Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Tuesday, October 28th, 2025:
A BIT OF GOOD NEWS
AllYourScreens has earned a nomination in the 2025 National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards for "Entertainment Blog by an Individual Not Tied to an Organization." The winners will be announced in early December.
During last year's awards, I won the 2024 David Robb Award for Best Investigative Civil Justice Story for this piece on Michael Feeney, a former teen actor casting agent in Minnesota, who was accused (and later convicted) of multiple cases of sexual abuse over a period of several decades. To be honest, I am surprised that story hasn't been highlighted in one of the many true crime documentaries being cranked out right now.
If you would like to help support my independent journalism, you can always buy me a coffee.
SHOULD THE SOON-TO-BE-RENAMED MSNBC LEAN INTO POPULISM?
During a Monday evening segment on Donald Trump's efforts to extract more money from semi-willing American corporations, MSNBC anchor Lawrence O'Donnell targeted several companies, including Comcast:
"Mark Zuckerberg doesn't think he's rich enough. Jeff Bezos doesn't think he's rich enough. Tim Cook doesn't Apple is a successful enough company. Apparently, he doesn't think he's personally rich enough. And Comcast - the current, but not for long - owner of the company I now work for, doesn't think it's a big enough business. Comcast is committed to nothing but Comcast."
Listening to O'Donnell continue his argument that you should expect nothing from corporations that isn't self serving, it struck me that this is the way the soon-to-be named MSNOW can separate itself from the competition and carve out an identity that is less about partisanship and more about populism.
Over the past few years, focus group after focus group has found that a large number of Americans struggle with the same issues. They feel abandoned. Good-paying manufacturing jobs have left the country. And that impacts workers in every place from the deep rural south to the biggest urban cities. Local stores (with local jobs) have been swallowed up by large hedge fund-driven semi-monopolies.
It feels as if every aspect of America - all the important community institutions that used to bind us together - are now just hallowed-out piggy banks that are being sucked by private equity funds and then discarded.
And no matter the politics of the people you ask, they all feel as if they've been let down by the government. By the media. That the issues that are important to them are dismissed by power brokers on Wall Street and in the Federal Government.
And that's where I think MSNOW's focus should be. It needs to non-partisan voice of the viewers. It needs to be the voice of populism, the one place where issues that matter to America as a whole can be reported on and highlighted.
The beauty of focusing on populism is that it is political, but not partisan. It allows MSNBC/MSNOW to concentrate on topics that are intimately important to viewers but have a political component that allows the network to leverage its existing news assets.
And to be honest, this is a topic that neither Fox News or CNN are likely to be brave enough to tackle. Both of those networks are captured by the political and cultural beliefs of their own billionaire owners. And while the new MSNOW won't be immune from those pressures, it will be the best situated to lean into populism. An approach which is unique enough to give it added value in the marketplace.
Here is an example of the type of story I would focus on. Rising healthcare costs are rightfully a current hot topic on the cable news networks. But as Matt Stoller notes in a recent piece, the biggest component of rising health care are the hospitals, which are increasingly spending money as if they are printing it. Which, thanks to your premiums, they are:
This “medical” facility is in fact a gold-plated marble palace, complete with modern architecture, LED art, ornate chandeliers, and a grand piano being played by a professional musician. And note, this facility is owned by a nonprofit, so it’s tax-exempt. The CEO of the UM’s entire health system, Joseph Echevarria, makes $4 million a year, as does the COO, Dipen Parekh. And these wastes of money are not unusual, with nonprofit hospitals building massive campuses and spending money on sports teams. As Stateline reported, “Health care systems and hospital groups have bought naming rights at ballparks and arenas in states such as California, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Tennessee.”
It’s easy to focus on big corporate villains, and we should, but hospital care is the biggest chunk of health care spending. America spends $1.5 trillion a year on hospitals, versus just $450 billion for pharmaceuticals. And hospital spending grew at 10% in 2023 and 9% in 2024, and is on track for another massive year. This money goes to big city academic hospitals, not the rural ones closing down. The Federal government offers these hospitals competitive advantages over potentially cheaper options, they often get huge tax concessions, and they use their cash to buy up doctor’s practices and slap patients with higher prices. Yet, because they are nonprofits and seen as “charity,” donors give money to these hospitals, which is like donating water to the ocean.
When you get your premium increase notification, you will not hear about the urology professor at the University of Miami paid $4 million a year, or the salary paid to the guy playing the piano in a marble medical chateau. You won’t hear about the state-granted monopoly Apexus, which takes a cut of every drug purchased by most hospitals through a special government discount plan called 340b. It will all go into the undefined soup of spending called “health care,” with lots of people fretting and wondering why everything keeps getting more expensive.
There are two questions. First, how did we arrive at a place where medical centers spend their money on chandeliers and grand pianos and sports team sponsorships? And second, given the anger towards health care among voters, why isn’t anyone attacking this bloat from a political standpoint?
Issues like this resonate with Americans of every political stripe. And focusing on these populist issues isn't just great branding, it would allow MSNBC/MSNOW to be part of the political conversation in a way that would be very good business.
Do I think the network is likely to do that? No. But it would be a very smart move for the network and one that also be very good for America.
AN ASTOUNDING NUMBER OF PEOPLE WRITING ABOUT COMEDY SEEM NOT TO HAVE LISTENED TO IT
Deadline's David Zucker has a piece arguing that while it's great that Netflix has begun integrating some video podcasts onto its service, it really should add comedy podcasts to its streaming mix:
Look no further than Kill Tony — the self-proclaimed #1 Live Podcast in the World — which landed on Netflix earlier this year as part of a three-special deal. The first special, Kill Tony: Kill or Be Killed, outperformed nearly every other stand-up special released on Netflix in the first half of 2025, according to data pulled from Netflix’s recent “What We Watched” report, with 8.8 million views in its first three months on the platform.
Yes, let's look at the inaugural Kill Tony Netflix special. And the content gives you an idea of why Netflix quietly dumped the second special under the deal onto its streaming service a couple of months ago. As I wrote in April:
One trade-off of doing Kill Tony in Austin is that while that helps draw on and reinforce that comedy scene, many of the guest comics are also drawn from the particular strain of politically right adjacent scene that Joe Rogan has created. So the one-minute sets are often flaccid and self-absorbed in a very specific way. Kai Wynn is a Vietnamese man who was adopted by a Jewish family and most of his punchlines involve some mix of lazy Jewish or Vietnamese stereotypes. He claims to have been performing for five years, which is a bit of a frightening piece of information. The second bucket pool comic is Pat O'Neill, who delivers a predictably half-ass mix of trans and fat girl jokes.
Even the "regular" comics are remarkably inept. Ari Matti is hyped by Hinchcliffe as being some hard-working comic who writes a new minute to perform every week. But Matti's set is built around the fact he's Estonian and he comes across like someone whose biggest comedy inspiration came from watching YouTube videos of performances by Russian-born Yakov Smirnoff. And Casey Rocket's act is primarily just frantically walking back and forth across the stage while occasionally stopping to deliver some out-of-context non-sequitur hint of a joke.
And then there is a brief appearance by Jeffrey Ross, who I will admit up front I have never especially thought of as entertaining, much less funny. If your funniest quip is telling Hinchcliffe "I am so Proud Boy of you," I think you're drowning.
Dunnigan then returns as RFK Jr. and his opening joke was "My wife Cheryl Hines' pussy is so dry, that if it could talk, it would sound like me." Followed by "Speaking of one at a time, that's what Marilyn Monroe said when my uncle and father tried to spit roast her."
And that is the problem with many of these comedy podcasts. Yes, many of them are incredibly popular. And Netflix has managed to navigate that by signing some of the biggest names to do comedy specials, which tend to be much more benign and mainstream. But I suspect the last thing Netflix wants to do is deal with regular blowback from audiences unhappy with some of comedy podcast's content.
I think it is very likely that Netflix will add some comedy video podcasts to its lineup. Although it is going to be very careful when it comes to the content and the personalities.
TWEET OF THE DAY
ODDS AND SODS
* The documentary Caroline Flack: Search for the Truth will premiere Monday, November 10th on Hulu. Flack was best known for hosting ITV2 hit reality series Love Island. She took her own life in 2020, a month before she was due to stand trial after being charged with assaulting her boyfriend in December 2019.
* Discovery Global, the planned stand-alone home for Warner Bros. Discovery’s linear TV networks, has announced that its first Upfront presentation to advisers will take place on Wednesday, May 13th, 2026. Why make that announcement now? I suspect it's part of the continuing effort by WBD head David Zaslav to make it seem as if his proposed split of the company will happen, no matter what the efforts from David Ellison and Paramount Skydance might be.
WHAT'S COMING TODAY AND TOMORROW
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 28TH, 2025:
* American Monster (Investigation Discovery)
* Babo: The Haftbefehl Story (Netflix)
* Country Doctor (HBO)
* Don't Date Brandon Series Premiere (Paramount+)
* Mercy On Us (MHz Choice)
* Mo Amer: Wild World (Netflix)
* Nightmares Of Nature (Netflix)
* Physical: Asia Series Premiere (Netflix)
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 29th:
* About Face Series Premiere (TLC)
* Ballad Of A Small Player (Netflix)
* Bigfoot Took Her (Discovery)
* Disney Twisted-Wonderland: The Animation (Disney+)
* Down Cemetery Road Series Premiere (Apple TV+)
* Ghost Adventures (Discovery)
* Hazbin Hotel Season Two Premiere (Prime Video)
* Hedda (Prime Video)
* Ink Master Season Premiere (Paramount+)
* Nova: Super Floods (PBS)
* Rulers Of Fortune Series Premiere (Netflix)
* Selling Sunset Season Nine Premiere (Netflix)
* Star Wars: Visions Season Three Premiere (Disney+)
* Ten Pound Poms Series Premiere (Britbox)
SEE YOU EARLY WEDNESDAY MORNING!