Too Much TV: Your TV Talking Points For Tuesday, August 22nd, 2023

In a move some WGA members describe as "desperate," AMPTP publicly releases its August 11th response to the union

Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Tuesday, August 22nd, 2023. 

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AMPTP RELEASES ITS PROPOSAL TO THE WGA
In a bit of a surprise move, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers - which represents Hollywood’s biggest studios - released the proposal it delivered to the WGA when negotiations resumed on August 11th.

A couple of things worth noting. The piece that I posted yesterday about the state of negotiations between the two sides tracks pretty well with the topics being discussed in the document below. And as soon as the document was released, I heard from someone on the WGA side who stressed that the document didn't reflect more recent discussions and notably didn't acknowledge any WGA feedback. This person also stressed their belief the document was released primarily in hopes that t would prompt writers to argue about the value of specific points, with hopes of weakening the union's resolve.

Here is the entire document, as released tonight:

WILL STREAMING AUDIENCES WATCH A DAILY SOAP OPERA?
The daily soap Neighbours never really aired consistently in the U.S., but the long-running series was a fixture in the U.K. and Australia for decades. The series wrapped production last July after twenty years, when Channel 4 decided that the relatively expensive show had out-lived its usefulness.

But the series is back, thanks to a deal that will have the series airing Monday-Thursday on Channel 10 in Australia and on Amazon's Freevee in the UK and the U.S. It's an interesting bet for Freevee, but one question no one has an answer for yet is whether or not the audience will respond to a show dropping four new episodes a week.

There aren't a lot of previous examples to draw from, but as The Guardian notes, one high-profile previous experiment didn't have a happy ending:

Back in 2011, as daytime TV audiences were spending less time watching and more time online, long-running US daytime soaps One Life to Live (which started in 1968) and All My Children (1970) were cancelled by the US ABC network. A company named Prospect Park licensed the rights and revived the shows the following year for distribution via its own website and third-party services Hulu and iTunes.

The move was disastrous: Prospect Park discovered that viewers were overwhelmed by having too many episodes to watch and they stopped watching. With slow-moving soaps on broadcast TV, if you miss an episode or even an entire week it is not a big deal – you just catch up with the next one. But on streaming, episodes yet to be watched pile up. It feels weird to jump ahead if every episode is right there.

Within two and a half weeks, the producers halved their output to just two episodes a week. “Asking most people to regularly watch more than a half hour per day online seems to be too much,” Prospect Park said at the time. One Life to Live and All My Children were both cancelled by the end of the year.

Now that was 12 years ago, which translates to several generations in streaming video years. So I would caution against drawing too much from that previous example. But it's going to be interesting to see how the show performs in the UK, where the linear TV version of the series was still garnering decent numbers at the end of its run.

ODDS AND SODS
* The return of Frasier will debut with its first two episodes on Paramount+ on October 12th in the U.S. and Canada and on October 13th in all other territories. In addition, the first two episodes will air back to back on CBS on October 17th beginning at 9:15 pm ET/PT. 

* And Just Like That has been renewed by Max for a third season. 

* The HBO Original documentary film Donyale Luna: Supermodelpremieres Wednesday, September 13th. The project documents the life of Donyale Luna, the first Black model to grace the cover of both Harper's Bazaar (1965) and Vogue (1966).

*Click here to watch the first ten minutes of Caught Up, a new comedy premiering this Thursday on BET+.

WHAT'S NEW TODAY AND TOMORROW:

TUESDAY, AUGUST 22ND, 2023:
Above Suspicion Series Premiere (BritBox)
Bobby's Triple Threat Season Premiere (Food)
Crimes Gone Viral Season Premiere (Investigation Discovery)
Lighthouse (Netflix)
Star Wars: Ahsoka Series Premiere (Disney+)
The Murder Tapes Season Premiere (Investigation Discovery)

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 23RD:
BS High (HBO)
Destined With You (Netflix) 
Invasion Season Two Premiere (Apple TV+)
Nancy Drew Series Finale (The CW)
Riverdale Series Finale (The CW)
Squared Love Everlasting (Netflix) 
The Ultimatum: Marry Or Move On Season Two Premiere (Netflix)
Trap Jazz (Hulu)

Click Here to see the list of all of the upcoming premiere dates for the next few months.

SEE YOU WEDNESDAY!

If you have any feedback, send it along to Rick@AllYourScreens.com and follow me on Twitter @aysrick.