Too Much TV: Your TV Talking Points For Wednesday, July 12th, 2023
Is "Shark Week" still a thing?
Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Wednesday, July 12th, 2023.
CONFESSIONS OF A BUSINESS AFFAIRS EXECUTIVE
Sure, I could talk about that idiotic Deadline AMPTP piece from last night (and I did in this late night post from yesterday), I'm more interested in highlighting this piece in The Ankler.
I spend a lot of time talking to people at streamers, ranging from engineers and project manager to content evaluation executives and programmers. Nearly all of the time the conversations are off the record. Which I understand from a job security point of view. I don't want to be even partly responsible for someone getting fired for speaking to the press. But there are times when I wish more people would talk and just ask to not be identified. Oftentimes that is because they have a job that is not well understood outside the industry and that lack of knowledge makes covering the world of streaming much more complicated.
Ankler just posted a long piece from someone who is a business affairs executive at a streamer and the entire thing is a must-read for anyone wanting to learn more about how strategic decisions are made and what role Business Affairs executives play in that process. This excerpt is a bit long, but it's the perfect explanation of how the problem of mini-rooms evolved:
From 2014 to 2017, the biggest structural challenge to the TV writing profession wasn’t mini-rooms; it was pay dilution. Traditional writing deals, devised for the old world of 22-to-26-episode broadcast seasons, were based on episodic fees that were guaranteed for all episodes produced during a given production season.
The only limitation on how long writers could be required to work for those fees was that their total compensation, divided over their total number of work weeks, had to exceed applicable WGA scale; the predictability of the broadcast calendar made further guardrails unnecessary. The rise of original programming on cable, which typically involved 13-episode seasons, put some strain on this system, but it remained essentially functional.
Then came streaming, which, at first, looked a lot like cable — 13-episode seasons on a regular annualized calendar. But as the streamers learned more about their audiences, they began to abandon many longstanding TV norms that they had initially respected. When the data showed that seasons with fewer episodes (which cost more per episode but less per season) were as effective as those with more episodes at attracting and retaining subscribers, orders began to shrink — from 13 to 12, to 10, to 8, and now to as few as 6 episodes per season. When House of Cards established complex serialized drama as the preeminent streaming genre, streamers — to the initial delight of creators and filmmakers — embraced longer writing and production periods that allowed for more ambitious shows, but made neatly annualized production and releasing nearly impossible. When customers went wild for Netflix’s binge releases, that became the new orthodoxy in streaming, even if it functionally extended unpaid hiatus periods between production seasons (and thus decisively made annualized production and releasing impossible)
The piece goes on to describe how this evolution led to the rise of mini-rooms, which is now at the core of complaints from the WGA:
The functional cost of employing a writer for as long as the studios typically had prior to May 2018 went up dramatically — indeed, that was the point of span protection. But the basic underlying economics of TV production and distribution hadn’t changed. Costs were already rapidly ballooning as streamers increasingly sought to outdo one another for star power and spectacle in an increasingly crowded marketplace. Shorter orders obviously required fewer scripts, and as shows grew more complex, they increasingly demanded more singular authorship than the episodic sitcoms and procedural cop/lawyer/doctor dramas of yore.
In this creative context, the streamers essentially decided that, while the cost per writer on a show might have gone up, the cost of writers on a show would not. Showrunners were often given discretion to decide how to deploy their finite writing budget — across how many writers, for how many weeks per writer — but the budgets were finite, and had not expanded in proportion to per-writer costs. This is where the business affairs executives came in, working with showrunners to figure out how to best stretch those finite budgets.
The deals themselves actually didn’t change much at first, but the way they were used did, in predictable ways — writers rooms got smaller and work periods got shorter. And because every network’s customary approval rights cover virtually all aspects of even an independent studio’s production plan and budget, down to the line-item level, streamers could enforce these new norms on licensed productions just as they did on their self-produced series.
I can't stress how great of a piece this is. It deals with collective bargaining challenges and the fact that BA executives tend not to be involved in negotiations. They just come in to try and make sense of the final deal and make it work financially as best as can get expected.
I'm also incredibly jealous that The Ankler was able to score such an impressive piece. So if any of you out there would like to state your case to the world without your name being attached....simply respond directly to this newsletter or email me at rick@allyourscreens.com
THIS FEELS LIKE BAD TIMING
ODDS AND SODS
* HBO has picked up the unscripted series We're Here for a fourth season. Production will begin later this month.
* In the least surprising news of the week, Bob Iger has signed on to stay on as Disney's CEO through 2026.
* A new season of My Lottery Dream Home premieres on Friday, August 11th on HGTV.
THIS IS AN IMPRESSIVELY TACKY BIT OF SELF-PROMOTION
IS 'SHARK WEEK' STILL A THING?
Discovery's Shark Week has always been a lot of goofy fun. Celebrity stunt hosts, memorable marketing and of course, lots of sharks.
In previous years, Discovery has just promoted the hell out of the event. They'd send out cool Shark Week-themed swag, lots of advance screeners and constant follow-ups from Discovery publicists.
Considering that Discovery Channels seem to mostly be missing in action since the merger took place and they replaced their long-time publicists, it's not all that surprising to me that I haven't heard much from anyone there about Shark Week. And today, I finally received a lone Shark Week press release, albeit from an outside PR firm.
I'm assuming this is mostly due to PR budget cutbacks. But given that Shark Week is one of the network's biggest events, it feels like a missed opportunity.
BUT WHICH ONE IS CANDICE McDONOUGH?
THE CW ANNOUNCES ITS FALL SCHEDULE
The CW released its fall primetime schedule today and it's a mixed bag of mostly cheaper programming. Two highlights worth watching are the conspiracy drama The Swarm and the delightful Canadian comedy Son A Critch (which premieres this summer).
Tuesday, September 5th:
8:00pm Inside The NFL (Season Premiere)
9:00pm The Swarm (Series Premiere)
Wednesday, October 4th:
8:00pm Sullivan's Crossing (Series Premiere)
9:00pm The Spencer Sisters (Series Premiere)
Thursday, October 12th:
8:00pm FBoy Island (Season Three Premiere)
Monday, October 16th:
9:30pm Everyone Else Burns (Series Premiere)
Friday, October 20th:
8:00pm Penn & Teller: Tell Us (Season Ten Premiere)
Saturday, October 28th:
8:00pm Masters Of Illusion (Season Ten Premiere)
9:00pm World's Funniest Animals (Season Four Premiere)
Tuesday, November 14th:
9:00pm Whose Line Is It Anyway? (Season Twelve Premiere)
TWEET OF THE DAY
WHAT'S NEW FOR WEDNESDAY:
* Ana Season Three Premiere (Vix)
* Bungo Stray Cars (Crunchyroll)
* Mr. Car & The Knights Templar (Netflix)
* Platonic Season Finale (Apple TV+)
* Quarterback Series Premiere (Netflix)
* Record Of Ragnarok II (Netflix)
* Saint Cecilia & Pastor Lawrence (Crunchyroll)
* Sugar Rush: The Baking Point (Netflix)
* The Afterparty Season Two Premiere (Apple TV+)
* The 2023 ESPYs (ESPN)
* TONIKAWA: Over The Moon For You (Crunchyroll)
* Turn To Me Mukai-kun Series Premiere (Netflix)
WHAT'S NEW FOR THURSDAY:
* A Podcast To Die For (LMN)
* Burn The House Down (Netflix)
* Devil's Advocate (Netflix)
* Eli Roth Presents: A Ghost Ruined My Life (Travel)
* Follow The Money Season Three Premiere (Topic)
* Full Circle Series Premiere (Max)
* Help, My House Is Haunted (HGTV)
* In The Footstep Of Killers (LMN)
* La Noche Del Diablito Season Two Premiere (Vix)
* Project Greenlight Series Premiere (Max)
* Sonic Prime Season Two Premiere (Netflix)
* Survival Of The Thickest Series Premiere (Netflix)
* The Devil Is a Part-Timer!! (Crunchyroll)
* The Jewel Thief (Hulu)
* What We Do In The Shadows Season Five Premiere (FX)
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.