Displaying items by tag: Too Much TV

Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Thursday, September 28h, 2023. 

PROMOTE YOUR STREAMING SHOW LIKE YOU'RE PETE BUTTIGIEG
I was speaking with someone on social media earlier today and I mentioned that some writers would now have an incentive to be out self-promoting their streaming projects, in order to make the new 20% viewing threshold, which would qualify them for the new WGA performance-based bonus.

And I quickly heard back for several showrunners reminding me they had already been doing that. As one person told me "I had to hire my own PR firm, because the service refused to promote it."

I have heard that complaint a lot from creatives. It's been an ongoing problem at Netflix, but it's a problem that cuts across all of the major streamers. 

And there are a couple of issues at play here. There are limited marketing and PR resources in the best of times and unfortunately, those departments are also the first to get hit with layoffs when budgets tighten. The larger streamers - especially Netflix - are also releasing so many titles in the course of a month that it's impossible for all of them to receive the attention they deserve. Add to that the perverse PR system that focuses on the combination of a binge release and little to no promotion before the premiere. So a flurry of attention comes out timed to the premiere and then no one hears about the show again.

But if there is a financial incentive to juice numbers, then you want your show to be getting some kind of attention throughout the 90-day period which might qualify you for the bonus. Especially since statistically, most viewing takes place in the first three weeks after release. So in those following weeks, reaching out to audiences which may have missed it during the initial push is key. Particularly if you reach out with a narrative that allows you to attract some viewers who might have initially ignored the project because it didn't sound like "my kind of show."

To accomplish this, showrunners and other creatives have to be out there promoting their shows in the same way Pete Buttigieg promoted his presidential campaign. You talk to anyone who'll have you and that means some outlets that might not seem like the best fit for your project. You never know which audience will be the one to push your viewer numbers over the threshold. 

There are a lot of PR firms out there handling the initial promotion of a show. But I can see the need for firms who specialize in "second chance" PR campaigns.

This should be an interesting wrinkle in PR campaigns moving forward.

THE AUSTRALIAN WRITERS' GUILD SPEAKS OUT AGAINST THE USE OF AI
Following the gains made by the WGA in efforts to rein in the use of AI tools in the television industry, the Australian Writers' Guild has issued a position paper arguing against the use of unregulated AI in the creative sector:

The Guild, representing Australia’s screenwriters, playwrights, game narrative designers, comedians and podcasters, notes the risks of content producers using unregulated AI technology include:

• The degradation and loss of Australian culture in its most accessible forums
• The appropriation and erosion of First Nations culture
• The replacement of thoughtfully developed and realised Australian screen drama, theatre, and interactive content
• The loss of livelihoods for Australian creative workers
• The erosion of the skill base of Australian creatives
• The capture of players’ personal information and
• Exposing video game audiences to potentially harmful or offensive content.

The group has put forward a really thoughtful paper on the use of AI and this is an issue we are going to see being discussed globally, as companies seek to use AI to push down costs - even in territories where the production costs are already substantially lower than in the U.S.

AND THIS IS WHY AI QUESTIONS MATTER
Sometimes it's difficult to wrap your brain about how AI might be used in the television production process. Sure, maybe there are AI scripts or some scans of actors that get used in the place of background people. But imagining al of the ways the technology can seep into the day-to-day business of the industry can be difficult.

On Wednesday, Meta unveiled 28 personality-driven chatbots to be used in Meta’s messaging apps. Celebrities including Charli D’Amelio, Dwyane Wade, Kendall Jenner, MrBeast, Snoop Dogg, Tom Brady, and Paris Hilton lent their voices to their effort. These early efforts are both cringe-worthy and stretching the definition of what it means to be a "celebrity." But still, it gives you an idea of where this technology is headed.

So imagine if you're a streamer with a hot YA franchise. You can pretty easily use AI to ingest every episode of the show, then use the dialogue to train the AI to create a chatbot that can talk in voice of every character in the show. That opens up all sorts of legal and financial ramifications and the new tentative MBA just scratches the surface of the issue. I have this suspicion that despite everyone's best efforts, we are going to see real Wild West behavior from some of the studios, as they seek to monetize their IP by pushing the envelope on what it permissable.

THIS IS NOT WHAT I PICTURE WHEN I THINK OF SAUDI ARABIA
Whip Media just published a paper on FAST viewership worldwide and there are a lot of great takeaways. Including the fact that anime is apparently very popular in Saudi Arabia:



ODDS AND SODS
* I may have an answer to the question "what is the worst hour of programming currently streaming on Tubi?"

* Fifteen years after being stranded on a remote island, an aspiring singer reenters society — stopping at nothing to pursue her dream of becoming a star on Castaway Diva, which premieres October 28th on Netflix.

* Here are the today's ten global TV stories you should know.

* Chrishell Stause and Diora Baird star as a lesbian couple headed on a babymoon to a remote mountain town that isn’t as peaceful as it seems in the Lifetime movie You're Not Supposed To Be Here, which premieres Saturday, November 4th on Lifetime.

* Season two of The Haunted Museum premieres Thursday, October 26th on The Travel Channel.

* Oxygen is premiering its newest true crime series Real Murders Of Los Angeles on Friday, October 6th.

* Danny Glover will play Santa Claus in the upcoming original movie The Naughty Nine, which premieres Wednesday, November 22nd, on Disney/Disney+

* Season eight of The Real Housewives Of The Potomac premieres Sunday, November 5th, on Bravo.

NO THANKS, I'M WAITING FOR THE "SAG-AFTRA STRIKE IS OVER!" DISCOUNT




WHAT'S NEW TODAY AND TOMORROW:

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 28TH, 2023:
* A Guard And Her Dog (Crunchyroll)
* A Really Haunted Loud House (Nickelodeon)
* A Time To Kill Season Premiere (Investigation Discovery)
* Bachelor In Paradise Season Premiere (ABC)
* Castlevania: Nocturne (Netflix)
* Dino Pops (Peacock)
* Hell's Kitchen Season Premiere (Fox)
* Ice Cold: Murder, Coffee And Jessica Wongso (Netflix)
* Lego Masters Season Premiere (Fox)
* Love & Murder: Atlanta Playboy (Part Two) (BET+)
* Love Is In The Air (Netflix)
* People's Choice Country Awards (NBC)
* Sasaki And Miyano: Graduation [subtitled] (Crunchyroll)
* Starstruck (Max)
* The Darkness Within La Luz del Mundo (Netflix)
* The Golden Bachelor Series Premiere (ABC)
* The Hunt For Raoul Moat (Britbox)
* The Kardashians Season Premiere (Hulu)
* The Swan (Netflix)
* The Vanishing Triangle (Sundance Now)
* Toya & Reginae Season One Finale (WEtv)

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 29TH, 2023:
* Choona (Netflix)
* Dateline Season Premiere (NBC)
* Disney's Launchpad (Disney+)
* Do Not Disturb (Netflix)
* Frieren: Beyond Journey's End [dubbed and subtitled] (Crunchyroll)
* Flora & Son (Apple TV+)
* Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End (Crunchyroll)
* Gen V Series Premiere (Prime Video)
* Gold Rush Season Premiere (Discovery)
* Interrupting Chicken Season Two Premiere (Apple TV+)
* Killer Cases Season Premiere (A&E)
* Marvel Studios Legends (Disney+)
* Murder In The 21st Century Series Premiere (A&E)
* Mystery Island (Hallmark Movies And Mysteries)
* Nightmare (Shudder) 
* Nowhere (Netflix)
* Power Rangers Cosmic Fury (Netflix)
* Real Time With Bill Maher Season Premiere (HBO)
* Rebuilding Black Wall Street (OWN)
* Reptile (Netflix)
* 72nd Miss USA Pageant (The CW)
* Shark Tank Season Premiere (ABC)
* The Great Baking Show Season Premiere (Netflix)
* The New York Times Presents How To Fix A Pageant (FX)
* The Ratcatcher (Netflix)
*20/20 Season Premiere (ABC)

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 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and follow me on Twitter @aysrick.

Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Tuesday, September 26th, 2023. 

SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT THE TENTATIVE WGA MBA 
As I promised in last night's newsletter, I talked to a number of people today about the new WGA deal with AMPTP and a few things are becoming clear.

The "Now we are going to be able to see how many people watch my show" narrative isn't accurate. But there is a reasonable framework in place to provide performance-based residual payments. There are also a lot of caveats, and I went through them in this piece I posted earlier today on AllYourScreens.com.

The development room/mini-room framework is the one in which I think the WGA probably got less than what they wanted. The positives are they negotiated some pay increases and obtained a floor for the number of writers that had to be in the room. They also obtained a new pre-greenlight room premium (25% overscale), which among other things should result in fewer shows having drawn-out pre-greenlight work being done before the studio decides whether or not to order the show to series.

But there certainly are some things that are concerning for writers, especially if you are a less-experienced staff writer or story editor.

The deal specifies there has to be a minimum of three writers (including the showrunner) in the writers' room on any show that has six episodes or less. But it also mandates that three of those have to be writer-producers, IE mid/upper levels. I suspect the concern was that without that mandate, studios would end up forcing many development rooms to be a showrunner with two cheaper, less-experienced writers. And to a certain extent, the WGA is damned if they do or damned if they don't on this issue. Forcing the three-person rooms to use more experienced writers helps the show and provides more opportunities for the mid/upper levels. But newer and/or less experienced writers are already voicing concerns that it will mean they will be boxed out of a lot of development rooms. An issue that had been a problem before the strike.

The room minimum does increase as the episode order increases. An order of 7-12 episodes mandates a 5-writer minimum, and 13+ episodes mandates a six-writer minimum. In both those cases, the mandated number of writer-producers and IE mid/upper levels remains at three.

So it's going to be interesting to see if this changes the industry norm of 6-8 episode seasons. And I'm curious if studios will try and get around this by taking a page out of their animation playbook. Order twelve episodes of a show, then call it a "two-season order."

As I wrote yesterday, these deals are extremely complicated, and I am sure that a number of other wrinkles in the tentative deal will become apparent as the days pass.

I will mention that as I have read (and re-read) the deal memo, it is becoming clear that of all the studios on the AMPTP side, Netflix probably got the closest to their ideal scenario in these negotiations. The overall framework is close to one I had heard Netflix's Ted Sarandos was pushing back in May and large parts of it conform to an internal Netflix proposal for a WGA deal that I wrote about back in July:

* There wouldn't be much of a change in transparency on viewing numbers and other internal metrics used in determining content value. But there would be a formula that would provide performance-based bonuses for projects that reached certain goalposts, including Netflix Top Ten Lists, Nielsen rankings and some other third-party data. It's not residuals, but it would at least provide some financial incentives for performance that would be a solid interim step. 

* Changes to AVOD payments and residuals that would not only provide a pay increase for union members, but make it less lucrative for streamers to move low-performing projects to AVOD. The proposal notes that while it would be a substantial cost to Netflix, the changes would fall hardest on Prime Video and Warner Bros. Discovery, both of whom have been aggressively moving original productions from SVOD to AVOD. That factor was seen as a net plus.

There has been a lot of reporting in the trade press about Bob Iger's leadership during the final push to close the deal. And based on what I heard from non-Iger sources, he certainly had an impact. But I think it's clear that at the end of the day, Netflix walked away from this deal with the least painful path moving forward.



SOME RATINGS NEWS FROM THE UK
The new season of The Great British Bake-Off premiered last night on Channel 4 and according to the network, it had an impressive debut. It won the timeslot, nabbing 29% of all viewers and an impressive 48.7% of 16-34 year-olds. The new season - renamed The Great British Baking Show in America - premieres this Friday in the U.S. on Netflix.

HOW ABOUT SAG-AFTRA?
So far, there haven't been any negotiations scheduled between AMPTP and SAG-AFTRA, although the conventional wisdom is that it will happen fairly soon.

But unless I am completely misreading the situation, I don't think it's going to be an easy process. In theory, WGA accomplishments should mean that SAG-AFTRA has something to negotiate towards and some guidelines to work with. In practice, the big SAG-AFTRA issues don't track that closely with what the WGA was looking to win from the studios.

SAG-AFTRA has very different concerns when it comes to AI. And their approach to performance-based residuals also varies radically from the approach taken by the WGA.

Here is a link to the interim agreement some smaller non-AMPTP producers have agreed to during the SAG-AFTRA strike and there are a lot of differences from the WGA. Some of them are due to the differences in the types of work between the two groups. But one big one is that the WGA is basing its performance-based residual on viewing numbers, SAG-AFTRA has been pushing for a two percent cut on top of any existing residuals. From my perspective, there are a couple of problems with this approach. The biggest one is simply determining an accurate number. 

SAG-AFTRA wants to base the payments on the revenue directly attributable to an individual title. Which, as you can imagine, can be a challenge. SAG-AFTRA's solution was to suggest using valuation numbers from Parrot Analytics, which uses a number of data points including public viewing numbers, social media interest and even the number of people pirating a title to establish a "value" for a specific program.

Studios have pushed back so far, arguing that they are hesitant to use a third-party analytics firm to establish the value of their content. And they have also suggested that Parrot's numbers are less than comprehensive or accurate.

This seems like a pretty big hurdle to overcome, but as the WGA has shown, it can be done. The big question is how long will those negotiations take?

ODDS AND SODS
* The six-episode HBO drama True Detective: Night Country premieres Sunday, January 14th.

* Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix premieres Thursday, October 19th on Netflix. It's "an animated series mixing alternative Ubisoft characters from beloved franchises such as Assassin's Creed, Rayman, and Far Cry in a highly referenced homage to the early 90s."

* The coming-of-age series My Life With The Walter Boys premieres Thursday, December 7th on Netflix.

* Here are the today's ten global TV stories you should know.

TWEET OF THE DAY




WHAT'S NEW TODAY AND TOMORROW:

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27TH, 2023:
* America's Got Talent Season Finale (NBC)
* Celebrity Jeopardy! Season Premiere (ABC)
* Celebrity Wheel Of Fortune Season Premiere (ABC)
* Encounters Series Premiere (Netflix) 
* L-Pop Series Premiere (Disney+)
* Love In Fairhope Series Premiere (Hulu)
* Overhaul (Netflix)
* Physical Season Three Finale (Apple TV+)
* Snake Oil Series Premiere (Fox)
* Strange Planet Season One Finale (Apple TV+)
* Street Flow 2 (Netflix)
* Survivor Season Forty-Five Premiere (CBS)
* The Amazing Race Season Thirty-Five Premiere (CBS)
* The $100,000 Pyramid Season Premiere (ABC)
* The Masked Singer Season Premiere (Fox)
* The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (Netflix)

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 28TH, 2023:
* A Guard And Her Dog (Crunchyroll)
* A Really Haunted Loud House (Nickelodeon)
* A Time To Kill Season Premiere (Investigation Discovery)
* Bachelor In Paradise Season Premiere (ABC)
* Castlevania: Nocturne (Netflix)
* Dino Pops (Peacock)
* Hell's Kitchen Season Premiere (Fox)
* Ice Cold: Murder, Coffee And Jessica Wongso (Netflix)
* Lego Masters Season Premiere (Fox)
* Love & Murder: Atlanta Playboy (Part Two) (BET+)
* Love Is In The Air (Netflix)
* People's Choice Country Awards (NBC)
* Sasaki And Miyano: Graduation [subtitled] (Crunchyroll)
* Starstruck (Max)
* The Darkness Within La Luz del Mundo (Netflix)
* The Golden Bachelor Series Premiere (ABC)
* The Hunt For Raoul Moat (Britbox)
* The Kardashians Season Premiere (Hulu)
* The Swan (Netflix)
* The Vanishing Triangle (Sundance Now)
* Toya & Reginae Season One Finale (WEtv)

Click Here to see the list of all of the upcoming premiere dates for the next few months.

SEE YOU THURSDAY!

If you have any feedback, send it along to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and follow me on Twitter @aysrick.

Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Tuesday, September 26th, 2023. 

THE WGA STRIKE IS OVER
The WGA reached a tentative agreement with the AMPTP over the weekend and on today, the WGA Negotiating Committee, WGAW Board, and WGAE Council all voted unanimously to recommend the agreement. The strike ends at 12:01 am tonight. It will now go to both guild memberships for a ratification vote, which will take place between October 2nd and 9th.

Here is a link to the summary of the 2023 WGA MBA.

Here is a link to the 94-page memorandum of agreement.

Here is a link to the 7-page comparison between the WGA and AMPTP proposals as of May 1st and the terms of the new tentative agreement.

Here is a copy of the strike termination agreement.

There is a lot to wade through right now and I am hesitant to jump too deep in with a quick take. But my overall first impression is that while neither side got everything they wanted, the WGA managed to get a lot accomplished. They didn't get the minimum writing room sizes they were pushing for, but they did get significant movement. They obtained some performance-based residuals and there will be some numbers shared with participants, although as in the case of other territories where this approach has happened, there will be a lot of confidentiality. 

* For instance, I am already seeing writers saying "Hey, we're finally getting some viewing numbers from streamers!" Which is true, if by "we," you mean the WGA will get the numbers. But apparently won't be able to share them publicly: "Companies agree to provide the Guild, subject to a confidentiality agreement, the total number of hours streamed, both domestically and internationally, of self-produced high budget streaming programs (e.g., a Netflix original series). Aggregated information can be shared."

* It's definitely good news for writing teams, as each member of a team gets P&H contributions as if they were writing as an individual.

* There are a lot of guidelines concerning the use of AI and this sentence jumped out, because it addresses the fear of some writers they that they'll be asked to rewrite a script that was generated using AI: "Company must disclose to writer if any material given to writer has been generated by AI or incorporates AI-generated material."

* There was movement on residuals and payments for AVOD as well, albeit high-budget AVOD: "High-budget made-for AVOD programs get same initial compensation as HBSVOD programs. There is also a 2% residual for AVOD reuse."

* I have to spend some time parsing out the foreign streaming residuals deal points. At first glance, it looks as if the smaller SVODS (with less than 20,000,000 foreign subs) were hit much harder than the larger services. And Paramount+ and Max continue to pay a lower license-fee-based residual.

* Feature writers also seem to have gotten some help, with pay boosts on high budget SVODs and the requirement of a 2nd step if hired for a screenplay for 200% of minimum or less.

As I said, there is a lot to go through and I'll be reaching out tonight and tomorrow to get a better sense of the positives and negatives from both sides.

And because I have a very wise group of readers, what is your take on the terms? Email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

TALK TO THE PRESS, DAMMIT
I've spent weeks going back-and-forth with various WGA neg committee, board members and other influential guild members about their messaging strategy during the strike. I've written here about some of my discussions (and occasional arguments), so I'm not going to going rehash that again.

But one of the reasons why I've argued that the WGA should be talking to more reporters at least on background is best illustrated by a piece that posted today in The Hollywood Reporter. Now both Kim Masters and Leslie Goldberg are veteran reporters who I trust to get the story right. At least as much of the story as their told. But it's pretty clear which side of the story you're going to be getting based on this headline/subhead:



And if you read the piece closely, you start to get a sense of the general sources for the story. There are a couple of comments from unidentified showrunners. But only someone from the studio side would construct the scenario laid out in this paragraph:

Once negotiations resumed Sept. 20, it was clear that Iger was the elder statesman and the only leader who had been through the last writers’ strike. Zaslav, with the least amount of experience in the scripted world, was still a seasoned negotiator of many tough deals. Langley brought a level head and the most hands-on creative experience, as well as strong relationships with talent. One source described her as “the diplomat” in the room. Sources say Sarandos, in the run-up to the final marathon negotiation, had spent more time communicating with SAG-AFTRA than with the WGA but ultimately aligned with the other three.  

If you are beginning to pick up on the Iger-friendly framing of the piece, you are not alone. And to be clear, I've heard quite a bit off the record about what happened in the room and in breakout discussions in the days leading up to the final tentative deal. It's not that I have heard anything that is directly opposed to the recounting of the negotiations laid out in this piece. But it doesn't provide the entire story either. The CEOs were certainly not as self-assured and on message as the piece suggests. At least, not according to people I have spoken with.

After the piece posted, I saw a number of senior WGA people pushing back on social media, arguing that once again, one of the trades was trying to rewrite history.

I'm sympathetic. But if you want you story heard, you have to be willing to tell it. Even if it's on background. 

The weird thing is that for a guild comprised of writers, the WGA executives often don't have a lot of faith in journalists to tell their story accurately. 

I did have a WGA board member suggest to me today that they were staying quiet until the tentative deal was voted on and everyone was back at work. Fair enough. I hope when that happens, I'm able to convince a few WGA sources to at least talk on background about the negotiations process and how accurately they felt the press coverage has been throughout the process.


WHAT'S NEW TODAY AND TOMORROW:

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26TH:
* Chappelle’s Home Team - Luenell: Town Business (Netflix)
* Dancing With The Stars Season Premiere (ABC)
* Savior Complex (HBO) 
* 72 Hours In Rittenhouse Square (Paramount+)
* The Fake Sheikh (Prime Video)
* The Victoria's Secret World Tour (Prime Video)
* Who Killed Jill Dando? (Netflix)

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27TH, 2023:
* America's Got Talent Season Finale (NBC)
* Celebrity Jeopardy! Season Premiere (ABC)
* Celebrity Wheel Of Fortune Season Premiere (ABC)
* Encounters Series Premiere (Netflix) 
* L-Pop Series Premiere (Disney+)
* Love In Fairhope Series Premiere (Hulu)
* Overhaul (Netflix)
* Physical Season Three Finale (Apple TV+)
* Snake Oil Series Premiere (Fox)
* Strange Planet Season One Finale (Apple TV+)
* Street Flow 2 (Netflix)
* Survivor Season Forty-Five Premiere (CBS)
* The Amazing Race Season Thirty-Five Premiere (CBS)
* The $100,000 Pyramid Season Premiere (ABC)
* The Masked Singer Season Premiere (Fox)
* The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (Netflix)

Click Here to see the list of all of the upcoming premiere dates for the next few months.

SEE YOU WEDNESDAY!

If you have any feedback, send it along to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and follow me on Twitter @aysrick.

Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Monday, September 25th, 2023. 

A COUPLE OF THOUGHTS ABOUT THE TENTATIVE WGA AGREEMENT
I've been hearing some comments from both sides about what might be in the tentative WGA/AMPTP agreement. But given my overall skepticism about sources and their willingness to spin, I'm reserving my judgment until the WGA sends out details and their recommendations to guild members tomorrow.

But I did want to pass along a couple of observations. As a reporter, I have learned a couple of things during the WGA strike. The studio side has some crazy dysfunction when it comes to messaging & goals. More than once, I have heard entirely different takes on the same day from people on the studio side. Some of it could be spin, but it felt more like a reflection of real confusion from various AMPTP members.

And despite the WGA arguing they only speak on the record or not at all, that's not entirely the case.

Which is fine. The WGA needs to be able to push back against stories during negotiations by saying "We aren't talking to the press, these stories aren't coming for us."

My experience has been the studio side is much more willing to talk on background to reporters (or at least to me). Which is why you saw so many studio-centric stories in the trades. WGA folks generally seemed to be interested in just providing some off-the-record guidance, which tbh, is super helpful. Especially when they are pushing back against stories in the trades.

And while it's understandable that the WGA board members and neg committee participants continue to insist publicly that none of them talk to reporters, my emails and private messages would disagree. Again, it is fine to say that in public. They've been careful to hold to that public stance throughout the strike.

But I had one WGA person just unload on me in private messages today, both basically calling me a liar and also wanting to know who had talked to me. All I could tell them was what I would say to any of you. I'm a professional, I've been a journalist for decades. I'm proud of the fact that my reporting throughout the WGA strike has held up pretty well. And that's partly because I am careful and as importantly, I never disclose my sources.

What a strange trip this has been.

ON THE OTHER HAND
Although we don't like admit it, journalists hold personal grudges as much as anyone. Which is a bad thing because we also usually have the writing chops that allow us to take a cheap shot at those we believe may have done us wrong.

I would never do that (cough) but Puck's Matt Belloni seems to have felt as if a few people have done him wrong. Granted, his reporting track record during the WGA strike can charitably be described as "spotty," which prompted quite a few complaints from WGA members on social media. And I have to assume that's why he took the unusual step of singling out a few writers for dismissive scorn in a piece he co-wrote today about the tentative settlement and what that means for WGA members:


Wow, that seems very pissy.

THIS SEEMS LIKE A VERY NICHE MARKET, EVEN IN THE 1970S



WHY IS AMAZON PRIME VIDEO REALLY ROLLING OUT ADS?
When Amazon announced last week that its Prime Video subscription service would begin running limited advertisements beginning in 2024, my email inbox was filled with an endless number of hot takes. Especially since Amazon has decided to make the ad-supported version of Prime Video the default for subscribers. Viewers who want to enjoy an ad-free Prime Video will have to pay an additional $2.99 per month once the advertising rolls out across the service.

So why did they make that decision? You've no doubt read a number of industry hot takes on the subject. And likely, most of them focused on the wrong thing. I posted a piece on the subject today and I think it's a good primer on why Amazon really made the decision to bring in advertising right now:

So given all of this, if you are running Prime Video and want to increase revenue, you don't have a lot of great options. Increasing the overall Amazon Prime monthly sub fee will only bring limited help, and products such as VOD (rentals and purchases), as well as Amazon Channels, provide some growth, but both are hitting their ceiling. Adding commercials is an option, but rolling out an ad platform comes with substantial costs, even though Amazon has plenty of experience in the advertising sector. In fact, you can make a pretty good argument that at the end of the day, Amazon is primarily an advertising company.

Deciding to make the ad-supported tier the default instead of the non-ad version is a very deft financial move. Rivals like Netflix and Max have taken the opposite approach, but because of Amazon's business model, that won't provide the needed boost in revenue.

For the record, I think this is a smart move by Amazon. But I also don't think it's the latest indication that we are "reinventing the cable bundle."

HULU'S EMBRACE OF TRUE CRIME CONTENT DOESN'T EXTEND TO ITS USER EXPERIENCE
I saw this tweet from the ATX Festival and it made me chuckle quite a bit:


It's good that Hulu is devoting part of its focus to true crime programming. Thanks to some aggressive licensing deals and new documentaries produced by ABC News, Hulu has a growing selection of true crime programming.

Not that you will be able to find it on Hulu's website. There's no spot for true crime programming under the "hub" tab. And if you click into the "TV" section, you'll find an alphabetical list of genre tiles at the top of the page. None of which are labeled "true crime." You will, however, discover a few randomly selected true crime shows and documentaries under a horizontal row on that same TV page. Granted, the true crime section is 13 rows down from the top of the page. But it is there, in what has to be best described as a criminally poor design choice.

TWEET OF THE DAY



ODDS AND SODS
* Season four of the CNN series Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace? can be seen exclusively on Warner Bros. Discovery’s Max, and will not air on CNN’s linear network.

* Season seven of Adult Swim's Rick And Morty premieres on October 15th and here is a first look video of the upcoming season.

* The WGA West will extend health care benefits through year’s end to members who were facing an October 1st expiration of coverage because of the strike.

* David McCallum, the Scottish-born actor who starred as the enigmatic Russian spy Illya Kuryakin on The Man From U.N.C.L.E. in the 1960s and found television stardom again almost 40 years later on the hit series N.C.I.S., died on Monday in New York, at the ago of 90. And while I'm not a big fan of endless NCIS spin-offs, I would have liked to have seen a spin-off based on the "Gibbs & Ducky: The Early Years" story that was part of the NCIS 400th episode.

* In the wake of the tentative WGA strike settlement, actor Matt Walsh has announced he will perform on Dancing With The Stars. ABC has also decided to air the season premiere tomorrow night as scheduled, after initially considering postponing it until after the strike was settled.

* Starz has canceled the sophomore shows Heels, Run the World and Blindspotting. It has also pulled the plug on The Venery of Samantha Bird starring 13 Reasons Why alum Katherine Langford. The latter decision is really interesting because the show had reportedly completed six of its eight episode order before being shut down due to the SAG-AFTRA strike.

WHAT'S NEW TODAY AND TOMORROW:

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 25TH:
* Below Deck Mediterranean Season Eight Premiere (Bravo)
* Futurama Season Finale (Hulu)
* Halloween Cooking Challenge (Food)
* Kids Baking Championship: Bloodcurdling Bakes (Food)
* Kitchen Nightmares Season Premiere (Fox)
* Little Baby Bum: Music Time Series Premiere (Netflix) 

* Special Forces: World's Toughest Test Season Premiere (Fox)
* The Irrational Series Premiere (NBC) - [photo gallery: 10/02/2023]

*The Voice Season Premiere (NBC)

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26TH:
* Chappelle’s Home Team - Luenell: Town Business (Netflix)
* Dancing With The Stars Season Premiere (ABC)
* Savior Complex (HBO) 
* 72 Hours In Rittenhouse Square (Paramount+)
* The Fake Sheikh (Prime Video)
* The Victoria's Secret World Tour (Prime Video)
* Who Killed Jill Dando? (Netflix)


Click Here to see the list of all of the upcoming premiere dates for the next few months.

SEE YOU WEDNESDAY!

If you have any feedback, send it along to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and follow me on Twitter @aysrick.

Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Thursday, September 21st, 2023. 

PROGRAMMING NOTE
Unless there is some massive breaking news, there won't be a newsletter tomorrow. I am having some minor surgery done in the morning and in theory should rest through the weekend. But if the news gods do not cooperate, I'll be dictating a newsletter to my wife in order to get something out. I should back to normal on Monday.

In a related point, since there won't be a Friday newsletter, I'm expanding the listings at the bottom of today's newsletter to include the weekend premieres. This feels like a good time to remind you that paid subscribers receive a weekly newsletter on Sundays that includes every premiere of the upcoming week, along with links to show information, videos and more.

See you Monday!

HMMM.....I GUESS THEY WILL BE NEGOTIATING BEFORE 2024
The WGA just sent out this message to guild members, which is at the very least a cause for continued guarded optimism:


Honestly, all anyone outside the room knows for sure is that the talks have been substantive. I heard tonight from sources on both sides who were familiar with the conversations and to give you an idea of how fluid the situation might be, I heard two very similar perspectives. With two very different takeaways. Both sources told me they were some variation of cautiously optimistic. But while the source of the guild side explained that a particular issue had been the biggest sticking point, a source on the studio side pointed out a completely different issue as the biggest challenge.

So we are in the crazy part of the negotiations where there are a lot of rumors and I'm not sure you can trust anyone's take (no disrespect to anyone who reached out to me today). Maybe they'll come to a tentative agreement tomorrow. Maybe they come to a deal before the weekend or need to continue negotiations Tuesday. But both side do appear to reached the resignation portion of the negotiating process, and have come to terms with the fact that a deal needs to happen.

ONE LAST POINT
While a lot of the other issues being wrangled over in the WGA and AMPTP have received a lot of attention, one lower-profile point that could cause some problems is the idea of whether the final agreement will codify the right of writers to honor other striking union's picket lines. 

Obviously, that's a big issue if you want writers to begin work before the striking SAG-AFTRA and AMPTP come to an agreement. If an agreement comes in the next couple of weeks, there is still a timeframe in which writers could begin work and still have time to create a 10-13 week season for the broadcast networks. Especially is everyone agreed to cut the normal two-week holiday break to one week. But that assumes writers go right to work following a deal and they don't wait for the actors to come to their own agreement.

The last public WGA set of proposals included the right to honor rival picket lines, but I haven't been able to get any clear sense of where that is now in the current negotiating mix.

But even if writers aren't given official protection in case they respect the SAG-AFTRA picket lines, it seems clear some writers would do so anyway. But that opens up all sorts of complicated issues. Such as...is working in a Zoom writers room considered crossing a picket line?

TWEET OF THE DAY



THINGS ARE GETTING TOUGH ALL OVER
For all the disruptions in Hollywood, other professional organizations and unions across the globe are wrestling with their own unique challenges.

The Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance, also sometimes referred to as the Alliance, is the Australian trade union and professional organization which covers the media, entertainment, sports and arts industries. It has more than 13,000 members and hundreds of screen workers held a mass meeting at Disney Studios in Sydney on Thursday, protesting deep cuts in Australia's Made in NSW program and the Post-production, Digital and Visual Effects Rebate.

Those programs help provide incentives for programs to be produced in Australia and the Alliance estimates an estimated 85 projects and 300,000 jobs are at risk following the defunding of two state programs.

Australia's TV and movie production industry is already facing challenges, as an increasing number of productions are opting to head to territories with a trained workforce and a lower overall cost structure. Eastern Europe has seen a recent uptick in productions deciding to take advantage of experienced, non-union crews and a robust studio infrastructure.

ODDS AND SODS
* The CW continues its march into turning itself into a 1990s-style basic cable network with its latest order, the true-crime series entitled Crime Nation. The ten-episode season of two-hour episodes is described as "a captivating true-crime and justice anthology series that thrusts viewers into the gripping world of real-life mysteries, cold cases and heart-stopping investigations."

* If you're looking for a food-related TV show that is unlike anything you've ever seen, allow me to recommend the Netflix series Samurai Gourmet, the series highlighted in the latest installment of "Deep Streams."

* Season two of The Santa Clauses is set to premiere November 8th on Disney+.

* I'm always fascinated with new ways to encourage content discovery and social connections in the world of streaming. "Music League" is a free app that allows someone to create a series of weekly musical challenges built are an overall theme. Each week, competitors are asked to choose a song that fits a specified mood or mental image from Spotify. The rest of the league votes on their favorites and eventually a "winner" is selected. I've just started playing around with, but if you'd like to check out inaugural effort - "Best Southern Dive Bar Jukebox" - you can click here and join for free.

WHAT'S NEW TODAY, TOMORROW AND THIS WEEKEND:

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 21ST:
* All-Star Shore (MTV)
* Amazon Music Live Season Two Premiere (Prime Video)
* Interrogation Raw (A&E)
* Jaane Jaan (Netflix)
* Kengan Ashura (Netflix)
* Love & Murder: Atlanta Playboy (Part One) (BET+)
* Scissor Seven (Netflix)
* Sex Education Season Premiere (Netflix)
* Young Love Series Premiere (Max)

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 22ND:
* Cassandra (Prime Video)
* Deadlocked: How America Shaped The Supreme Court (Showtime)
* Haunted Harmony Mysteries: Murder In G Major (Hallmark Movies & Mysteries)
* How To Deal With A Heartbreak (Netflix)
* Love Is Blind Season Premiere (Netflix)
* No One Will Save You (Hulu)
* Peanuts Anthology III & IV (Apple TV+))
* Song Of The Bandits (Netflix)
* Spy Kids: Armageddon (Netflix)
* Still Up Series Premiere (Apple TV+)
* The Black Book (Netflix)
* The Continental: From The World Of John Wick Part One (Peacock)

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 23RD, 2023:
* Haven't Met Yet (Great American Family)
* No Hard Feelings (Netflix)
* Retreat To You (Hallmark)
* Sam Jay: Salute Me Or Shoot Me (HBO)
* Saving the Gorillas: Ellen's Next Adventure (Animal Planet)
* Stolen Baby: The Murder Of Heidi Broussard (Lifetime)

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 24TH, 2023:
* Krapopolis Series Premiere (Fox)
* Murder At The Country Club (Lifetime)
* Outrageous Pumpkins (Food)
* Yum And Yummer Season Premiere (Cooking)

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 25TH, 2023:
* Below Deck Mediterranean Season Eight Premiere (Bravo)
* Futurama Season Finale (Hulu)
* Halloween Cooking Championship (Food)
* Kids Baking Championship: Bloodcurdling Bakes (Food)
* Kitchen Nightmares Season Premiere (Fox)
* Little Baby Bum: Music Time Series Premiere (Netflix)
* Special Forces: World's Toughest Test Season Premiere (Fox)
* The Irrational Series Premiere (Fox)
* The Voice Season Premiere (NBC)

Click Here to see the list of all of the upcoming premiere dates for the next few months.

SEE YOU WEDNESDAY!

If you have any feedback, send it along to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and follow me on Twitter @aysrick.

Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Wednesday, September 20th, 2023. 

THIS IS HOW THE HOLLYWOOD TRADES COVERED TODAY'S WGA/AMPTP TALKS..AND HOW YOU'RE BEING SPUN
As the WGA strike has progressed, one refrain you commonly hear from the guild side is the refrain that some move is "right out of the AMPTP playbook." The observation usually centers around some moves the studio side had previously executed during previous strikes and while sometimes the connections can seem tenuous, it's important to note that more often than not, both sides do tend to make the moves they believe were effective during previous negotiations.

So while I won't say today's news coverage in the industry trades is "right out of the AMPTP playbook," it's fair to observe that we've seen this dance before. 

In theory, both sides are in a press blackout during negotiations. But in recent weeks, that blackout has had some serious lapses. But one thing this negotiation has in common with previous strikes is that the studios are not shy about filling the news blackout with their own carefully placed take on the negotiations.

So as the two sides returned today for the first formal talks in weeks, several of the Hollywood trades posted stories highlighting how the "studios are taking today's negotiations seriously."

As is the case with most of Deadline's kitchen sink SEO-friendly headlines, "Studio Bosses Join Today’s WGA & AMPTP Talks; Sarandos, Iger, Langley & Zaslav In The Room, But No Gavin Newsom" seems to be trying to tell several different stories. But the primary one is that the CEOs are attending today's meeting and boy, are they serious:

"There’s an impetus to find a real pathway to an agreement now, and to close that [deal]," a studio insider told Deadline Wednesday. "The CEOs have to be directly engaged – to show the writers we’re serious."

To a certain extent, that statement gives you a perspective on how the studios see the negotiations. Or more specifically, how the CEOs see the negotiation process. Sure, AMPTP could simply negotiate in a way that would illustrate they are willing to make a deal. But having the CEOs there will make things all better.

As I've been reporting for weeks, the impact of the CEOs on the negotiations so far has been a mixed bag. They have the ability to make decisions and if the various major CEOs decided they were ready to make a deal, it would happen. But they have not been able to present a united front and even some of the back-channel talks with the WGA have been a bit chaotic, as each CEO has a slightly different take on what items should be negotiated and what the negotiating parameters should be.

That seems to be pretty much the take that Deadline's studio insider has as well:

Seeking to paper over divisions in their ranks in recent weeks, Wednesday’s active attendance by the CEO Gang of Four is by far from the first time the execs have gotten down and dirty in the bitter labor action. Along with the admittedly disastrous August 22 meeting with AMPTP chief Carol Lombardini and WGA negotiators Ellen Stutzman and others, Iger, Sarandos, Langley, Zaslav have been working their angles and back-channeling to various degrees — each with their own agenda in what is essentially an AMPTP board of directors.

And if you have any doubt that Deadline's studio source wants to emphasize the importance of the CEOs in the process, the site just posted a new story with the news that both sides have agreed to continue the talks tomorrow. The rest of the article is basically a greatest hits recap of what has happened so far. But it does include this almost laugh-inducing comment:

“This is what happens when principals get serious,” another well-positioned source noted. “Things start moving.”

This isn't exactly a ringing endorsement of the negotiating prowess of AMPTP president Carol Lombardini, who has been leading the AMPTP side of the negotiations.

The Hollywood Reporter posted its own version of today's meeting, and the headline "Studio CEOs Attend Latest Writers Guild Bargaining Session" certainly gets points for being concise and to the point.

This piece also includes similar "the CEOs are here to get serious framing, although it's much less heavy-handed than the Deadline take:

Disney CEO Bob Iger, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos and NBCUniversal Studio Group chairman and chief content officer Donna Langley were all present at the meeting that began around 10 a.m. PT, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. It’s highly unusual for the industry bargaining representative, the AMPTP, to include CEOs directly in bargaining sessions, which are usually led on the studio and streamer side by labor relations representatives and top AMPTP staffers. But the industry-wide crisis resulting from the ongoing writers and actors strikes has pushed company leaders to become more directly involved in talks.

The THR story has a couple of specific nuggets I hadn't seen elsewhere and based on what I've heard from other sources, it's pretty much on-point:

Said one studio-side source with knowledge of Wednesday’s negotiations, “CEOs have cleared their calendars and want to sit and have a real conversation.” This person added that the WGA submitted a list of issues in order of importance, from thorniest to least thorny, to the studio side prior to the meeting. “This is so long in coming; everyone’s feeling pain. Let’s get in there and nail things down,” the source said.

And this paragraph also includes the fact the CEOs will be returning to the negotiation table tomorrow, as opposed to the Deadline piece stating they "may" be back:

The meeting concluded in the late afternoon, with talks set to resume again on Thursday with all four CEOs present, according to a studio-side source.

One studio-side source says company leaders pregamed the negotiation in a Zoom prior to Wednesday’s bargaining session. “They feel the smaller the group, the more meaningful it will be. They want to get in a room and figure it all out,” this person said.

The Wrap's piece covering today's talks was pretty bare-boned. WGA Talks With Studios to Continue Thursday After 'Good Signs' in Meeting With CEOs was mostly a recap, with the story including a brief bit of commentary from the vaguely-sourced "two individuals with knowledge of the talks." Are they individuals from the studio side? Based on the comments, that's likely. Although, unlike its competitors, The Wrap's Jeremy Fuster didn't provide even that minor bit of attribution:

One of the individuals told TheWrap that discussions between the guild and studio CEOs who were present at the meeting, including Disney’s Bob Iger and NBCUniversal’s Donna Langley, were “a lot better” than their terse meeting on Aug. 22, which led to the AMPTP publicly releasing their counterproposal after the guild rebuffed the CEOs urging to take that offer.

“I think there’s even more urgency by the two sides to get a deal done than there was in August,” one insider said. “It’s still going to take many, many days of talks between the negotiators and all the labor lawyers to get this done. But having the people at the top serious about doing whatever it takes to get a deal is the most important thing.”

Variety's Gene Maddaus has faced some criticism from WGA members that his strike coverage leans toward the AMPTP direction. WGA Talks Will Continue Thursday After 'Encouraging' Session, doesn't read as particularly unfair, but it's clear that he has some solid studio sources:

The source said the WGA representatives spent the session mostly listening to new proposals put forward by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. Chris Keyser, the co-chair of the WGA negotiating committee, also spoke at length about what the union needs in order to get a deal done.

The WGA is expected to return Thursday with some responses to the latest offers from the AMPTP. The source described the Wednesday session as “encouraging.”

The Variety piece ends with this reluctant piece of attribution which doesn't link out to the Hollywood Reporter, even though they are sister publications:

The Hollywood Reporter first reported the presence of Iger, Langley, Sarandos and Zaslav in the meeting.

And as long as we're making the tour of coverage tonight, TV Line just posted this really bare-bones piece, which included the statement about tomorrow's planned negotiations, along with a few sparse recap paragraphs. And am I being snarky to mention the site's top story on the front page is a poll asking voters to pick "TV's Most Divisive Love Triangles." So there is that.

HERE'S MY TAKE
From what I know based on speaking with individuals from both sides this evening - some with direct knowledge of today's talks - the few details that have been posted in the trades are reasonably accurate. 

I've heard some deeper details about the WGA comments as well as the studio point of view and since all of that is off the record, I won't say more. Although to be honest, I wouldn't say more in any case. This is a delicate time in the negotiations and my ego isn't so big that I need to insert myself into the story.

But I will say that from what I can tell, both sides seem to understand the other side's position pretty well and everyone wants to make a deal. This strike hasn't lasted this long because one side isn't being serious or because the CEOs (or some other "serious people") weren't in the room. The core issues that define this strike are complicated and hard. They are not going to be solved tomorrow. But it will come.

ONE LAST THING
Here is a comment just posted by CNBC's David Faber, who is also the anchor/reporter who did the infamous Bob Iger Sun Valley interview several months ago:



There are two things we know for sure, based on this tweet. Faber's sources are primarily on the studio side. And that the final warning is being delivered to exert a bit more public pressure for the WGA to settle. Because otherwise, the comment makes no sense. It HAS to be finalized tomorrow? Next week is too late?

I have heard some rumblings that if the studios don't feel as if progress is coming fast enough with the WGA, they might pivot and let the writers stew for a while as AMPTP reaches out to SAG-AFTRA negotiators. This warning given to Faber certainly sounds like an excuse to do just that.

ODDS AND SODS
* Season three of Slow Horses is premiering Friday, December 1st on Apple TV+. Although this is technically sort-of season two. Since Apple TV+ ordered a full season order of the series, then split it in half to make two separate seasons. A move which you generally only see with animated shows.

* And in the category of "well, maybe karma is a thing," just days after Sherri Shepard said she will continue her daytime talker because she doesn't use WGA writers, she has announced her show's production will be on pause, because she has COVID.

WHAT'S NEW TODAY AND TOMORROW:

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20TH:
* American Horror Story: Delicate Part One (FX)
* Avoidance Series Premiere (Britbox)
* Hard Broken Series Premiere (Netflix)
* Marvel Studios' Assembled: The Making Of Secret Invasion (Disney+)
* Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal Season Two Premiere (Netflix)
* Naked Attraction Series Premiere (Discovery+)
* Skin In The Game With Dr. Ibram X. Kendi Series Premiere (ESPN)
* The D’Amelio Show (Hulu)
* The Super Models (Apple TV+)

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 21ST:
* All-Star Shore (MTV)
* Amazon Music Live Season Two Premiere (Prime Video)
* Interrogation Raw (A&E)
* Jaane Jaan (Netflix)
* Kengan Ashura (Netflix)
* Love & Murder: Atlanta Playboy (Part One) (BET+)
* Scissor Seven (Netflix)
* Sex Education Season Premiere (Netflix)
* Young Love Series Premiere (Max)

Click Here to see the list of all of the upcoming premiere dates for the next few months.

SEE YOU WEDNESDAY!

If you have any feedback, send it along to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and follow me on Twitter @aysrick.

Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Tuesday, September 19th, 2023. 

WARNER BROS. DISCOVERY UNVEILS LIVE SPORTS ADD-ON FOR MAX
As has been rumored for months, WBD today announced Bleacher Report Sports Live, a new sports-centric programming tier that will cost Max subscribers an additional $9.99 per month. The service will include all of the live sports that now air on the various WBD-owned cable networks, including MLB, NHL, NBA, NCAA Men’s March Madness, U.S. Soccer and More. There will also be a lot of original content from Bleacher Report, as well as live international sports leagues that already have a deal with Discovery Sports in Europe and the UK.

I'll have more to say about this in the coming days. But I have become convinced that the way to look at this is to think of it as a wholesale play. The MVPDs will be able to sell the Bleacher Reports service directly to its customers and I suspect at a bit of a discount. The pool of people will to pay the $9.99 per month fee on top of Max's $16 monthly charge is likely limited. But this puts the marketing power of the cable TV providers towards selling this sports tier. And they'll have a financial incentive to happily do so. Which will hopefully make it easier for them to swallow promoting a service that is built around what had previously been cable TV sports exclusives.

THERE ARE A LOT OF WAYS TO COVER A CLOSED-DOOR MEETING. THIS IS NOT THE APPROACH I WOULD HAVE CHOSEN
I have written quite a bit about the challenges of writing about WGA/SAG-AFTRA strikes. The guild members in general are very skeptical of industry journalists and most AMPTP executives are notoriously press-shy. So getting a clear handle on the behind-the-scenes wranglings is a stressful endeavor, and I wrote about that a bit last week when I provided my take on the current state of negotiations:

So that's where we are today, at least that's where we are from my perspective. In theory, both sides are in a press blackout during negotiations. Lots of details get leaked by various participants, but it's often hard to tell whether or not a source really knows what they're talking about or if you're being spun in some direction.

Modestly speaking, I have broken some news and posted some behind-the-scenes exclusives. But as proud I am of my work, I have discarded many more stories than I have published. In some cases, I just wasn't comfortable with the level of honesty I felt I was getting in some of the interviews. And there were times when I felt as if I had a good story, but it was clear someone was trying to spin me. And if I couldn't get some sort of counterpoint from the other side, I had to let the story go.

I have no idea who the sources were for the piece The Wrap's Sharon Waxman posted a bit earlier tonight. But if it were me, I think I would have went with a different headline than the provocative "WGA Leaders Meet Tearful Showrunners Ahead Of Renewed Strike Talks With Studios."

I'm not going to try and parse out what I think may or may not be factual in the piece. I certainly heard from people on the WGA side made a point of letting me know the piece after it was posted that it mischaracterized the meeting. Someone who direct knowledge of what was said in the room declined to provide specifics when we spoke a bit ago. But they were clear that while everyone's emotions are frayed at this point in the strike, using the meeting as a way to illustrate some deeper spilt in the guild was “bullshit!”

"Are some people pissed that we don't have a deal yet? You bet," a former WGA board member recently told me. "Are there people who think they could do a better job? Sure, look at the personalities you're dealing with. We're all used to problem solving and this is an existential problem. There are also some subset of SR's who would like us to settle. Some for selfish reasons and in some cases there are legitimate worries about the pain this is causing. But that doesn't mean we're on the verge of splitting the union in half or that a bunch of people are set to go it alone. I don't agree with everything the neg committee says. Hell, I don't agree with everything my wife says. But no one is getting divorced and we'll argue up until the moment when we face the studios. And then we're good."

The piece in the Wrap is problematical for several reasons. For one thing, if you're going to post a story that hints at deep disagreements inside the WGA the night before talks are set to begin again, posting this piece without context or without noting some of what may be going on at the studio side is bad journalism. You are essentially taking a side with that headline and with the way the narrative is presented.

For example, this paragraph, which seems ill-advised:

The WGA is demanding better pay, guarantees around artificial intelligence, streaming residuals and minimum guaranteed levels of staffing in writers’ rooms, among other concessions. The studios have responded but the guild has yet to offer a formal counterproposal. 

I said before that I have no intention of getting in the middle of things as negotiations prepare to ramp up again. That story in The Wrap didn't need to be written. And if you have to write it, you can at least frame it in a way that doesn't scream "click on me, I need more people to subscribe to my VIP service!"

THE MAGICAL MATH OF IMPAIRMENT CHARGES
If there has been one constant in the streaming TV industry over the past year, it's been the wave of content purges that have taken place on the various streamers. 

A streamer removes a number of titles from the service, then claims what the companies describe as an "impairment charge." Which is an accounting term used to describe a drastic reduction or loss in the recoverable value of an asset. When Disney removed a number of titles earlier this year and claimed a $1.3 billion impairment charge, they were claiming the value of the assets (in this case, TV shows and movies) lost $1.3 billion in value. There have been similar moves (and impairment charges) from Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount as well.

I started making some calls to see how this worked and one thing I quickly learned is that every economist or financial expert I spoke with was extremely skeptical of the massive valuations for this content. Although there is no way for anyone to challenge the valuations. The IRS doesn't dig into the numbers and there is absolutely no way to learn details of the content valuation process that led to the various impairment charges claimed by the media companies.

One source of their skepticism comes from the way in which the production costs of content is handled on a company's financials. 

Since the beginning of Hollywood (and this is all generally speaking), TV shows and movies were treated like any other asset at any other company in America. The project was produced and the cost of the series or movie was amortized over a number of years. But thanks to the 2017 tax bill, studios can now take advantage of what is known as "bonus depreciation," which temporarily allows companies to expense the costs of assets up front, rather than requiring them to amortize the costs over time.

That change in the tax law has provided a windfall for big American companies and a study from The Institute of Taxation and Technology estimated Disney saved more than $4 billion by taking advantage of bonus depreciation. 

Which makes that $1.3 billion impairment charge a bit perplexing. Most of the costs of the programming should have already been expensed up front, so removing the content would provide a limited financial hit. Foreign-produced programming can't take advantage of the bonus depreciation valuation, so that is certainly some of the total. But even with that caveat, how did Disney get to a $1.3 billion loss? 

Several analysts I spoke with about this were equally confused, although there was some speculation that there were likely some higher-than-expected theatrical losses buried in the total. And there are a lot of ways to do that. For example, let's say that for accounting purposes, the licensing cost of a film to a streamer is tied in part to its box office. And that's pretty typical, even with titles in which the studio licenses the title to its streamer. A smaller box office means a lower-than-estimated licensing fee. Which can then be booked as a "loss."

I bring all of this up primarily to remind you that when you see this impairment charges being mentioned by the studios, those losses can reflect a lot of different things. Some more legitimate than others. 

ODDS AND SODS
* The Australian true-crime documentary Last Stop Larrimah premieres Sunday, October 8th, 2023 on Max. Click here to see the trailer.

* AMC has picked up Dark Winds for a third season. This is one of those shows that is off most people's radar, but it is a show that is worth tracking down.

* Craig Of The Creek preschool spinoff series Jessica's Big Little World premieres October 2nd on Cartoon Network.

* Season two of The Ghost Town Terror premieres Thursday, September 28th on the Travel Channel.

* Vanna White has signed on to remain on Wheel Of Fortune for an additional two years, Sony Pictures Television announced Tuesday. The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but White had been seeking a substantial increase over the $3 million per year she is making this season.

TWEET OF THE DAY


WHAT'S NEW TODAY AND TOMORROW:

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19TH:
* Becoming Frida Kahlo (PBS)
* Celebrity Name That Tune Season Premiere (Fox)
* I Can See Your Voice Season Premiere (Fox)
* Kountry Wayne: A Woman's Prayer (Netflix)
* Name That Tune Season Premiere (Fox)
* The Saint Of Second Chances (Netflix)

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20TH:
* American Horror Story: Delicate Part One (FX)
* Avoidance Series Premiere (Britbox)
* Hard Broken Series Premiere (Netflix)
* Marvel Studios' Assembled: The Making Of Secret Invasion (Disney+)
* Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal Season Two Premiere (Netflix)
* Naked Attraction Series Premiere (Discovery+)
* Skin In The Game With Dr. Ibram X. Kendi Series Premiere (ESPN)
* The D’Amelio Show (Hulu)
* The Super Models (Apple TV+)

Click Here to see the list of all of the upcoming premiere dates for the next few months.

SEE YOU WEDNESDAY!

If you have any feedback, send it along to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and follow me on Twitter @aysrick.

Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Monday, September 18th, 2023. 

WGA/AMPTP TALKS RESUME ON WEDNESDAY
I've received a lot of questions about this today, with various readers wanting to know if I'm optimistic this latest round of talks with lead to something substantive. 

My snarky answer is "Yes, eventually." But it's also a fairly accurate take. I don't believe anyone knows at this point where we'll be next week. But from talking to plenty of people on both sides of the negotiations, I can tell you that nearly every person has the same sense of where we're at. Both sides want to make a deal, but neither side is particularly optimistic that the other side is willing to honestly negotiate. 

Which, given the normal state of strike negotiations is....normal?

ANOTHER ARGUMENT AGAINST MINI-ROOMS
The Ankler has a piece from an unnamed showrunner who argues the current system of mini-rooms/development rooms/pre-greenlight rooms isn't just bad for writers, it's bad for television:

Pre-greenlight rooms ARE a waste of money. They’re a waste of money because they don’t do the very thing they’re supposed to do. Theoretically, the pre-greenlight room’s purpose is to generate the material that will enable the network/streamer to make the decision of whether to order a television show. And that decision is based on whether the show will be any good — stop laughing! — based on the material generated by the pre-greenlight room.

The problem is that the work done by a pre-greenlight room is about as indicative of whether a show will be good as an MRI is indicative of cancer and how to treat it: You get some useful information, sure, but not the complete picture. And pre-greenlight rooms leave out a lot of the picture.

Because I believe in respect for writers (a current Hollywood oxymoron, if I ever heard one), I don’t normally say this, but if I can take you into my confidence for a moment, I’ll let you in on a little secret: There are three things at least as important for a TV show as the pilot script: Casting, casting, and casting. Picture Breaking Bad without Bryan Cranston. Imagine Succession without, well, the cast of Succession. Can you see anyone other than Emilia Clarke playing Daenerys Targaryen in Game of Thrones?

This is an argument I wish writers would have been making more forcibly over the past few months. Sure, the changes writers are asking for would make things better for writers. But it would also make production more cost-effective, which is also a good thing for streamers. Business affairs executives love cost-plus spending because at least in theory, it lessens the upside for creatives after a success and that should leave more on the table for the company.

But cost-plus productions (where the streamer pays a percentage of the budget fee to buy out some of the rights) inflates budgets wildly. It encourages dumb spending, because there are fewer consequences to people working on the show. And the way cost-plus deals are structured weirdly encourages over-spending, because that buy-out fee is often based on the approved budget. 

I have had more than one person tell me they believe streamers would come out ahead financially dumping cost-plus productions and just paying the old-school residuals. I have no idea whether or not that's true, but the fact so many people in the industry believe it's the case should tell you something.

And you can make a variation of the same argument with mini-rooms. Sure, you're saving money on writers and some of the infrastructure by shaving what you spend on writers during the production process. But even most studio executives will concede not having a writer on-set can often impact the quality of the final product. So saving that money is short-sighted and that's the argument studios are most likely to appreciate: "this scheme is costing you money. If even one or two shows per year were improved enough to give the show a second season, you've now made back what you saved with the mini-room!"

Studios (and privately, some showrunners) are right when they argue that some showrunners want to do it all themselves. I suspect in most case they are wrong - look at any Tyler Perry comedy and ask yourself if it would be better with another set of eyes. But there are ways to structure the MBA so that while a showrunner can opt to have a mini-room or no room at all, the decision doesn't save the studio any money. Doing that will cut down on the current practice of studios "encouraging" showrunners to opt for small writers rooms in order to win a greenlight for the show.

WILL 'DANCING WITH THE STARS' REALLY PREMIERE NEXT WEEK?
So far this week, we've seen a number of shows delay their premiere, following pressure from the WGA over the decision to produce new episodes without assistance from their striking WGA staff. The guild argued (I believe correctly) that someone was still going to have to write parts of the show. And given that the WGA staff is on strike and anyone attempting to replace them would be considered a scab....well, you can see where this was going.

Drew Barrymore, Jennifer Hudson and The Talk have all opted not to premiere new seasons as planned this week. And even Bill Maher has announced he has decided against filming new episodes of his HBO talker. Although in typical Maher style, he couldn't quite bring himself to admit that he had made a mistake.

But questions still hang over next Tuesday's premiere of Dancing With The Stars. While the performers can appear on the show even in the midst of a SAG-AFTRA strike, the show does employ WGA writers to create a number of bits of material. While the show could cut out some of those transitions and pieces, it seems unlikely that NO one is doing any writing on the show.

As a result, the WGA has announced it will be picketing the show's taping, which premieres next Tuesday. So far, ABC has declined to address the issue, but it is going to be interesting to see if the picket lines have any impact on the performers.

I TRY AND STAY NEUTRAL ABOUT SOME STRIKE-RELATED ISSUES...BUT REALLY?!?!?
There are a lot of ways that studios get around having to pay creatives the money they are contractually obligated to receive under the current MBA. One example of that dance is with shows such as the Disney+ "reboot" of Daredevil. Which seems to be more of a season four of the series that once aired on Netflix. But by slightly changing the name and tweaking the show a bit, they can get out of the paying the higher writing, acting and producing fees that would come under a season four. It's similar to the way that Disney slightly changed the name and premise of their teen shows every couple of years in order to pretend they were in a fact newer, cheaper shows.



ODDS AND SODS
* Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson will join Rachel Maddow live in-studio on Monday, September 25th at 9 p.m. ET for her first live interview since testifying in the January 6th Hearings.

* The Food Network and Duff Goldman have signed a new multi-year, multi-project deal, which will include shows like the all-new holiday series The Elf on the Shelf: Sweet Showdown.

TWEET OF THE DAY


WHAT'S NEW TODAY AND TOMORROW:

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 18TH:
* Mrs. Sidhu Investigates Series Premiere (Acorn TV)
* My Little Pony: Make Your Mark (Netflix)
* Neighbours Season Premiere (Freevee)
* Superpower (Paramount+)
* The Chelsea Detective Season Two Finale (Acorn TV)
* The Academy Of Country Music Honors (Fox)
* The Big Bake Season Premiere (Food)

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19TH:
* Becoming Frida Kahlo (PBS)
* Celebrity Name That Tune Season Premiere (Fox)
* I Can See Your Voice Season Premiere (Fox)
* Kountry Wayne: A Woman's Prayer (Netflix)
* Name That Tune Season Premiere (Fox)
* The Saint Of Second Chances (Netflix)

Click Here to see the list of all of the upcoming premiere dates for the next few months.

SEE YOU TUESDAY!

If you have any feedback, send it along to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and follow me on Twitter @aysrick.

Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Friday, September 15th, 2023. 

I CAN ONLY HOPE NO HUMAN WROTE THIS STORY
Like any journalist with a healthy ego, I have a couple of Google News alerts set up to let me know when someone mentions this newsletter or my web site. A story recently popped up from a publication called NationWorldNews.com and all I can hope is that it is AI generated. Because if a human writer is responsible for "Hollywood Was Still Paralyzed After The Strike," the state of journalism is in more trouble than I thought:



On the upside...hey, I own a "portal."

THE DANGERS OF 'CUSTOMER LIFETIME VALUE' WHEN APPLIED IN THE STREAMING VIDEO WORLD
I've spent most of today having discussions about the differences between the old broadcast TV business model and the economics of streaming videos, especially SVODs. I hear a lot of "tech bro" complaints or how tech industry executives don't "understand" how Hollywood works. And while that might be true, it's just as certain that most Hollywood industry types (especially those not on the studio side) don't much understand the vast differences between how the TV business determined value in the linear world vs. how it's figured in the digital world. 

I apologize in advance to some of you, because this is an extremely abbreviated explanation and I know I am glossing over many important things. But this is a newsletter, not a novella.

In the old broadcast and cable world, making money and determining value was complicated, but the general outlines are easy enough to be understood by most civilians. You produce some programming, and hopefully it draw enough viewers to allow the network to sell enough ads at a price where there's a profit. And yes, there was network branding that played into that as well as things such as carriage subscription fees once cable television rolled out. But because viewers could turn the channel whenever they wanted, the primary driver for any network was to get as many eyeballs at any one particular time as possible. That is how you made money.

SVODs have a business model that couldn't be more different. Because your viewers have to make the conscious decision to subscribe (and to keep subscribing), the economic factors that matter the most are the ones that revolve around the cost of finding the subscribers and keeping them happy enough to pay up every month. Simple viewing numbers don't provide much clarity on those two important metrics. So the focus is on something called "customer lifetime value."

You figure out your customer acquisition cost (CAC) - or what you have to spend for each person who subscribes - and measure that against the customer lifetime value and you have a pretty good metric to use to help determine how much you should be spending on everything from salaries and marketing to content production and overhead.

Simply put, the customer lifetime value is the total worth of each customer throughout the life of your relationship with them. That includes all sorts of data points, ranging from how long each subscriber is likely to stay before churning off, the price they're paying each month, etc. If you can accurately figure that out, you can compare the customer acquisition costs to the customer lifetime value and use that to help you predict a wide variety of future business decisions. 

It's not just whether or not you'll be profitable, but it helps you to make all sorts of related strategic decisions.  If accurate, it gives you a bird’s-eye view of your marketing expenses, efforts, campaigns, and strategies. You can use it to balance short and long-term financial goals. You can figure out which spending is bringing the best return and where to focus future efforts.

It can also help you identify high-value customers. In the case of SVODs, that means customers who are likely to stay subscribed for a long period of time. 

The related side of this is that you can also determine which decisions might help that overall customer lifetime value. Increasing that CLV at a rate lower than you are increasing spending is basically increasing your revenue stream and your profits.

When applied correctly, that CLV number can be used to help determine what content is most valuable to the bottom line. For instance, a show that draws in an above-average number of new subscribers (which lowers customer acquisition costs) would have more value to a streamer than another series that generates five times the views, but many fewer new subscribers. And as you can imagine, there are all sorts of variations of this equation.

The problem at a lot of companies (Warner Bros. Discovery, I'm looking at you), is that it can tempting to tweak the equations in order to justify business decisions you've already decided to make.

In the abstract, CLV is determined by this equation:

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) = (ARPA × Gross Margin)÷ Churn Rate

In other words, you estimate the average revenue per account by the gross margin and divide by the estimated subscriber churn percentage each month. 

But while that formula sounds straight-forward enough, if you are wrong in any assumption, your bottom line can quickly go sideways.

Let's say that hypothetically you're a media company that has two subscription streaming services that are both somewhat complimentary but still competing with each other for subscribers. Company executives could decide to combine the two services and assign a series of values to the move that would end up lowering the customer acquisition costs while also lowering the churn rate. That would create a larger potential revenue stream and that company could spend extra money on content and marketing based on that estimated increase in revenue.

The problem is that if you spend the money before you learn whether or not your decision to combine the services resulted in the increases you anticipated, you are somewhat screwed if it turns out your strategy was wildly optimistic. You've now spent money on programming your business model can't support right now. And now you have to figure out how to "right-size" your bottom line.

This is just one very simplified example. But it also helps explain some of the business decisions you are seeing now in the streaming video business. Yes, the streaming business will never deliver the gross margins of the traditional linear TV business at its peak. But the economic problems are not the result of smaller gross margins. Instead, they are mostly caused by executives making strategic decisions that turned out to be not the wisest moves they could have made.

This is also why I try and counsel writers, actors, directors and other creatives to not become laser-focused on raw viewing numbers. Yes, there an indicator of possible success. But the bottom line in streaming is much more complicated than measuring eyeballs.

ODDS AND SODS
* Kate Lindsay describes her Embedded newsletter as "an essential guide to what's good on the internet," and basically what that means is that she does a great job of highlighting people and trends you should know. I was fascinated by her piece on 23-year-old Kelsey Russell, who has built a following reading and discussing stories she finds in that day's New York Times.

* Former TBS and TNT GM Brett Weitz has been hired to be head of content, talent, and brand sales at X. Carrie Stimmel, who had previously been chief growth officer for NBCU’s Olympics ad business, is also joining X as its its global agency leader.

* The 4-H has teamed up with Netflix's Spy Kids: Armageddon to launch new learning platform Clover.

WHAT'S NEW TODAY AND THIS WEEKEND:

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 15TH:
* A Million Miles Away (Prime Video)
* Come Fly With Me (Hallmark Movies And Mysteries)
* El Conde (Netflix)
* Elevator Game (Shudder)
* Heels Season Two Finale (Starz)
* Inside The World's Toughest Prisons Season Seven Premiere (Netflix)
* Lang Lang Plays Disney (Disney+)
* Love At First Sight (Netflix)
* Love After Lockup Season Premiere (Netflix)
* Master & Apprentice: A Special Look At Ahsoka (Disney+)
* Miseducation Series Premiere (Netflix)
* Rotting In The Sun (Mubi)
* Surviving Summer (Netflix)
* The Club (Netflix)
* The Last Drive-In With Joe Bob Briggs: The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon (AMC/Shudder)
* The Latin Music Revolution: A Soul Of A Nation Presentation (ABC)
* Wilderness (Prime Video)
* Written In The Stars Series Premiere (Prime Video)

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 16TH, 2023:
* All Rise Mid-Season Premiere (OWN)
* Craft Me A Romance (Great American Family)
* 48 Hours Season Thirty Six Season Premiere (CBS)
* How She Caught A Killer (Lifetime)
* Love & Marriage: Huntsville Season Premiere (OWN)
* Notes Of Autumn (Hallmark)

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 17TH, 2023:
* Building Roots (HGTV)
* Gold Series Premiere (Paramount+)
* Halloween Wars Season Premiere (HGTV)
* One Night Stand Murder (Lifetime)
* Psycho: The Lost Tapes Of Ed Gein (MGM+)
* Relative Race Season Twelve Premiere (BYUtv)
* 60 Minutes Season Fifty-Six Season Premiere (CBS)
* The Gold (Paramount+)
* Yellowstone Broadcast Series Premiere (CBS)

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 18TH, 2023:
* Mrs. Sidhu Investigates Series Premiere (Acorn TV)
* My Little Pony: Make Your Mark (Netflix)
* Neighbours Season Premiere (Freevee)
* Superpower (Paramount+)
* The Chelsea Detective Season Two Finale (Acorn TV)
* The Academy Of Country Music Honors (Fox)
* The Big Bake Season Premiere (Food)

Click Here to see the list of all of the upcoming premiere dates for the next few months.

SEE YOU MONDAY!

If you have any feedback, send it along to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and follow me on Twitter @aysrick.

Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Thursday, September 14th, 2023. 

TONIGHT'S NEWSLETTER, TAKE TWO
Just as I was finishing up tonight's newsletter, came this update on the WGA/AMPTP negotiations, courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter's Leslie Goldberg:



Now nothing exemplifies the weirdness of this strike more than the fact The Hollywood Reporter apparently received an exclusive on this news. So I am interested in seeing what the WGA says when they release whatever statement is likely to come out ahead of a meeting.

But aside from that, while everyone should see this as a positive step, the two sides still seem to be pretty far away from making a deal.

It has taken a couple of weeks for even a proposal to restart negotiations to be announced and based on what I have heard from studio sources familiar with the current negotiating strategy, there were several reasons and to no one's surprise, some of the reasons conflicted with each other.

* There was some hope that recent efforts to convince showrunners and other industry heavyweights that they needed to step into the negotiations in much the same way they did in 2008 would have some impact. As The Ankler reported yesterday, agents at CAA and WME had been making calls to their striking clients, advising them that WGA negotiators weren't listening to reason and were unwilling to negotiate in "good faith." So having a narrative out there that the negotiations weren't taking place because the WGA refused to counter the AMPTP offer might not be exactly factual, but it served a messaging purpose.

* All that said, I have had several AMPTP people tell me the last WGA proposal wasn't a "serious" one, and that because of that, the WGA needed to return with a more substantive offer. Since I haven't seen the most recent WGA proposal, all I can do is report their take. I have no way of judging the validity of their claim.

* As you have no doubt heard, AMPTP has a new PR firm handling issues related to the strike and according to several sources on the studio side, this pause took place in part to see if some carefully placed press coverage could put pressure on the WGA to be more flexible on some of their proposals. As I wrote yesterday, various industry executives have started delivering statements and public speeches that touch on the same points: we're all partners, we all want to get back to work, this strike is hurting everyone. There aren't any details about a proposal and that is a purposeful decision. Because details invite public discussion and potential blowback. The point of these statements is to make it sound as if the studios are reasonable stewards of Hollywood and really want to make a deal.

* But the biggest reason is that AMPTP members have been wrangling behind the scenes on what issues they should prioritize and which ones can be negotiated away. "It's like trying to herd a room full of cats," one person who had listened in on a recent strategy call told me this morning. "Except each cat thinks the only thing that matters is what they want. And they don't want the same things as any of the other cats."

Aside from the painfully stretched metaphor, the explanation seems to track with what I've heard from other sources. Netflix is generally open to settling, but the big "red line" proposal the company has refused to address is one of the few that most of the other major parties think is doable. And that seems to be the case with multiple points. No one can agree on what is most important to them, much less how to structure a proposal that the WGA might see as a reasonable counterproposal.

I've also heard there have been some interesting side talks that might lead somewhere if all of this wasn't wrapped around a lot of ego and stubborness. "There are some CEOs who see softening their position as a sign of weakness," one high-level streaming executive explained. "They are genetically incapable of admitting they misjudged the situation. And I think we could settling the strike pretty quickly if they could find someone they could blame."

But that ego is tempered by a lot of quiet desperation on both sides. Most writers have suffered a financial hit it will take years to recover from. And most of the AMPTP members are facing financial challenges of their own, which will only begin to be solved once production is returning to a near normal level.

And not to make the situation feel even more dire, but let's not forget that once the WGA strike is resolved, the SAG-AFTRA strike will still be taking place. And then comes the big question. How long does that negotiation take and will writers be willing or able to work during an ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike?

So that's where we are today, at least that's where we are from my perspective. In theory, both sides are in a press blackout during negotiations. Lots of details get leaked by various participants, but it's often hard to tell whether or not a source really knows what they're talking about or if you're being spun in some direction.

I've heard a lot of conflicting rumors today from people who in theory should have a sense of the current state of negotiations. All I know for sure is that based on what I hear from people on each side, while there is some movement, I haven't heard anything yet that makes me hopeful that two sides are a sit down or two away from an agreement.

ODDS AND SODS
Plenty of other things took place today, but they were pushed out of the newsletter by the strike update info. WBD executives continue to claim that streaming content is "undervalued." Which I might be more inclined to believe if Max wasn't struggling with so many churn issues. Disney is at least exploring the sale of ABC and the ABC O&O TV stations, which is something that would have been hard to imagine even a year or two ago. And Rena Sofer is returning to General Hospital after 26 years....okay, that's a more niche piece of news.

WHAT'S NEW TODAY AND TOMORROW:

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 14TH:
* A La Carte (ALLBLK)
* As Luck Would Have It: Murder For Sale (LMN)
* Barbie: A Touch Of Magic (Netflix)
* Buddy Games Series Premiere (CBS)
* Dragons: The Nine Realms Season Premiere (Hulu/Peacock)
* Ehrengard: The Art Of Seduction (Netflix)
* No Demo Reno Season Premiere (HGTV)
* Once Upon A Crime (Netflix)
* Southern Charm Season Premiere (Bravo)
* Theater Camp (Hulu)
* Thursday Night Football Season Premiere (Prime Video)
* Thursday's Widows Series Premiere (Netflix)

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 15TH, 2023:
* A Million Miles Away (Prime Video)
* Come Fly With Me (Hallmark Movies And Mysteries)
* El Conde (Netflix)
* Elevator Game (Shudder)
* Heels Season Two Finale (Starz)
* Inside The World's Toughest Prisons Season Seven Premiere (Netflix)
* Lang Lang Plays Disney (Disney+)
* Love At First Sight (Netflix)
* Love After Lockup Season Premiere (Netflix)
* Master & Apprentice: A Special Look At Ahsoka (Disney+)
* Miseducation Series Premiere (Netflix)
* Rotting In The Sun (Mubi)
* Surviving Summer (Netflix)
* The Club (Netflix)
* The Last Drive-In With Joe Bob Briggs: The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon (AMC/Shudder)
* The Latin Music Revolution: A Soul Of A Nation Presentation (ABC)
* Wilderness (Prime Video)
* Written In The Stars Series Premiere (Prime Video)

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 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and follow me on Twitter @aysrick.