Too Much TV: Your TV Talking Points For Friday, October 20th, 2023

Every time I say I'm done, they pull me back in

Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Friday, October 20th, 2023. 

SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT 'BOSCH: LEGACY' FROM AUTHOR MICHAEL CONNELLY
The Prime Video drama Bosch and its Freevee sequel Bosch: Legacy break a number of pieces of conventional wisdom about streaming original shows. In an industry where you often hear complaints that shows are routinely canceled over one or two seasons, Bosch ran for 68 episodes spread over seven seasons. And now Bosch: Legacy is kicking off its second season today. 

I recently spoke with Bosch author Michael Connelly about the TV show and how it has influenced the ongoing series of Bosch books:

Q: You have a new book coming out in a couple of weeks that features Harry Bosch. Obviously, you had a version of Harry in your imagination that informed the way you've written about him over the years. But now there is this established TV version of Harry Bosch that has been played for years by Titus Welliver. Are those two versions of Bosch still distinct in your mind or do you find one version influencing the way you see the other one?

Michael Connelly: Definitely, one influences the other. It's definitely a two-way street. I don't necessarily see Titus, because I had that imaginary Bosch in my head for 20 years before Titus was cast. But I hear his voice sometimes, he's got a great voice. And, to me, it's the voice of Harry Bosch. And that's a really important part of the writing process. So I do have that influence from him.

But you know, there's a gulf in the age between the two. That guy I'm writing about in my books, is 73 years-old. So he's much older than then Titus, much older than the Bosch you see in the TV show. And so that separation really helps a lot. In the books, Bosch is dealing with health issues, and the things that happen to people when they're in their 70s. And so that's a whole different ballgame when we don't have to worry about in the TV series. I'd love in 10 years to have the show going and have to deal with that. Sure Titus would too. But that's for later on. And that's a big maybe. But something about the age difference really lets me separate the two takes on Bosch and overall, it doesn't really intrude all that much.

EVERY TIME I SAY I'M DONE, THEY PULL ME BACK IN
I've certainly written some dumb things over the course of my journalism career. I've made some mistakes. But I learned early on that the only way to improve is to admit when you're wrong or when you didn't quite get the story right. And hopefully learn from the experience.

I spend more time in this newsletter than I really prefer highlighting stories that misrepresent or misunderstand some basic facts of the industry. Yesterday, I had some fun with the Penske-owned trades' breathless coverage of the George Clooney SAG-AFTRA proposal and I admit that the piece might have hit an "11" on the "1-10 snark scale." But Variety did end up posting a piece last night that made the same points as my earlier article. They were just nicer about it. So I suppose I was justified?

I didn't want to dive back into another journalistic dispute today, but I changed my mind after reading How Audacious Is SAG-AFTRA's Subscriber Fee Ask, Really?, in which a Hollywood Reporter frames the story as:

Studios call it a "bridge too far." Actors say it's a concession. Experts weigh in on the guild's proposal for a small piece of every streaming subscription.

Based on that, you would expect to read some rock-solid pontification. And if that is your expectation, you are going to be disappointed. Let's look at this key paragraph from the story:

In financial terms, it’s a certainly bold. If 57 cents per subscriber per year ends up being the final figure, that would cost studios around $500 million per year. That’s nearly four times the $126 million in residuals paid out to SAG-AFTRA members in 2022 (studios value their current proposals package, without this provision included, at over $1 billion). In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Crabtree-Ireland says that 57 cent figure was never a “bottom-line number” and that he encouraged studio CEOs and AMPTP president Carol Lombardini to counter on this figure on Wednesday, before management walked. According to USC Marshall School of Business adjunct professor Sanjay Sharma, who teaches finance and business economics and management and organization, at 57 cents, this sum would not be the “untenable economic burden” that the AMPTP represented it as. “If you look at Netflix’s production costs right now, we are at about $16 billion. So from that perspective, $400 million is an Avatar[-type] production cost, or one blockbuster movie that did not work,” he says.

This comparison of the cost of the SAG-AFTRA proposal vs next year's estimated content spend at Netflix might make sense if all or even the majority of the money spent for original content by Netflix was spent on SAG-AFTRA-covered productions. That is clearly not the case. I haven't been able to come up with an accurate percentage (and Netflix hasn't been helpful), but it's certainly less than 50% of the current content production. Perhaps substantially less. 

So SAG-AFTRA is asking Netflix and other media companies to pass along a per-subscriber fee for U.S. actors even though they represent just a portion of the talent being employed by the streamer. And while the guild likes to focus on Netflix, someone should ask the folks at NBCU's Peacock what they think of the idea of forking over 57 cents per subscriber for that streamer's paltry slate of SAG-AFTRA covered originals.

Whether you agree with the SAG-AFTRA proposal or not, you have to admire Crabtree-Ireland's deftness in focusing his comments not on the rationality of the guild's proposal, but that the studios won't even negotiate on the amount. "I don't understand why they won't even talk about it." he has said in several interviews.

Perhaps one reason the studios don't want to engage in a discussion about the idea has to do with these comments Crabtree-Ireland delivers later in the article:

“We felt like if we could attach even to a tiny percent of the revenue, then this would not be a battle we’d have to keep fighting every three years,” Crabtree-Ireland explains. “We could come up with something that the industry could agree to, that we could agree to, that would automatically grow as the streaming part of the business grew and would set us up for labor peace for a decade or more.” But once the studio side had clearly rejected the revenue share proposal, SAG-AFTRA negotiators pivoted to a formula attached to the subscriber count of the platform. 

Look, I am generally pro-union in any situation and have been extremely vocal in my belief that the studios have not been paying a fair share to writers, directors and actors. But it's difficult for me to believe that Crabtree-Ireland can make the comments above and not understand why the studios would not want to consider the proposal. It sets a floor for future payments across the board. Which means writers and directors would ask for similar concessions during the next round of negotiations several years down the road. 

But worse, it sets up a scenario in which Netflix and other U.S. streamers are paying a residual AND a per-subscriber fee to U.S.-based unions, which also eventually paying a similar fee to creatives in other countries. It's not difficult to imagine a scenario in which actors in multiple countries would be getting paid a per-subscriber bonus even though their specific union or guild's participation in the total number of original programs is quite low.

Sure, SAG-AFTRA could ask for a per-subscriber fee on just American-based subscribers. But that number is much smaller than the global subscriber base. Netflix doesn’t break out the U.S.-based subscriber base, but in this week’s earnings report, the streamer announced it had 77.32 million subscribers across the U.S. and Canada. So the per-subscriber fee paid by Netflix annually would drop down to perhaps somewhere in the range of $25 million? And the truth is, that amount of money won’t likely satisfy striking SAG-AFTRA members.

The piece spends a fair amount of time recounting how other American industries embraced revenue sharing in the past as a way of rewarding workers:

Labor historian and University of California Santa Barbara research professor Nelson Lichtenstein likens the proposal to a contract provision negotiated by former United Mine Workers of America president John L. Lewis back in the 1940s, as the coal-mining industry was facing a long period of decline: A royalty placed on every ton of coal mined would go to support the union’s first welfare and retirement fund, which was a major breakthrough at the time.

Now given the current state of U.S. mining industry, I'm not sure I would have chosen that comparison. But what the article doesn't address is that once again, the comparison is a bit nuts. The SAG-AFTRA proposal would be comparable to what the mining industry settled on if the United Mine Workers had gotten a deal that provided them with a royalty on every ton of coal mined anywhere in the world. Whether or not the UMW had anything to do with the production.

It frustrates me how willing industry journalist's are to write stories based primarily on whatever a source will tell them on the record. I have a suspicion in this case that the reporter got the comments from Crabtree-Ireland and then found some sources that could provide some historical context for the SAG-AFTRA proposal. Without bothering to answer the question of whether the comparison between the two ideas was an accurate one.

I suspect my inability to agree to go along with a talking point without being skeptical is one reason why I haven't been able to score an on-the-record interview with Crabtree-Ireland or any other SAG-AFTRA official. I am inclined to accept their overall premise about the need to increase payouts to actors. But that doesn't mean I'll just spit out whatever I'm told.

THE OFFICE OF CORRECTIONS
* I posted something about Law & Order: Organized Crime choosing it fifth showrunner in yesterday's newsletter and I based the number on the release that came from NBC as well as a quick bit of research I did so I could accurately lay out the progression of changes. But in the comment section of the newsletter, someone pointed out that there was a sixth showrunner on the show. Matt Olmstead was indeed a showrunner on the series, although only barely, since he was replaced before the series went into production.

THIS IS WHY I HATE SPORTS (RIGHTS)
As I write this newsletter, my wife and teenage son are attempting to watch the NY Islanders game. And as has been the case way too many times in this young hockey season, they can't access the game feed.

Both the Islanders web site and Google promise tonight's game is available on ESPN+.

We have a Hulu Live TV account that is bundled with ESPN+. We first looked on the ESPN app (which includes ESPN+) and find a listing for tomorrow night's broadcast, but nothing at all for tonight. And if you check in the Hulu Live UI (which integrates ESPN+ game, albeit quite badly), the game is listed. But there is an error message that pops up when we tried to watch the broadcast:

We live in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, so we shouldn't be running into any "in market" restrictions. Maybe the game is limited from streaming in some out-of-market areas? But if that's the case, why is tomorrow's game (between the same two teams) shown as available?

In the world of annoying streaming rights issues, sports rights restrictions are the worst.

WHAT'S NEW TODAY AND THIS WEEKEND:

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 20TH, 2023:
* Big Mouth Season Seven Premiere (Netflix)
* Bosch: Legacy Season Two Premiere (Freevee)
* Checkin' It Twice (Hallmark)
* Creature (Netflix)
* Disco Inferno (Netflix)
* Doona! Series Premiere (Netflix)
* Elite Season Premiere (Netflix)
* Flashback (Netflix)
* If You Were The Last (Peacock)
* Joe Bob's Halloween (Shudder)
* Kandasamys: The Baby (Netflix)
* Night Of The Hunted (AMC+/Shudder)
* Old Dads (Netflix) 
* Penn & Teller: Fool Us Season Ten Premiere (The CW)
* Sayen: La Ruta Seca (Prime Video)
* Shape Island: Creepy Cave Crawl (Apple TV+)
* Silver Dollar Road (Prime Video)
* Surviving Paradise Series Premiere (Netflix)
* The Pigeon Tunnel (Apple TV+)
* Upload Season Three Premiere (Prime Video)
*Vjeran Tomic: The Spider-Man Of Paris (Netflix)

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 21ST:
* Bad Romance: The Vicky White Story (Lifetime)
* NFL Icons Season Four Premiere (MGM+)
* The Apothecary Diaries [dubbed and subtitled] Series Premiere (Crunchyroll)
* Twas The Text Before Christmas (Great American Family)
* Where Are You Christmas? (Hallmark)

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 22ND:
* AKA Mr. Chow (HBO)
* Country Hearts (UP tv)
* Fear The Walking Dead Season Eight Part B Premiere (AMC)
* The Great Halloween Fright Fight (ABC)
* The House Across The Road (Lifetime)
* Under The Christmas Sky (Hallmark)

MONDAY, OCTOBER 23RD:
* Maine Cabin Masters Season Premiere (Magnolia)
* Princess Power (Netflix)
* The Sommerdahl Murders (Acorn TV)
* 30 Coins (HBO)

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.