Too Much TV: Your TV Talking Points For Thursday, October 13th 2022

I'm back....(cough, cough)

Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Thursday, October 13th, 2022.

PROGRAMMING NOTE
It wasn't your imagination (or the fault of extra-sensitive spam filters), this is indeed the first newsletter I've sent out this week. I tested positive for COVID last weekend and have been pretty much offline ever since. Which also ironically might make this the longest vacation I've taken from the newsletter since it started.

I am recovering and slowly getting back into things with this newsletter. It'll be shorter than normal, but tomorrow's edition should be back to its normal expansive length.

NETFLIX UNVEILS SOME DETAILS ABOUT ITS AD-SUPPORTED VERSION
Because I am a dinosaur, I have been writing about Netflix since its earliest years. I first interviewed Reed Hastings back when the company was a fledgling DVD-by-mail company with one Bay Area warehouse. But even then, he spent half the interview talking about a future where the company would somehow deliver movies via the Internet. Which was a pretty optimistic call at a time when most people still used a dial-up connection for their Internet access.

But while I admire the company's ambitions, I've also often been tough on its decision making and in the most recent years, its marketing and PR efforts. All of which might explain the weirdness of today for me. Netflix PR didn't include me in the Zoom call for the press in which the company revealed a few more details about its upcoming ad-supported plan. But early this morning, I heard from a Netflix executive who assumed I was going to be on the call and wanted to speak with me on background about the details of the plan and provide some context for my reporting. If this newsletter used emojis, I'd add a big perplexed shrug right here.

I do have some decent sources at Netflix and at this point, you've no doubt learned the general details of the Netflix's ad-supported plan. So instead of recapping those scant nuggets of details again, let me pass along a few somewhat random thoughts about these moves.

* The conventional wisdom in the industry seems to be that Netflix was forced into considering an ad-supported tier following its recent earnings and ratings performance, which included two consecutive weak quarters. There is some truth to that and the recent struggles with subscriber growth certainly hastened the move. But I went back and looked at some old notes this morning and when I spoke with a Netflix executive on background four years ago some people inside the company had already been trying to parse out what a possible ad-supported tier might look like if Netflix ever launched one. 

Speaking to people there over the years, I always had the impression that company executives were never going to launch an ad-supported version of the service until it was clear Netflix was coming close to hitting a natural ceiling in subscriber growth. A cheaper, ad-supported version would likely help juice growth, but announcing it too soon would essentially freeze growth for the full-priced version of the service. So the public stance for Netflix was going to be that it wasn't considering ads and it was no longer going to offer free trials. It was going to offer potential subscribers only one funnel into the service until the time when it was clear that was no longer enough. And, to be a bit snarky, one thing I learned from my years as a financial reporter, it’s that when an executive tells the press that the company "isn't currently considering" doing something, it really means that it's on their radar. But like The Fight Club, no one is supposed to talk about it publicly.

* I am already seeing a lot of pieces being posted that claim Netflix has signed a deal with Nielsen and will begin releasing viewing numbers for its ad-supported tier when it launches. And that is sort of true in the broadest possible sense. Nielsen will use its Digital Ad Ratings (DAR) beginning sometime in 2023 and eventually those numbers will be reported through Nielsen ONE Ads. I'm not going to dive into all of the specific details of what that means. But generally speaking, it seems to mean that advertisers will have some level on insight into the viewing numbers, but it's not clear how many of those specifics will be shared publicly. 

And to the extent they are publicly available, people both inside and outside Netflix have noted that it's dangerous to draw any direct conclusions between viewing numbers on ad and non-ad supported versions of a service. Especially if some of the service's content isn't available in an ad-supported environment.

* One note about shows that won’t be available on the streaming version of Netflix: company executives hinted at something today I’ve heard discussed in recent months. That aside from some shows not being available because of licensing issues and/or costs, there has been some consideration to “windowing” the availability of some hit shows before they hit the ad-supported version. That doesn’t seem to be the plan right now, but I get a sense that it’s not out of the question in the future.

* Are there going to be ads running in children's content on Netflix's ad-supported service? Unless I missed it, the subject wasn't addressed in Netflix's presentation today and I haven't see any mention of the subject in the announcement's coverage in the press. I do know that this was an issue that sparked a lot of back-and-forth internally at Netflix, with one side apparently arguing running advertising in kids programming brought with it all sorts of potential issues. While some executives arguing that including ads would make the ad-free version of the service worth the extra money to parents.

TWEET OF THE DAY

ODDS AND SODS
* MSNBC's All In With Chris Hayes to bring back episodes with a live audience.

* This is a great thread laying out the impact the FX series Welcome To Wrexham has had on the finances of struggling soccer/football team.

WHAT'S NEW FOR THURSDAY:

Here's a quick rundown of all the new stuff premiering today on TV and streaming:

A Radical Life (Discovery+)
Dark Glasses (Shudder)
Dead End Paranormal Park Season Two Premiere (Netflix)
Exception (Netflix)
Fire Masters Season Finale (Cooking)
Partners In Rhyme (ALLBLK)
Someone Borrowed (Netflix)
Sue Perkins Perfectly Legal Series Premiere (Netflix)
The Playlist Series Premiere (Netflix)
The Watcher Series Premiere (Netflix)
Winter House Season Premiere (Bravo)

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.