Too Much TV: Your TV Talking Points For Thursday, March 3rd, 2022

One day, we will all be working for Netflix

Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Thursday, March 3rd, 2022. 

SOMETIMES THE ISSUE IS A LOT LESS ABOUT VIEWERSHIP AND MORE ABOUT MONEY
People who work on animated television shows - especially streaming ones - have been waging a campaign for higher pay. It's a subject I'll be writing more about in the upcoming days, but here's a side note that shows you how some of those quick takes about why your favorite animated shows is split into multiple seasons are probably wrong.

As it turns out, the current animated contract specifies mandatory pay bumps at the end of every season. Streaming services in particular are getting around this by ordering what would contractually be a 26 half-hour episode season. The streamer then takes those episodes and break them into smaller seasons/books/chapters in order to keep from having to pay the pay bump for seasons 2, 3, etc.

One example of that is the HBO Max animated anthology series Infinity Train. That season order was broken up into "books," each of which was comprised of eight 11-minute episodes. Which in the contract with animators is treated as four episodes of the season one split in half. So even though the show at first glance seems to have run for four seasons, it's really just one season's worth of episodes spread over four "books."

A lot of times when some behavior is attributed to strategy or counter-programming, the decision was mostly just the side effect of some executive attempting to squeeze a bit more money out of their content.

Even worse, according to one of the show's writers, HBO Max declined to pick up the episodes which would have comprised the show's fifth and final season, even though the episodes had been written and were included in the initial season one payment.

SPEAKING OF BRUTAL PAY
This piece in Gawker about what it was like to be a contestant on the ninth season of America's Next Top Model is just horrifying:

Hours turned into days in the cruise ship’s windowless conference rooms. We met with teams of lawyers to have the same conversation over and over again: They listed all of the ways we could violate our contracts, and all of the things they would do if we did. They repeated the dozens of contract violations that could make them sue us — for no less than $5 million.

“Okay, I don’t have 5 million dollars,” said one girl, a bartender from Boston who pronounced it “dollahs.”

“We know,” said one of the producers. “That’s why we had your families sign these contracts. We won’t just sue you. We’ll sue your parents, your grandparents, and you. We’ll sue your children, your children’s children, your children’s children’s children. We will keep suing you and taking a portion of your paycheck for the rest of your life until we get that money.”

Aside from that looming threat of $5 million, we never discussed any other type of payment. Compensation was not in the contract; they never brought it up, and it never even occurred to me to ask. The contract did say that the producers could give us a stipend, but were under no obligation to do so. We got $38 in cash every day to pay for our own food. After we were eliminated, the cash stipend stopped, but we couldn’t go home yet. We were kept in a hotel for two weeks, during which we had to pay for food out of our own pocket. Because we weren’t allowed to leave the hotel, our only options were room service. By the end of the show, I went home stone cold broke.

AND PAY I'M A BIT JEALOUS ABOUT
As you probably know, Netflix has launched a sorta-journalism/sorta-marketing web site called Tudum, which is designed to offer "unfiltered" access to the behind-the-scenes goings on at your favorite Netflix shows. Or, provide cast and crew the chance to be interviewed by journalists who are never going to be asked difficult or unexpected questions.

Insider (subscription required) has a piece on what it's like to work for Tudum and I read it with a unhealthy mix of anger, depression and resignation:

With starting pay of $50 an hour and 40-hour-a-week schedules, the Tudum writers who spoke to Insider generally expressed satisfaction with the gig. 

"It boils down to money," said one writer. "Journalism is struggling, and a lot of us are tired, and they keep cutting staff jobs and budgets and [we're] doing more and more and more, and being held to metrics that keep changing. And [if Netflix says], 'We're going to pay you a more-than-livable wage and let you continue to write about the things that you write,' honestly, why wouldn't you want to do that?" 

While Tudum's editors are full time, its writing staff — comprising about a dozen people, mostly women and women of color — are brought on through a company contracted by Netflix. They are W-2 employees, but don't receive health insurance through Netflix and are instead offered an option to purchase healthcare through the outside employment agency. 

Honestly, there's nothing more indicative of the streaming media mindset than paying people $50 an hour, but hiring them through a third party.

This is one of those ideas that apparently came from someone very high up in the Netflix marketing chain and I can almost hear the pitch now "It's like Entertainment Weekly, but they're always talking positively about us!"

I'm happy that Netflix has such a substantive marketing budget that it can pay journalists such an impressive amount - a dozen people times $50 an hour is at least $1.24 million a year. But given that Netflix examines everything the company does and assigns a value to it, I'd love to see if the company ends up getting a couple of million dollars worth of value out of this idea.

DISNEY+ LOOKING AT AD-SUPPORTED TIER
The Information (subscription required) is reporting that Disney+ is considering an ad-supported version of the service:

Disney would be joining the majority of entertainment companies, including WarnerMedia, Discovery, NBCUniversal and Paramount Global, that have launched ad-supported tiers of their streaming services as they seek to grow in the increasingly competitive streaming market. The moves signal how the focus of video streaming has shifted away from ad-free services, like that pioneered by Netflix more than a decade ago, to a more traditional ad-supported television model.

I am genuinely a bit surprised by this move. On the one hand, ad-supported versions can be more profitable per user than the subscription-based tier. That being said, for Disney to be considering this implies that they anticipate a slowing of growth in the U.S., as well as inability to raise the monthly subscription fee anytime in the future.

It certainly would make it easier to combine the ad-supported basic Hulu service with the ad-supported Disney+ platform at some point. But I am curious to see whether having an ad-supported Disney+ would impact the number of subscribers opting for the Hulu/Disney+/ESPN+ bundle.

THE DREADED AMAZON FLYWHEEL
The latest edition of Joe Adalian's "Buffering" hit my inbox earlier today and he spends much of the newsletter discussing the Academy of Country Music Awards move from CBS to Amazon. Lots of great details, but this paragraph about the various ways Amazon hopes to monetize the awards jumped out at me:

Not surprisingly, since it will now be an Amazon event, the ACMs will be monetized as well as (digitally) televised. “What’s been really unique for us on this event is the opportunity to not only build a great televisual experience for Prime Video, but to also tap into what’s referred to as the Amazon flywheel,” Stotsky says. That means that in addition to a live red carpet pre-show on Prime, there will be a so-called “shoppable” remix of the same hour on Amazon Live, the company’s influencer-powered version of QVC. Viewers will be able to snag merch from artists performing on the show or pre-order Parton’s upcoming album and book, as well as Amazon Fashion products geared toward the country music audience. Amazon Music and Amazon-owned Twitch will also be heavily involved in promoting the show. “There are all these potential touchpoints to make this more than just a TV event,” Stotsky says, referring to the 2022 vintage ACM as "a total lifestyle experience for country music customers." And not just here in the States: Prime Video will also stream the ACMs live in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, allowing for more immediate global reach than during the CBS years.

The show will also be available on ad-supported IMDb TV the following day, both in its original version and in one that includes just the musical performances. Amazon Music will also make the show available to its customers on March 10th.

I don't have a strong opinion about this one way or the other. Experimentation is good and the ACMs might work better on streaming, since it eliminates commercials. I'm more skeptical of the "flywheel" effects, since previous efforts to integrate shopping experiences with TV programming has generally not been especially effective.

TWEET OF THE DAY

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

Dicktown Series Premiere (FX)
Echoes Series Premiere (Sundance Now)
Gaming Wall Street (HBO)
He-Man & The Masters Of The Universe Season Premiere (Netflix)
Joe Vs. Carole Series Premiere (Peacock) 
Little Ellen Season Premiere (HBO Max)
Midnight At The Pera Palace (Netflix)
Our Flag Means Death Series Premiere (HBO Max)
Power Rangers: Dino Fury Season Premiere (Netflix)
Restaurant Rivals: Irvine Vs. Tapper Series Premiere (Food)
Secrets In The Ice (Science)
Star Trek: Picard Season Three Premiere (Paramount+)
Surviving Paradise: A Family Tale (Netflix)
The Dropout (Hulu)
The Parisian Agency: Exclusive Properties Season Two Premiere (Netflix)
The Problem With Jon Stewart (Apple TV+)
The Tourist (HBO Max)
The Weekend Away (Netflix)
Top Chef Season Premiere (Bravo)
Whindersson Nunes: My Own Show! (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.