Too Much TV: Your TV Talking Points For Wednesday, February 22nd, 2023
A new streamer launches today in the U.S.
Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Wednesday, February 22nd, 2023.
A QUICK PROGRAMMING NOTE
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NORDIC STREAMER VIAPLAY LAUNCHES IN THE U.S. TODAY
While it's not a recognizable name in North America, the streamer Viaplay has a huge presence in the Nordics and Baltics. It's now doing a gradual global rollout, often partnering with other local streaming services. But here in North America, Viaplay is rolling out a direct-to-consumer service in the U.S today, with the Canadian service debuting next month.
Last year, Viaplay made a deal to launch as a channel on Comcast's Xfinity platform and at that time, I spoke with Viaplay EVP and Chief Content Officer Filippa Wallestam:
Along those lines, from a content standpoint, what do you think people misunderstand about Nordic television?
What we need to do is educate people on is that we are more than only crime TV. That's sort of the whole point, people don't have to get killed in every show. It's not necessarily a bad thing, because we're very good at killing people as well. That said, that's the number one barrier.
The second thing that I'm looking forward to sharing with the American audience, is nature programming.
But overall, not everything Nordic has to be dark and gloomy. We can play with the summer. We're very proud of this new show Partisan, which is a new way of doing a crime show. It's set in the Swedish summer, it's beautiful. It's really light. And it's it looks super nice, which I don't think we've shown a lot of in the past.
On the other end, we have a show called One Dimension, a Norwegian show that's coming up in Q3 this year. That show plays out in real wintertime, where it's super snowy, and it's a crime show related to wolves. Where the whole point is "was this person actually killed by a wolf, or is there a murder going on here?" I think that's kind of exotic in a different way. It's probably what you would expect from the Nordics with snow and wolves and all of that. But I think we haven't really shown that side of the region a lot on television.
And ahead of the official U.S. launch, I recently spoke with Vanda Rapti, Viaplay Group EVP & Chief Commercial Officer, North America & Viaplay Select and that interview will be posting later this evening on AllYourscreens, along with some interviews with the stars of a couple of Viaplay's most recent shows. I'll include links to all of those in tomorrow's newsletter.
NBC IS TWEAKING 'THE VOICE' AGAIN
NBC has tried to expand on its long-running music competition series The Voice several times in recent years, with dismal results. But The Voice continues to roll on, grabbing solid, albeit slightly declining ratings.
Season twenty-three kicks off on Monday, March 6th, with judges Chance the Rapper, Kelly Clarkson, Niall Horan and Blake Shelton. And there are some tweaks to the format, according to NBC:
The Battles (starting March 27) – An all-new “Playoff Pass” allows both artists in a battle to advance, with the “Playoff Pass” winner gaining a major advantage when they skip the Knockout Rounds and automatically advance to Playoffs, taking them one step closer to the live shows. Each coach has one “Playoff Pass” and one “Steal” during this round. Seven artists per team advance (six competing in the Knockouts and one “Playoff Pass” artist).
The Knockouts – Artists are paired against each other, selecting their own songs to perform individually while their direct competitors watch and wait. Coaches choose the winner and the artist not selected is available for a “steal.” The pressure is on as each coach only has one “steal” during this round. Five artists per team advance (four Knockout winners and one “Playoff Pass” artist).
The Playoffs (starting May 1) – The Playoffs are back, further bolstering the competition following the Knockouts. The 20 remaining artists hold nothing back, and tough decisions are made when each coach can only advance two artists to the live semi-finals.
But the change I want to highlight is the addition of Reba McEntire as the season's "Mega Mentor." Now, I have enjoyed McEntire's music over the years and she is known for being very business savvy. But for a show that keeps wanting to launch new pop and country artists, having someone as a "Mega Mentor" who is not exactly familiar with the pop charts in this century seems like an odd choice. While McEntire continued to have random country music hits in the early aughts, her last pop hit was 1999's "What Do You Say," which topped out at #31 on the Billboard Top 40.
As I noted, McEntire has had a long successful country career with some 1980s and 1990s pop crossover hits. But if I was a young, contemporary pop singer, I'm not sure she would be all that helpful.
ODDS AND SODS
* Hallmark has renewed its drama When Calls The Heart for an eleventh season. It also announced that season ten will premiere on Sunday, July 30th. Both seasons will run twelve episodes.
* I just updated my list of every Oscar-nominated film that is available for streaming on an SVOD.
* The Writers Guild of America will begin negotiations on a new contract on March 20th. The current deal with the studios is set to expire on May 1st.
* Amazon has ordered a second season of the excellent Scottish supernatural series The Rig.
* BBC & BritBox have co-commissioned an Agatha Christie mini-series based on Murder Is Easy.
* The new HGTV series Renovation 911 features Minneapolis-based emergency restoration experts and sisters, Lindsey Uselding and Kirsten Meehan, as they fix families’ property disasters. The series premieres Tuesday, March 28th.
* The latest Netflix sports documentary series will focus on three NFL QBs. Quarterback follows the Chiefs' Patrick Mahomes, Vikings' Kirk Cousins and Falcons' Marcus Mariota through the past season that ended with Mahomes’ Chiefs winning the Super Bowl.
* Renowned rapper Yo-Yo has a new cooking series coming to Aspire TV. Downright Delicious with Yo-Yo is coming to the network in June, but will premiere an episode ahead of that on Tuesday, March 7th.
* Season two of Queen of the Universe premieres March 31st on Paramount+.
* Roku has ordered Most Dangerous Game: New York, which is a sequel to Quibi/Roku series/movie Most Dangerous Game.
I KNOW I KEEP COMPLAINING ABOUT THIS...
Last week, I noted that Disney+ had once again dropped one of its Latin American originals onto the U.S. service without much warning. And without the English-language audio dub that is the minimum of what American viewers expect, most of the audience is never going to find the show. Much less watch it when they do.
Another original premiered on Disney+ today and once again, there is no English-language audio dub. Which is a shame, because The Low Tone Club has a lot of potential to find an American audience.
The show stars Colombian singer Carlos Vive, and since screeners weren't available for the series, I'm trying to get through the ten episodes as quickly as I can in order to review it. But based on what I've seen so far, it's simply delightful. Vive is fun and charismatic and the storyline is one that is almost universal. To give you an idea, here is the official logline:
“The Low Tone Club” follows the story of Amaranto Molina (Vives), an unconventional music teacher who starts teaching at a music school that only encourages students who do well by commercial success standards. Every year Principal Eduardo Kramer (Julián Arango), chooses five students, nicknamed The High Tones, to be part of the school’s prestigious Teen Band. Molina, on the other hand, is put in charge of The Low Tones, a group of students whose talents do not meet the school’s standards. With his disruptive methods, this eccentric teacher and The Low Tones will embark on a music journey that will help heal wounds and inspire each one of them to express their unique talents. Along the way, the students will learn more about Mr. Molina and discover their teacher’s mysterious hidden past.
I know every streaming service is cutting expenses and dubbing isn't cheap. But man, this is such a waste of a really fun YA show. I know there is a Spanish-speaking U.S. audience that might find it, but it has the potential to be so much bigger.
AND AS LONG AS I'M MAKING THE SAME COMPLAINTS AGAIN...
Today I started receiving the "this is what is coming to our streaming service" press releases, highlighted by Paramount+ and Netflix. And once again, I find myself looking at the Netflix list and playing the popular game "Okay, I wonder if I can find the publicist who handles this show?"
As regular readers of this newsletter already know, I'm a big supporter of global productions and spend a lot of time covering them. But despite the fact that Netflix spends so much money and company focus on originals produced outside of the U.S./UK/Australia axis, finding out anything about the shows - much less tracking down a screener - can be an almost impossible task. I've ended up collecting a list of PR contacts in various territories and I spend entirely too much time blind-emailing unsuspecting publicists in Poland or Spain or South Africa or Belgium, asking "are you handling this show? Can you point me in the right direction?" Sometimes they speak English, sometimes they don't. And as you might imagine, they're not always open to hearing from some random person in the U.S.
On the upside, I am developing a good rapport with a few local publicists. Which is good for me, although it doesn't say much about Netflix's global PR efforts. And I get it. Resources are tight everywhere, particularly in marketing and PR. But simply adding some basic contact info and including some of the global screeners into the regular American workflow would be ever so helpful.
WHAT'S NEW FOR WEDNESDAY:
Can’t Turn Us Around: Alabama’s Foot Soldiers (History)
Furia Series Premiere (Viaplay)
Melody (Prime Video)
Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal (Netflix)
Snowfall Season Six Premiere (FX)
The Low Tone Club Series Premiere (Discovery+)
The Nate & Jeremiah Home Project Season Premiere (HGTV)
The Strays (Netflix)
Threesome Series Premiere (Viaplay)
Tough As Nails Season Finale (CBS)
Triptych (Netflix)
Trom Series Premiere (Viaplay)
Voices Rising: The Music Of Wakanda Forever (Disney+)
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.