providing better content recommendations.

And content discovery is arguably one of THE issues in the industry. A recent Nielsen survey of streaming service customers found that the average user aged 18 to 49 spent an average of 12.7 minutes to make a selection. The average user over the age of 18 saw a 52 percent increase in the time spent choosing what to watch compared to March of 2019.

THE CHALLENGES OF PROMOTING NON-ENGLISH ORIGINAL CONTENT
I tend to write more about global content than most entertainment and media journalists. In part because I'm fascinated by the wide variety originals that are now available to me here in the U.S.

But from a business standpoint, how a major streamer handles its non-English language originals is a good proxy for how it handles all of its content. Does it try and wring out every ounce of value from the money it's spent producing it? 

Like it or not, one of the metrics for determining how serious a streamer is comes down to dubbing. While American audiences will watch programs with English-language subtitles, the vast majority of audiences prefer to also have an English-language audio dub available. Especially on shows that are more light-hearted or have a lot of action that make reading the dialogue a less than optimal viewing experience.

But there is a reason why Netflix provides multiple audio dubs for all of their non-English language programs. While there is some cost involved, they have decided that the potential upside is worth it. Especially when dubbing between languages where there is a big pool of possible people to do the work. Dubbing from Danish to Indonesian is expensive. Dubbing from Portuguese to English?...not much.

Disney+ includes a fair number of international original programs on the U.S. version of the service, but for whatever reason, non-English content is hardly ever dubbed into English. Or is dubbed into English weeks after its premiered on Disney+.

One recent example is the Brazilian original series Mila In The Multiverse, which premiered at the end of January in South America and two days ago here in the U.S. It's a teen-oriented sci-fi series and while it's not a ground-breaking viewing experience, it is a solid show with the potential to grab some percentage of the American subscriber base. But while Disney+ decided it was worth promoting the series on its large homepage promotional carousel, the episodes have English subtitles and the original Portuguese audio. 

Now I'm not arguing this show would be some massive hit on Disney+. But at a time when the service has a dearth of non-Star Wars and Marvel originals, spending the money for an audio dub on a show that might provide some subscriber engagement seems like it would have been money well spent.

SPEAKING OF 'MILA IN THE MULTIVERSE'
Not many outlets reviewed the show when it premiered, other than Decider's "we watched one episode and this is what we think" review and one I wrote for AllYourScreens. But I did find this review at The A.V. Club. Well, it's billed as a "review," but it's really just a cast list and brief logline which is "powered by IMDb." 

How the mighty have fallen.

ODDS AND SODS
* Giada De Laurentiis is leaving Food Network after two decades for a deal with Amazon Studios, where she’ll produce and star in food reality TV. 

* In a somewhat related note, the Food Network announced on Friday that it has signed a new two-year exclusive deal with Molly Yeh that includes more episodes of Girl Meets Farm.

* The upcoming Record Store Day releases will include a Peppa Pig album.

* CNN will air a special presentation of the HBO max original documentary series, Low Country: The Murdaugh Dynasty, on Saturday, February 19th at 8pm ET. Low Country examines the legacy of the Murdaugh family and the case that is gripping the nation.

* The CW announced its new documentary series 100 Days To Indy will premiere on Thursday, April 27th. Penske Entertainment (cough) and Vice Media Group are producing the six-part series, which will take fans behind the scenes to "chronicle the bold and brash personalities of the NTT Indycar Series."

* Disney has canceled The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers as well as Big Shot, both after two seasons.

TWEET OF THE DAY

WHAT'S NEW FOR FRIDAY:

A Girl And An Astronaut (Netflix)
Animaniacs Season Premiere (Hulu)
Boy From Nowhere (Prime Video)
Carnival Row Season Two Premiere (Prime Video)
Community Squad (Netflix)
Ganglands (Netflix)
Great Performances: Movies For Grownups Awards With AARP The Magazine (PBS)
Hello Tomorrow! Series Premiere (Apple TV+)
j-hope In The Box (Disney+)
Josh Johnson: Up Here Killing Myself (Peacock)
Love After Lockup Season Finale (WE tv)
Make Or Break Season Premiere (Apple TV+)
Married To Work (Netflix)
Poor Devil Series Premiere (HBO Max)
Pretzel And The Puppies Season Two Premiere (Apple TV+) 
Sharper (Apple TV+)
The Greatest @Home Videos (CBS)
The 12th Victim (Showtime)
Unlocked (Netflix)
You Can't Escape Me (Lifetime)


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

SEE YOU MONDAY!

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