Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Wednesday, November 29th, 2023.
WHAT STREAMING SERVICES COULD LEARN FROM SPOTIFY WRAPPED
Happy Spotify Wrapped day to those of you who celebrate it.
Each year, Spotify sends out a personalized recap to subscribers, providing a rundown of a bunch of different listening metrics. How much total listening time that year, favorite artists and songs, number of artists listened to, most popular genres, just a fun, dizzying rundown of what you have been listening to throughout the year.
It's a really fun feature for subscribers, in large part because it's unlikely you're actually aware of how much you've listened to some styles of music that year. My top genres in 2023 were Northern Soul, French Pop and 70s R&B. And my top two artists were Ian Lloyd and Chicago's Insiders. I'm not sure what to make of that.
But I listen a lot during the day while I'm working and I expected to have a pretty high total listening time. But I wasn't expecting that I spent 88,023 minutes listening to Spotify in 2023. Which translates to about 57 non-stop days of listening. Yikes.
Given how much subscriber behavior that streamers routinely collect, I am surprised that they haven't spent more time pursuing similar efforts. Spotify Wrapped is an incredibly viral idea and you'll see people randomly sharing their info on social media all week. And while there is some cost to creating the underlying platform to put it together, it's mostly just assembled with data Spotify already collects.
Hulu has rolled out a similar idea last year, although it is so general and lacking personalization that is nearly useless. But I appreciate that they have at least tried.
I understand why some streaming services probably don't want subscribers to realize how much (or how little) they are watching programming.
But this seems like a natural idea for Netflix, given the amount of data they collect and the number of engaged subscribers they have. Imagine how fun it would be to know how much time you spent watching Netflix this year, the types of shows you watch, etc. Given all of that, I'm not sure why Netflix hasn't rolled out "Netflix Wrapped."
But I think they're missing a potential viral goldmine.
DAVID ZASLAV DOES LOVE A GOOD CONFERENCE
I've mentioned before that Warner Bros. Discovery head David Zaslav has a passive-aggressive approach to the industry press. Which is why most of his public appearances tend to be at conferences where he's likely to be pushed a bit, but not too hard.
The Big Z appeared today at the New York Times Deal Summit and he provided enough quotable moments that The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline and Variety each managed to crank out two or three separate pieces that each focused on one comment.
The Hollywood Reporter notes that "David Zaslav Says Hollywood Must Make "Tougher, Faster" Decisions to Avoid "Generational Disruption," and if you're not sure what that means, here is his take on it:
The moment “requires very hard decisions, and many of them are unpopular,” Zaslav added, noting the decision to cut film and TV projects, some of which were already completed. “It’s a very scary time, but its also an exciting time because of what’s possible. We were the first ones through. We needed to get healthy and needed to build a real business around this company.”
These are the comments that infuriate me. Because there was a real business before the merger. Those "hard decisions" were due in large part to having to pay down the massive debt that was incurred during the merger. And I really wish that someone would ask Zaslav a follow-up question or two and drill down into this question.
Deadline continues its campaign to win the award for the longest headlines in Hollywood with the expansive piece entitled "David Zaslav Hints At Potential Reunion With Ex-CNN Boss Chris Licht, Reflects On Jeff Zucker Exit And Reaffirms Plan To Avoid Making It An "Advocacy Network."
Moderator Andrew Ross Sorkin spent a lot of time on the NY Media-centric questions that few people west of the Hudson Valley care about. "Are you still friends with Chris Licht?" "What's your relationship with Jeff Zucker?" The conversation veered closely into "If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?" territory.
But these comments from Zazlav seem to be the most important issue when it comes to CNN and no one ever pushes back on his central premise regarding the "advocacy" of the pre-Z CNN:
Sorkin inquired about the current political orientation of CNN, which has been under scrutiny since WBD board member and Zaslav mentor John Malone decried its left-leaning approach under Zucker.
Zaslav said the company has sought to address the “strategic question of, ‘Should news networks be advocacy networks, or should news networks be journalistic organizations?’ And it’s really a strategic choice, nothing good or bad. For CNN, the choice was, this should be — it is — the greatest journalistic organization in the world.”
While I'll concede that CNN has been most accurately described as "left of center," arguing the network has been participating in "advocacy" in the past is a big stretch. I'd like to hear someone ask Zaslav if it's true that former Reliable Sources host Brian Stelter was let go because of being perceived as being too hard on Trump is accurate. I'd also like to hear Zaslav field the question "If a politician is lying about an issue. If they are saying things that could be considered dangerous if said by someone else, is pointing that out when it happens advocacy in your eyes?"
SPEAKING OF CONFERENCES
Content London is one of the conferences I'd like to make it to one year. It wraps up tomorrow, but there have been some interesting comments in some of the panels.
Clare Laycock, SVP and head of content, networks and streaming at WBD UK & Ireland, said that the company is now actively commissioning shows following a freeze due to the Discovery and WarnerMedia merger. She says they are looking at ordering shows for at least three over-the-air networks, as well as Discovery+.
And Lina Brounéus, Netflix EMEA’s director of acquisitions strategy, revealed the streaming giant owns less than 25% of the rights to its European content. She told the audience that Netflix is open to a range of models and, despite popular belief, does not want to take full ownership of all European content that it invests in.
She said that when she joined the company in 2018, Netflix was seeking to own as much library as possible. “There are no set limitations on how we do things. We want to build relationships that are win-win."
Granted, some of that change has been brought on by local production laws imposed by various countries. But it's still a change in the way the company is doing business and it hasn't received a lot of attention here in the US trade press.
NASCAR'S NEW MEDIA DEAL
One of the hard truths for sports fans is that the next decade is going to include a lot of shuffling around trying to figure out which network or streamer is carrying today's event. As linear TV collapses, sports leagues are looking to replace that revenue and provide future growth. And the only clear way to do that is by splitting up games and events across multiple platforms and networks in order to juice up the size of the competitive bids.
One example of the new sports normal is the media rights deal just obtained by NASCAR. Which retains some of the organization's long-standing media partners, while slicing off pieces of the racing season for new outlets:
FOX Sports and NBC Sports will continue to carry the majority of NASCAR Cup Series races with 14 events each. The FOX Sports portion of the Cup Series schedule, which kicks off the season with The Busch Light Clash followed by “The Great American Race,” The DAYTONA 500, will also include live events for the entire NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series season. NBC Sports’ coverage of the Cup Series will encompass the final 14 events of the season, including the Playoffs and Championship race. Both partners will feature a mix of broadcast and cable events, with five Cup events airing on FOX and four on NBC annually. The remaining events will air on FS1 and USA Network, respectively.
As part of this historic agreement, the NASCAR Cup Series will welcome two new broadcast partners in 2025 — Prime Video and TNT Sports — that will evenly split a series of 10 midseason races. Both have also obtained exclusive rights to practice and qualifying sessions for the entire Cup Series schedule through 2031. NASCAR’s first fully direct-to-consumer partner, Prime Video will stream practice and qualifying live for the first half of the season through their last race of the midseason series with the exceptions of the Busch Light Clash, DAYTONA 500 and NASCAR All-Star Race, which will remain with FOX Sports. TNT Sports will initiate its coverage with the next five midseason races simultaneously broadcast live on TNT and streaming on the B/R Sports Add-On on Max. Practice and qualifying for the remainder of the season will stream on Max and air on truTV.
That's not confusing at all.
ODDS AND SODS
* FX's limited series Shōgun premieres Tuesday's February 27th.
* The CBS comedy Bob Hearts Abishola will end after the upcoming season. Season five is due to premiere on February 12th, with the series finale now set for May 13th. It's not a big surprise, given that the network had already announced that all of the show regulars aside from leads Billy Gardell, Folake Olowofoyeku were being cut back to recurring status to save money. This has turned into a bit of show apocalypse for long-running CBS shows, with Blue Bloods and Young Sheldon also set to end their runs after the upcoming season.
* Demi Lovato’s A Very Demi Holiday Special will premiere Friday, December 8th on The Roku Channel.
* Bunim/Murray Productions is teaming up with Candace Bushnell, whose Sex and the City book inspired HBO’s mega-hit series, to develop the reality dating show Is There Still Sex in The City. And I thought that 007 reality series was a bad idea.
* Polygon's Kayti Burt has a good look at the story of the K-dramas’ crossover moment, and the shows to watch that explain it all.
TWEET OF THE DAY
WHAT'S NEW TODAY AND TOMORROW:
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 29TH:
* American Symphony (Netflix)
* Bad Surgeon: Love Under The Knife (Netflix)
* Christmas At Graceland (NBC)
* Christmas In Rockefeller Center (NBC)
* Marvel Studios' Assembled: The Making Of Loki – Season 2 (Disney+)
* Pretty Hard Cases Season Premiere (Freevee)
* Sex Sells (Fuse)
* Shetland (Britbox)
* Slow Horses Season Three Premiere (Apple TV+)
* The Artful Dodger (Disney+/Hulu)
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 30TH:
* Bev Is Boss Series Premiere (WE tv)
* Bookie Series Premiere (Max)
* Brat Loves Judy: The Baby (WE tv)
* Busted! Series Premiere (Discovery)
* DIScontinued Series Premiere (Maximum Effort)
* Family Switch (Netflix)
* Hard Days (Netflix)
* Obliterated Series Premiere (Netflix)
* Paris In Love (Peacock)
* Selena + Chef: Home For The Holidays (Food)
* The Bad Guys: A Very Bad Holiday (Netflix)
* The Perfect In-Laws (LMN)
* Time for Her To Come Home For Christmas (Hallmark Movies And Mysteries)
* Virgin River (Netflix)
* Wild Crime (Hulu)
Click Here to see the list of all of the upcoming premiere dates for the next few months.
SEE YOU THURSDAY!
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