Too Much TV: Your TV Talking Points For Tuesday, October 1st, 2024

A deep dive on the digital media efforts at PBS

Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Tuesday, October 1st, 2024:

PRODUCTION NOTES
You're right, there wasn't a newsletter yesterday. It was a very last minute decision, but I decided to take a mental health day. I was sitting around with a few friends of mine - basically a Dad's group - and I decided I didn't want to bail early in order to drive back home and work. I am especially bad about taking time out for me and I felt mentally refreshed today. Maybe someday I'll take an actual vacation...

A DEEP DIVE ON THE DIGITAL MEDIA EFFORTS AT PBS
I really enjoy talking about the inner workings of the television and streaming video business. Deep diving into the strategy behind the decisions that affect what you watch and on what platforms you watch them. But it can be challenging to get access to top executives. In part because they're busy and convincing their people to carve out time to talk to me is tough. But also because they don't want to waste their time and if truth be told, not every reporter has the same level of knowledge about the industry.

Ira Rubenstein is Chief Digital and Marketing Officer at PBS and since he joined the network in 2014, he's led the expansion of PBS’ general audience and children’s content to mobile devices, over-the-top (OTT) services and other digital platforms. Before he came to PBS, he spent more than 12 years at Sony, most recently as Executive Vice President, Content Strategy and Acquisitions. He also led the establishment of Movielink, a first-of-its-kind online, video on-demand service, and managed the digital growth of the studio’s most important brands, including Wheel of Fortune, JEOPARDY! and Seinfeld.

After he left Sony, he was Executive Vice President of Marvel Entertainment’s Global Digital Media Group. During his tenure there, he led strategic global digital initiatives related to websites, digital comics, games, digital video distribution, and launched the award-winning Marvel Digital Comics iPad app. He later served as Executive Vice President, Digital Marketing for 20th Century Fox where he established the Digital Marketing organization and led the team behind ground breaking social and mobile campaigns for Prometheus, Chronicle, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, X-Men: First Class, and other major motion pictures.

Given his wide range of experience, I was interested in speaking with him about how he sees the streaming and digital world, along with finding out more about PBS' approach to the current multi-platform world.

We spoke for about 30 minutes and I'll post the complete interview tomorrow. In the meantime, here's an excerpt to give you an idea of what to expect. I love this conversation, because it's not the type of in-depth interview you're likely to read in one of the Hollywood trades:

We've talked a bit about PBS Kids and YouTube. But how does YouTube fit in with the content strategy for PBS' news programming and documentaries?

The most effective approach is to get content up and have it stay up. NewsHour is particularly aggressive. They're constantly going live on a lot of social platforms, including YouTube, when there's some sort of press conference at the White House or whatever.

Aa an example, before this last debate, they did an after show that was only on YouTube. And so I do know from an audience perspective, both Frontline and NewsHour, their largest audiences might be on those platforms. And they benefit from the YouTube algorithm.

I'll give Frontline for an example. There's a lot of docs on Putin. And every time Putin's in the news, that YouTube algorithm kicks in, and YouTube has a whole news initiative where they're trying to elevate trusted, factual content.

So we get elevated, and it just kind of self-runs and you get these bumps. On shows like Antiques Roadshow, Nova, Ken Burns. I think we're doing a lot experimenting with those shows.

It's a little harder because to do YouTube well, you really need to leave it up for awhile. And sometimes we don't have the rights for months and months and months for those shows. And also the way the algorithm works, an Antiques Roadshow, which is covering lots of topics, might be better if it was re-jiggered to a specific type of content.

So if you watch the Roadshow, here's all the baseball stuff. And you kind of fed it in that way. But get back to your first point.

YouTube is definitely a priority for us. We're working with a system now where we're in the process of bringing everyone onto a single CMS so that everyone can benefit from the algorithm and lift all boats.

We have a few stations who are on our pilot group who are in there, and they're already seeing a 30% lift. So I'm fairly confident as we get more stations onto our single CMS, which is basically kind of those multi-channel networks that used to be in the past, we're going to be able to leverage everybody. The real trick is, how does that help a station monetize? How do they tie that together? And if anyone from Google, YouTube is reading this, I will once again ask for donations.

My hope is that at some point they can tie into our one-click donation platform that we have running today on Amazon and soon to be running on Xfinity, which basically ties into the wallet system on the Amazon Fire platform. So as you're watching the show, you can click yes to donate, charges your credit card, the money goes right to the station. And that has a 12% conversion rate.

So I'm pretty optimistic that these platforms get more and more sophisticated as they tie in their wallets to their platforms and enable us to tie in ours, that there's a bright future for public media. Because again, going back to the past, it used to be a pledge show, call this number and donate. And you can just think about, if all they have to do is click a button on their remote and they can donate, I think there's a much cleaner path to supporting stations.

But the key is really being educating people what that local station does for their community, what it means for the country, and getting that kind of messaging to drive that support across all these different platforms. Especially given that younger people don't watch any TV. They're are barely on broadcast TV.

It's a really fascinating interview and I'll have the entire thing up tomorrow morning on AllYourScreens.com. I'll also link to the full interview in tomorrow's newsletter. We talk a lot about the PBS streaming platform Passport, as well as PBS Masterpiece, the Amazon Channels subscription-based service.

ODDS AND SODS
* The new limited series Say Nothing, based on the book by Patrick Radden Keefe, tells a gripping story of murder and memory in Northern Ireland during The Troubles. It premieres Thursday, November 14th on Hulu.

* MGM+ has ordered a third and final season of Billy The Kid.

* Frequent users of CNN.com will begin seeing a paywall asking them to subscribe to the sit's new subscription service. It's not clear how many visits will trigger the request, although the company says most users won't see the option. The new CNN.com subscription service costs $3.99 per month or $29.99 a year.

* Prime Video’s Pop Culture Jeopardy! with host Colin Jost will premiere Wednesday, December 4th.

* Prime Video has ordered a Reacher spinoff starring Maria Sten. In the untitled series, Sten will reprise her role as Frances Neagley, who is now a private investigator living in Chicago.

* Frank Fritz, former American Pickers star, has died at age 60. He had been suffering from ill-health for the past several years, but complained in interviews that he had been removed from the show after taking time off for back surgery. 

* The new documentary Music by John Williams will premiere Friday, November 1st on Disney+

WHAT'S NEW TONIGHT AND TOMORROW

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 1ST, 2024:
* Accused Season Premiere (Fox)
* American Experience: The American Vice President (PBS)
* Chopped: Legends Finale (Food)
* I'll Become A Villainess Who Goes Down In History Series Premiere (Crunchyroll)
* Let This Grieving Soul Retire Series Premiere (Crunchyroll)
* Making It In Marbella Series Premiere (Netflix)
* The Boulet Brothers' Dragula Season Premiere (Shudder)
* The Irrational Season Premiere (NBC)
* The Real Housewives Of New York City Season Premiere (Bravo)
* The Vice Presidential Debate (Various Outlets)
* Tim Dillon: This Is Your Country (Netflix)
* Tying The Knot With An Amagami Sister Series Premiere (Crunchyroll)
* WWE Next Season Premiere (The CW)

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 2ND, 2024:
* Acro Trip (Crunchyroll)
* Big Freedia Means Business Season Premiere (Fuse)
* Chef's Table Noodles Season Premiere (Netflix)
* Destinations Of The Damned Series Premiere (Discovery)
* Forged In Fire Season Premiere (History)
* Guy's Grocery Games All-Star Relay Rumble Finale (Food)
* Joan Series Premiere (The CW)
* KamiErabi GOD.app (Crunchyroll)
* Nova: The Solar System (PBS)
* Re:ZERO -Starting Life In Another World (Crunchyroll)
* Secrets Of The Dead (PBS)
* Sullivan's Crossing Season Premiere (The CW)
* The Last Days Of The Space Age Series Premiere (Hulu)
* The Prince Of Tennis II (Crunchyroll)
* Unsolved Mysteries Season Premiere (Netflix)
* Where's Wanda? Series Premiere (Apple TV+)

SEE YOU ON WEDNESDAY!