Too Much TV: Your TV Talking Points For Tuesday, November 26th, 2024

A conversation with Jeff Wachtel

Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Tuesday, November 26th, 2024:

PRODUCTION NOTES
Just as a heads-up, it's Thanksgiving week here in the United States, so it's going be a short week for the newsletter. On Wednesday, assuming there isn't any big news, the newsletter will be a shorter one with the listings for the rest of the week along with some viewing recommendations. Then I'll be back on the beat on Monday, December 2nd.

A CONVERSATION WITH JEFF WACHTEL
Yesterday I had a conversation with longtime media executive Jeff Wachtel. He spent some time at Columbia TV before beginning a long run at NBCUniversal, where he might be best known to people as being the head of the USA Network during its "Blue Sky" period. He's now running Future Shack, which is producing Murder In A Small Town for Fox as well as the upcoming Good Cop/Bad Cop for The CW/Roku.

I'll be posting the interview next week, but here are some of his thoughts about the importance of marketing and PR:

How concerned are you with the marketing or PR of a show? Because certainly one of the things I find is that when there are cutbacks, marketing and PR is the first thing that gets cut at a network or streamer.

And that makes it challenging when you're trying to get the show in front of new viewers. If it's a Fox show, they're promoting it on Fox. But People Magazine, TV Guide, those big outlets that used to be so important for content discovery aren't much of a factor nowadays.

Look, it's hard. As you said, marketing is the first thing that's cut. It's the one where, when you're making your play internally, the finance team can't really see measurable results from marketing.

We spent a lot marketing this and it failed. We didn't spend much and this one succeeded. How do you know what the metrics are?

So it's tough to defend. It's incredibly important. And so one, it's incredibly important, but challenging to get the resources.

Two, you don't want to be a pain in the ass. And having run a network, I've gotten dozens of, how come we don't get a promo this week calls. And there's a lot of competing needs.

So you always want to be a team player and understand wherever you are, they've got a lot going on. And you want to be an effective advocate. So it's a tightrope or a balance on that one too, where you remind them, we've been off the air for three weeks. We could really use an extra spot this week. And then you usually hear, well, yeah, we know what we're doing. And thanks for the reminder.

And I know from being inside that it's part of the long-term process and you want to work with the people who get it and who are good partners and are not always yelling and complaining, but who are pitching in and understand. Sometimes you're going to get the benefit of a spot during a football game. And sometimes you're not.

And so you want to push really hard, but just to the point of being, you don't want to get carried away.

JOE BERLINGER TALKS JONBENET RAMSEY
In the annals of American true crime stories, the murder of JonBenet Ramsey is arguably one of the best-covered stories of its kind. So in 2024, it's difficult to imagine what a producer could bring to the story that hasn't been said before.

No one has ever accused documentarian Joe Berlinger as being unsure of his ability to bring someone new to every story. So it's probably not surprising that his latest project is a look at the well-traveled JonBenet Ramsey case.

I recently had the opportunity to speak with him about the three-episode docuseries and the one big takeaway is that he is not one of those people who believe JonBenet was killed by her parents:

But to me, how she died is the most obvious reason that the parents weren't involved. And the other human factor, which, you could argue with maybe, but John Ramsey has been unrelenting. To this day, he is still pounding the table with Boulder to get this solved.

He was very willing to sit down and do an interview with us. No subject was off-limit. He had no editorial control or involvement at all. He was not paid a penny. And he was very willing to work with us. So that is not the actions of a murderer.

And it's cruel to continue to pound on the idea that the family is responsible. Can you imagine? And this man, I think, deserves like five Purple Hearts.

He lost his daughter from a previous marriage in a car wreck. JonBenet was the daughter who arrived to help the family ease through that pain. She's brutally murdered.

Patsy has ovarian cancer. It's in remission, but all the blaming of her had to have had an impact. And the death of her daughter had to have an impact on that cancer coming back.

There was a Gallup poll done at the time where 70% of Americans thought that this family was guilty and were covering up. And to this day, when I'm at a dinner party, and tell people I'm working on this project, they tell me, "Oh, yeah, I remember that story. The parents killed their daughter, and they were really weird with beauty pageants. It's just not right."

Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenet Ramsey? is now streaming on Netflix.

A DAN SCHNEIDER UPDATE
If you want to see what happens when you have two sides of a court case with lots of money and plenty of lawyers, then you should bd following the ups and downs of former Nickelodeon producer Dan Schneider's defamation lawsuit against the producers of the documentary Quiet On Set: The Dark Side Of Kids TV.

Last month, the Superior Court judge overseeing the case tentatively dismissed the charges pending a further hearing. That hearing took place last Friday and the short version of the story is the case is back on and there will be a status conference held on December 11th, 2024:

A follow-up hearing was held on Friday, November 22nd and centered around a couple of issues. One of which was that while Schneider had filed a declaration with the court that he had "never sexually assaulted or sexually abused a child," the declaration was not signed under penalty of perjury, as is required under the law.

The second issue revolved around whether Schneider had proven the case was baseless or not. In other words, did the producer file the suit in order restrict the free speech of the defendants, or was there reason to believe the plaintiff might be able to prove his allegations in a trial? In this situation, the judge isn't considering the arguments of the defendants. It comes down to whether or not the plaintiff has a reasonable reason to file the lawsuit and is there a reason to believe he might be able to prove those allegations in court?

I keep expecting to see that there has been some sort of settlement in the case, but I am hearing that Schneider feels his reputation has been ruined and is looking to extract revenge.

ODDS AND SODS
* If you're looking for a podcast to listen to while traveling this weekend, Gillian Anderson made an appearance on David Duchovny's podcast, Fail Better With David Duchovny.

* Henry Danger: The Movie, the feature-length original movie based on the hit 2014-2020 hit live-action series will premiere in the U.S. on Paramount+ and Nickelodeon on Friday, January 17th.

* Mediate is reporting that former Arizona TV news anchor Kari Lake, who unsuccessfully ran for Arizona governor in 2022 and U.S. Senator, is in "active negotiations" to join the conservative network. This follows reports the cable network has also reached out to semi-disgraced former Representative Matt Goetz.

* France’s Newen Studios and free-to-air broadcaster TF1 Group have signed a deal with Netflix that will see the partners co-produce the streamer’s first-ever daily drama series for France. As part of the deal, the episodes will stream on Netflix five days before their premiere on TF1 and its SVOD player TF1+.

WHAT'S NEW TONIGHT AND TOMORROW

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 26TH:
Anthony Jeselnik: Bones And All (Netflix)
Its In The Game: Madden NFL (Prime Video)
Vow Of Silence: The Assassination Of Annie Mae (Hulu)

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 27TH:
A Saturday Night Live Thanksgiving (NBC)
Chef's Table Season Premiere (Netflix)
Christmas Under The Lights (Hallmark Movie Channel)
Countdown To Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (NBC)
Expedition Files Series Premiere (Discovery)
Hope Street (Britbox)
Mysteries Of The Abandoned Season Premiere (Discovery)
Our Little Secret (Netflix)
The Untold Story Of Mary Poppins (ABC)

SEE YOU ON WEDNESDAY!