Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Thursday, December 12th, 2024:
VOTING CONTINUES IN THE GLOBAL TELEVISION AWARDS
A special thanks to everyone who has participated in the voting so far. Based on the numbers I've seen so far, the total number of voters is going to be well over 50,000. Which is pretty amazing.
As a reminder, voting is limited to free and paid Too Much TV subscribers and you can only vote once. Vote in as many or as few categories as you like, odds are there are a lot of titles you haven't seen yet. And that's just fine.
The voting ends at 11:59 pm CT on Sunday, December 15th. The winners will be announced Monday, December 30th.
Here is the link for voting for your favorites: https://tinyurl.com/globaltvawards.
YOUTUBE TV IS RAISING ITS PRICE
YouTube announced today that it is raising its monthly subscription fee $10 from $72.99 to $82.99. The change takes effect on January 13th for most existing users. The company blamed the increase on "the rising cost of content,” which sounds like an excuse. But its a pretty accurate explanation of the industry's problem.
There was a school of thought that believed as the traditional cable bundle broke down, there would be more price flexibility and additional opportunities for MVPD and vMVPDs (basically cable and virtual cable) to carve out different programming packages. The majority of industry's price increases over the past decade have been led by the combination of most of the channels being owned by a handful of big media companies. And by the forced bundling of those cable channels that forces paid TV providers to agree to "all of nothing" packages of channels - many of them ones that few people watch.
There is no reason for channels such as MTV2 or the American Heroes Channel to continue to exist in the marketplace. Other than its a way for big media companies to extract a few cents per subscriber in carriage fees as well as whatever advertising revenue the scant viewership can bring in.
And while recent moves by Comcast and WBD to spin-off or split away their linear cable networks might seem like a positive development for consumers, it's worth noting that the big media companies have been conveniently signing new long-term carriage agreements ahead of the split. Which means that nothing is likely to change for unhappy consumers in the short-to-medium term.
THE BEST INTERVIEW OF DAVID LETTERMAN I'VE SEEN
I really enjoy doing interviews. Not those terrible seven-minute junket slots that feel more like a sausage-making exercise than a conversation. But an interview where you have the time and opportunity to connect with a guest, to coax them into revealing things they wouldn't in a more stressful and formalized situation (yes, I realize this prompts another "why aren't you doing a podcast" conversation).
Those long interviews are especially gratifying when you're able to draw things out of a guest who is notably a difficult person to reach and when I see someone accomplish that feat I am struck by equal parts admiration and jealousy.
David Letterman is a notoriously difficult person to get a straight answer out of in any interview situation. But this 30-minute interview of Letterman by GQ's Zach Baron is as good an interview of Letterman as I have ever seen. He gets some real insight from Letterman and while the former talk show host can't keep himself from trying to divert the conversation at times with laughs, even longtime Letterman fans will learn new things. Including a story about Letterman's dad that is just emotionally horrifying.
Go watch the entire interview now. It's very, very good.
THE UNAUTHORIZED EFFORT TO SAVE NETFLIX'S INTERACTIVE PROGRAMMING
404 Media has a great look at a fan-based effort to save as much as they can from Netflix's recently deleted interactive programs:
On Discord, dozens of users have collaborated on capturing all the videos from Netflix before they were removed, as well as reverse engineering how the platform handled their interactive elements. Some shows are already fully emulated and can be streamed in bespoke, alternative players, others are uploaded to YouTube in a series of daisy-chained, interlinked videos that recreate a very similar interactive experience, while some others have been uploaded as non-interactive videos.
Critics seem to connect this loss of programs with the rise of the streaming services. But this has been a problem since the earliest days of the Internet.
For instance, in late 1999, Time Warner launched Entertaindom.com, the first digital-only entertainment site launched by a major studio. And it had a pretty impressive lineup of originals:
SUPERMAN: THE MENACE OF METALLO will be anew, weekly 3D "Multipath Movie" series, with seven-minute episodes that recreate the thrill of cliff-hanging serials from the Golden Age of Hollywood.
THE MARTIAN will bring back to life the Warner Bros. character with new minute-long 3D animated shorts, utilizing the famous Marvin voice and the original Carl Stalling Looney Tunes musical cues.
THE GOD AND DEVIL SHOW will be a weekly, animated talk show featuring celebs(parodied by voice impersonators) who are interviewed by God and the Devil themselves.
DR. SCIENCE will be a weekly 3D-animated program starring anover-confident know-it-all in a lab coat. On-line surfers may submit theirown questions each week and wait to see what crazy mis-information DR.SCIENCE comes up with.
By early 2001, AOL has taken over Time Warner, and looking to find over $1 billion worth of spending cuts (that sound familiar), Entertaindom.com shut down and all of its content apparently disappeared.
THIS IS ONE REASON WHY I'VE NEVER BEEN MUCH OF A FAN OF CELEBRITY GOSSIP
I realize that millions of people love celebrity gossip and enjoy weighing in on the flaws and mistakes of well-known people. I've never been much of a fan of celebrity gossip, in part because it just doesn't interest me. But more because I've realized that the more I work around celebrities and get to know them, odds are that if you're reading a story about them in the gossip press, it's either wrong or built around bad information.
A good example of that centers around Gerry Turner, the star of ABC’s The Golden Bachelor. He married Theresa Nist on a live ABC special in January and divorced three months later. At the time, there were a lot of snarky remarks about how participants of the various Bachelor franchises never stay together. As well as rumors about why they quickly divorced, with many of the rumors asserting Turner had cheated on Nist.
Turner recently announced he had been diagnosed with cancer soon after the marriage and that there was unlikely to any treatment that was effective:
After sharing his blood disorder with Nist in February, Turner went in for additional testing, including a bone marrow biopsy, some weeks later and his diagnosis became more definitive. In mid-March, he decided to "tell her what I knew and I explained the situation to her."
"Certainly, it was hard for me," he says of revealing his diagnosis to his then-wife. "But the conversation was brief and I think [she was] a little bit awestruck by the news. So understandable."
"I wanted my life to continue on as normal as possible, and that led me to believing that as normal as possible more meant spending time with my family, my two daughters, my two son-in-laws, my granddaughters," he explains. "And the importance of finding the way with Theresa was still there, but it became less of a priority."
So the lesson is that fans shouldn't be so quick to judge. Because you just don't know.
ODDS AND SODS
* If you wonder what the new video creation with a text prompt software Sora can do (and not do), this review does a nice job of laying out the parameters in a clear and helpful way.
* Apple TV+ has acquired global rights to Spanish rom-com series Love You to Death. It will premiere globally on Wednesday, February 5t, 2025 on the streamer
WHAT'S NEW TONIGHT AND TOMORROW
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 12TH, 2024:
* All I Need For Christmas (Hallmark Mystery Channel)
* Be Careful What You Say (LMN)
* Bookie Season Premiere (Max)
* E! News Presents NBC's Hot 10 Of 2024 (NBC)
* Happy Holidays From Cherry Lane (Hallmark+)
* La Palma (Netflix) - [first look video]
* Monkey On A Stick: Murder, Madness & The Hare Krishnas (Sundance Now)
* No Good Deed Series Premiere (Netflix) - [first look video]
* Paris & Nicole: The Encore (Peacock)
* Ready, Set, Glow! (Hallmark+)
* The First 48 Presents Critical Minutes Season Premiere (A&E)
* Too Many Christmases (BET+) - [first look video]
* 2024 Billboard Music Awards (Fox)
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 13TH, 2024:
Carry-On (Netflix)
Dexter: Original Sin Series Premiere (Paramount+ With Showtime)
Die Hart Season Three Premiere (The Roku Channel)
Disaster Holiday (Netflix)
Eva The Owlet Holiday Special (Apple TV+)
Hanukkah On the Rocks (Hallmark)
Invisible (Apple TV+)
Joe Bob's Christmas Carnage (Shudder)
Joe Mande: Chill (Hulu)
Love During Lockup Season Premiere (WE tv)
Mismatched (Netflix)
My Lottery Dream House Season Premiere (HGTV)
1992 (Netflix)
The Bravest Knight (Hulu)
The Jetty Series Premiere (Britbox/Hulu)
30 For 30: The New York Sack Exchange (ESPN)
Wonder Pets: In The City (Apple TV+) - [first look video]
SEE YOU ON FRIDAY!