Too Much TV: Your TV Talking Points For Thursday, April 14th, 2022
What's going on at CNN+?
Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Thursday, April 14th, 2022.
WHAT'S GOING ON AT CNN+?
When the New York City subway shooting happened earlier this week, I noticed CNN+ was providing some live breaking news coverage of the event. Which I thought was noteworthy, given that the streaming service doesn't have a continuous live news feed as part of its offering.
I wanted to hear more about the process and get a better sense of where the service was after being live for less than two weeks.
I spoke early Thursday afternoon with Amanda Wills, VP of Content Programming for CNN+, who walked me through their breaking news process. She also provided some interesting insight into the service, which has been buffeted a bit over the past 48 hours by conflicting news stories about its future. Here's a short excerpt:
I've been part of digital news organizations when you're trying something new. And you do all this testing and you think you know how it is going to work. Or not. There are always surprises - positive and negative. For you, what have been some of the things you've learned so far, even in just the couple of weeks you've been live?
When we were building this product, we spent a lot of weeks rehearsing. And rehearsing is very interesting, right? Because you're going through the motions of rehearsing news, which kind of sounds crazy. And it doesn't really replicate what you actually are doing in the real world. So even this week, for my own team, it was a learning curve in a lot of ways. We realized we are inefficient in some of the ways that we're working. And we need to completely tear down that workflow and rebuild it, and do it better next time.
And I think there have been many moments around that. In particular - since we've been live - that we thought we kind of knew how to do it. But then we actually got live and you discover that actually, that workflow doesn't work. Or it's just easier if we work with this team instead of that team. It's easier if we do the images in this manner. I think right now we're still working through little things like that. Because you have to remember, we all just like came together as a team only a few months ago. And there's a lot of us here. So we're still getting to know each other. We're still getting to know the product. We're still getting to know our audience, and we're all doing it like at 100 miles an hour together during the news.
You can read the entire interview here.
DAVID ZASLOV'S BIG TOWN HALL ADVENTURE
Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav held a town hall on Thursday for employees on Thursday and it's a reflection of his self image that he was interviewed for the event by Oprah Winfrey. Winfrey wasn't likely to ask a lot of uncomfortable questions and what better way to say "I understand how Hollywood works" then by bantering with the person celebrities go to when they want to answer questions from another famous person.
There is a lot to unpack from the event, but a couple of things instantly jump out at me. First, Zaslav confirmed that the plan is to eventually combine HBO Max and Discovery+. He also sees that combination as one of the ways to cut overhead at the company moving forward:
Winfrey asked if the eventual plan is for “one big streaming channel,” which Zaslav responded affirmatively to.
“That’s where we go,” Zaslav stated, about the idea of a unified streaming platform bringing together HBO Max and Discovery+, with a caveat: “It’s gonna take us a little while” for technology to allow that to happen.
And then there was this bit on "synergies:"
The CEO added: “I would say the majority of the savings is going to be investment avoidance. So for instance, we were going to spend $600-$800 million promoting Discovery+, Warner was going to spend $800-$1 billion dollars promoting HBO Max.” With one platform, that type of spending isn’t doubled, the executive explained.
As another example, Zaslav talked about the hiring of engineers for the streaming platform. “We had in our plan to hire a lot more engineers. Now when we come together, we have thousands of engineers, one who has thousands of engineers, we don’t have to hire many more thousands of engineers. So there’s a lot of cost avoidance,” the executive said.
(One quick side note about The Hollywood Reporter, which is where the above quotes came from. The page had two sidebars of stories. The top sidebar was comprised of four "Shopping With THR" sponsored pieces. The bottom sidebar was entitled "Most Popular" and was comprised of five stories about Will Smith)
That combination of HBO Max and Discovery+ leaves a lot of questions unanswered, among them whether or not other platforms such as CNN+ and Magnolia will remain separate, stand-alone streaming services.
And while it wasn't part of the discussion at the Town Hall, apparently Zaslav believes that one of the ways to increase revenue at the combined company is to better utilize the IP of DC Entertainment:
Before the merger closed, Zaslav vetted candidates with experience in creating and nurturing blockbuster intellectual property with a goal of potentially finding someone to serve as a creative and strategic czar similar to what Marvel has in Kevin Feige. One of those candidates included Emma Watts, a former top film executive at 20th Century Studios and Paramount, but it does not appear that Watts will take the job. One insider suggested that Zaslav was less interested in finding a creative guru and more eager to hire someone who had the type of business background needed to keep all the different factions at DC working more harmoniously.
Insiders say that Zaslav believes that the success of the merger, one that has left the company highly leveraged, will rest in no small part on unlocking the full potential of the DC Comics universe of characters. Discovery insiders believe that although DC has achieved cinematic success with recent films such as “Aquaman” and “The Batman,” it lacks a coherent creative and brand strategy. Discovery believes that several top-shelf characters such as Superman have been left to languish and need to be revitalized. They also believe that projects like Todd Phillips’ “Joker” are a shining example of how second-billed characters from the DC library can and should be exploited (Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn is another example).
I suspect the "right type of business background" line is one we are going to hear a lot in the coming months. For all of Zaslav's talk about how much he appreciates the creative community, at heart he is a business guy and I think that side will become more pronounced in his decision making process now that the merger has closed.
CRUNCHYROLL IS PHASING OUT ITS AD-SUPPORTED TIER
There is a conventional wisdom in the streaming media business that if a streaming service doesn't have an expanding ad-supported tier, then it is foolishly leaving money on the table. That might be news to the anime streaming giant Crunchyroll, which recently announced that it is phasing out its ad-supported tier for its new content. Previously, new episodes of most shows were available on the ad-supported tier one week after their release on the subscription service. But that option is now going away:
To introduce our new seasonal simulcasts, we will be offering initial episodes of select titles as part of a “seasonal sampler” for free viewing for a limited time. For the Spring 2022 season, users can watch the first three episodes of these simulcast titles for free with ads:
Spy x Family
A Couple of Cuckoos
Dawn of the Witch
Tomodachi Game
Skeleton Knight in Another World
Shikimori’s Not Just a Cutie
The Greatest Demon Lord is Reborn as a Typical Nobody
Trapped in a Dating Sim: The World of Otome Games is Tough for Mobs
The first three episodes of these Spring titles will be available for free, ad-supported viewing one week after their subscription-only premiere until 5/31. After this date, all episodes within our seasonal sampler preview will require subscription.
Crunchyroll will still offer about 1,000 hours of content for free on its ad-supported platform. But that content will now be limited to older releases.
I think there are a couple of factors at play here. With Crunchyroll's biggest competition (Funimation) being rolled into Crunchyroll, the streaming service has less competition. Even though general entertainment services such as Netflix and Prime Video are investing heavily in anime.
Given Crunchyroll's competitive advantage, it likely feels that it can afford to encourage ad-supported viewers who want new content to spring for a paid subscription.
And there is this data point from the global consumer insights agency Interpret, which shows that Crunchyroll viewers pay for twice as many video subscriptions as non-anime viewers:
I FEEL SEEN
Today's edition of Addison Del Mastro's Deleted Scenes newsletter talks about the positives and negatives of working from home, and this paragraph feels way too familiar for comfort:
At home, those boundaries are blurred. And when you write for a living, there’s no “work day.” You’re always sort of working. Every scroll through social media is a chance to craft your personal brand. Every day trip is a possible photo essay. I enjoy my work so much that after a day of work, I often relax by doing…more work. The little ritual, the mental border, of turning off your work computer, rounding up your stuff, and heading out doesn’t happen at home.
TWEET OF THE DAY
ALSO THE TWEET OF THE DAY
ODDS AND SODS
* Season two of Hacks is set to premiere Thursday, May 12th on HBO Max. The eight-episode season will premiere with two episodes and then release one episode a week through June 2nd.
CHART OF THE DAY
WHAT'S NEW FOR THURSDAY
Here's a quick rundown of all the new stuff premiering today on TV and streaming:
Cecilia (Paramount+)
CMT Crossroads: LeAnn Rimes & Friends (CMT)
Gensan Punch (HBO Max)
Killing It Series Premiere (Peacock)
Mysteries Of The Abandoned Season Premiere (Science)
Not So Pretty (HBO Max)
The Garcias Series Premiere (HBO Max)
The Great Pottery Throwdown Season Five Premiere (HBO Max)
The Kardashians Series Premiere (Hulu)
Ultraman Season Two Premiere (Netflix)
Click Here to see the list of all of the upcoming premiere dates for the next few months.
SEE YOU FRIDAY!
If you have any feedback, send it along to Rick@AllYourScreens.com and follow me on Twitter @aysrick.