Too Much TV: Your TV Talking Points For Thursday, September 8th, 2022

Imagine if you ran a streamer that focused solely on the British Royal family...

Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Thursday, September 8th, 2022.

ONE STREAMING SERVICE HAS BEEN PLANNING THEIR COVERAGE OF QUEEN ELIZABETH'S DEATH FOR YEARS
There is a near obsession in the streaming video business with "scale." The theory being that you can only make money in the streaming sector by being so large you can use your size to dominate your competitors and leverage advertisers in order to extract the maximum revenue.

But there are a number of small streamers who are doing well by hyper-focusing on a specific slice of the audience. Religious-oriented streamers such as Dove, smaller niche sports streamers and services that focus on one type of programming.

True Royalty TV is one such streamer and their focus on the British Royal family as well as royals around the world is suddenly very relevant right now. When I interviewed CEO Gregor Angus in January, he talked about the steamer's approach to covering the Royal Family and why he believes the service fits a real need in the marketplace:

Do you have a specific demographic you're thinking about when you're trying to target the "ideal subscriber"?

Well, the fun thing in this day and age is you can let that emerge. By spending 50 bucks a day on Facebook, you can kind of feel your way to the highest propensity interest areas. And so our audience has emerged. We thought it would be 80 to 90% female. And it was initially. But longer-term it turns out to be closer to 60/40. We thought it might be closer to 50 to 60-years-old. It's not. It's actually 18 to 80. The most interesting thing for us - age and gender aside - is the dimensions of the interest. We knew there'd be some interest in Royal history, but there is way more interest relatively in history than we thought there would be compared to the modern Royals. Our subscribers are people who want to go deep, are super fans who want to know more.

I liken a bit to the way people consume sports. They're not just there to watch the NFL on Sunday afternoon. They consume it seven days a week, they want to know how they're training, what they're preparing, and how they recover. And who they're dating after a match. after a match. That's how our viewer behaves with the Royals, they're not just there for the big occasions for the babies and the weddings. They want to know everything they're doing 365 days a year. They want to know how they did things 100 years ago, and 1200 years ago, and they want to know how they do things in Japan versus Spain. So it's a layered level of interest. A bit like an onion. It's a global phenomenon. Our highest propensity audiences are actually outside of Britain, outside of the UK, it's people with the fascination for something that's not readily available to them.

I am waiting to hear back on the details, but True Royalty TV is apparently premiering a new Queen Elizabeth II special this weekend and will also provide other coverage of the aftermath of her death and of the funeral. I'd be interested to see if the service sees an uptick in subscribers this week. And even more importantly, how many stick around once things settle down after the coronation of the new King.

THE PLIGHT OF HOLLYWOOD'S SUPPORT STAFF
A survey of 523 current and former assistants working in Hollywood at studios, talent agencies and production and development companies showed that more than 90% of them made less than $50,000 in 2021: 

As incomes stagnated, housing costs continued to eclipse the income of most assistants, who struggle to pay rent: 44.2% said they received financial support from family and others, up from 37.5% the previous year, according to #PayUpHollywood.

Among the survey’s other findings: 49.03% said they were pressured to alter timecards to “save production companies from having to pay overtime or additional hours worked.”

“This is a major labor violation,” said Liz Alper, a writer and co-founder of #PayUpHollywood. “It’s something universal to the entertainment industry.”

Additionally, about 64% of assistants said they were not reimbursed for work expenses such as computer equipment, office supplies, Zoom subscriptions and transportation, up from over 50% as reported in the 2020 survey.

The survey also found that assistants are still expected to perform a variety of menial tasks, including doing personal errands both during and outside of work hours, cooking and picking up mail and laundry for their bosses; some even reported being deployed for child-care duties.

Aside from the grim financial numbers, there are a couple of other factors at play here. Most showrunners don't have a real sense of what their support staff makes, it's negotiated (usually take it or leave it) by the studio. So if showrunners want to improve conditions for their staff, they need to ask questions and push as much as they can to improve conditions. Although more than one showrunner has told me that improving the pay even a bit can be nearly impossible. Studios know there is a large supply of people willing to work for low pay in order to gain experience. And they don't want to set a precedent for paying a dime over the bare minimum pay they are required to put out.

But some showrunners can also be real tools when it comes to how they treat their staff. I recently saw one assistant who works for the showrunner on a major big-budget show discussing her situation. Aside from the low pay, this SW insists on the assistant also doing menial personal tasks. And if that wasn't bad enough, those tasks included swinging by the SW's home when they were on vacation in order to check the mail and the house. As final insult, even though the assistant had worked for the showrunner for three years, the SW insisted the mail pick-up be done while she was on Facetime with the SW, apparently so she wouldn't steal anything while she was inside.

All of this is happening at the same time when the chances for advancement for Hollywood support staff has stalled. There used to be a regular pipeline that led from support staff to writing staff. But with the combination of shorter seasons and smaller writing rooms, many support staff find themselves now stuck for a decade or more working for low pay with little chance for advancement.

NIELSEN's TOP STREAMING PROGRAMS AND MOVIES

A NETFLIX MOBILE GAME TO WATCH FOR
I've been playing Netflix's mobile game selection quite a bit in recent weeks and there are a lot of positives. The play easily links to your Netflix account, there are no ads in any of the games or efforts to get the player to make a micro purchase in order to get past a particularly challenging part of the game. And I've been told by people at Netflix that the fact you can play almost all of the games offline is especially attractive to players where their connection is metered and/or of spotty quality.

Still, most of the games seem so far to fall into one of two categories. Games such as the golf-oriented Wonderputt Forever or the basketball title Shooting Hoops feature incredible graphics and I appreciate the effort to create something that doesn't play like every other golf or basketball game on the market. But unfortunately, the result tends to be a game that nearly impossible to enjoy, with difficult controls and often nonsensical gameplay. Other games such as Card Blast or Bowling Ballers manage to create a lively and fun spin on familiar genres. But for whatever reason, they all seem to have this point towards the end of the game where it is impossible to get past. And since there is no way to micro purchase your way past the point, I have a few Netflix mobile games sitting on my phone that are 80 or 90% completed. Which isn't frustrating at all.

One game I am looking forward to playing via Netflix games is Half Mermaid’s new game Immortality. It's currently available on the PC and via the X-Box game pass, but will reportedly be available on Netflix later this year. And while I don't know how it will play on mobile, the X-Box version of the game has become an instant favorite.

Immortality is a bit of a challenge to describe. The game begins with a single film clip from a movie starring the mysterious (and fictional) actress Marissa Marcel. She made a number of movies, but none of them were ever released. And it's your job to discover why. You can click on various elements and actors in the clip, which opens up other related clips. The clips slowly begin to tell a story, aided by comments on the set from the cast and crew.

I won't give away any more of the game's premise, which includes at least one big surprise. But Immortality is unlike any game I've ever played. And it seems like the type of title that would be a great fit for mobile gameplay.

TWEET (S) OF THE DAY

ODDS AND SODS
* Netflix's The Crown will stop filming Season 6 "out of respect" to the late Queen Elizabeth II.

* CNN announces its coverage plans for the death of Queen Elizabeth II

* There’s a reason Hollywood streaming services such as Netflix, Disney+, Paramount+ and HBO Max are aggressively pursuing operations in the Nordics. According to a new study, streamers now represent a third of the total pay-TV subscriptions in the Nordics, against less than 18% in the rest of Western Europe.

* The feature length special Aqua Teen Forever Plantasm will premiere November 8th on Adult Swim.

* The long-running BBC primetime soap opera EastEnders has been dropped from schedules tonight following the news of the death of Queen Elizabeth II.

* Flaming Star is the best Elvis movie you never saw.

WHAT'S NEW FOR THURSDAY
Here's a quick rundown of all the new stuff premiering today on TV and streaming:

American Horror Stories Season Finale (FX)
Cars On The Road (Disney+)
Dancing With the Stars: The Pros' Most Memorable Dances (Disney+)
Diorama (Netflix)
Emeril Tailgates Series Premiere (Roku Channel)
Epic Adventures With Bertie Gregory Series Premiere (Disney+)
Entrapped (Netflix)
Growing Up Series Premiere (Disney+)
Last Light Series Premiere (Peacock)
Marvel Studios Assembled: The Making of Thor: Love And Thunder (Disney+)
Obi-Wan Kenobi: A Jedi's Return (Discovery+)
Paranormal Caught On Tape Season Premiere (Discovery+)
Pinocchio (Disney+)
Renovation Impossible Series Premiere (HGTV)
Saloum (Shudder)
The Anthrax Attacks: In the Shadow of 9/11 (Netflix)
The Good Fight Season Premiere (Paramount+)
The Simpsons: Welcome To The Club (Disney+)
The Zone: Survival Mission Series Premiere (Hulu)
Tierra Incógnita (Disney+)
Wedding Season Season Premiere (Hulu)

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.