Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Monday, November 11th, 2024:
ABC ANNOUNCES ITS MIDSEASON SCHEDULE
ABC announced its midseason/spring premiere primetime schedule and it's the type of lineup you might have seen twenty years, when the broadcast networks still weren't sure it made sense to waste a lot of resources early in the year.
There is only one new scripted series (the Tim Allen/Kat Dennings comedy Shifting Gears), some shows that first aired on Hulu (season two of Only Murders In The Building, The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives), the reboot of Extreme Home Makeover and a bunch of game shows.
Thursday, January 2nd:
8 p.m.: Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (series premiere)
9 p.m.: Only Murders in the Building season two (broadcast premiere)
Tuesday, January 7th:
8 p.m.: Will Trent (spring premiere)
9 p.m.: High Potential (new time)
10 p.m.: The Rookie (spring premiere)
Wednesday, January 8th:
8 p.m.: Shifting Gears (series premiere)
8:30 p.m.: Abbott Elementary (new time)
9 p.m.: Celebrity Jeopardy! (season premiere)
10 p.m.: What Would You Do? (season premiere)
Monday, January 27th:
8 p.m.: The Bachelor (season premiere)
10 p.m.: The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives (broadcast premiere)
Thursday, January 30th:
9 p.m.: Scamanda
10 p.m.: Perfect Wife: The Mysterious Disappearance of Sherri Papini (broadcast premiere)
Thursday, March 6th:
8 p.m.: 911 (spring premiere)
9 p.m.: Doctor Odyssey (spring premiere)
10 p.m.: Grey’s Anatomy (spring premiere)
Sunday, March 9th:
8 p.m.: American Idol (season premiere)
10 p.m.: The $100,000 Pyramid (season premiere)
SOMETIMES PEOPLE SPEAK THE QUIET THING OUT LOUD
I've long been critical of Hollywood's focus on stories based in the big coastal cities. There are plenty of stories worth telling that take place more than 100 miles from one of the coasts. I was reminded of this today reading a piece by The Ankler's Elaine Low about what impact the second Presidential term of Donald Trump might have on Hollywood. And this quote jumped out at me:
“I suspect studios and networks will take this as a sign to lean even more heavily into the red-state, middle America types of stories (aka the Taylor Sheridan fare) they’ve been asking for this past year,” says a separate writer and executive producer. “I worry this’ll mean a decrease in diversity representation both on- and off-screen.”
AAAAAAAAAAAArgh! I can't believe that in the year 2024, there are still so many Hollywood creatives who see Middle America as primarily red, white and ultra conservative. Some of that is certainly true, but I can guarantee it's possible to tell amazing, diverse stories set in Kansas City or Tucson or even Butte. The fact that so many people in Hollywood think of Taylor Sheridan's shows as the prototypical representation of Middle America says more about Hollywood's creative community than it does about Middle America.
And yes, Sheridan's shows certainly have a culturally conservative bent. But generally not at the hitting-the-audience-over-the-head level. Which makes me suspect that when people make comments like this, their primary exposure to Sheridan's work is from seeing a few clips of Yellowstone.
As an example, Sheridan's upcoming Landman (which premieres soon on Paramount+) does center on the oil industry. But it is not at all a kind representation of that business. What it does do is spend a lot of time showing working class people struggling to get ahead. Which strikes me more as an American story than a conservative one. But what do I know.
IT'S TOUGH TO BE AN INDEPENDENT JOURNALIST
I've been meaning to highlight this for a week, but I wanted to point you to an editorial from the founder of the film criticism web site Giant Freaking Robot. It's shutting down its web site and focusing on its YouTube channel. Because just like nearly every other independent entertainment news/criticism web site, has been decimated over the last year after Google decided to essentially stop pointing to them:
At the Google Creator Conversation Event I attended in October, I stood nearby as another independent Entertainment site owner tried to plead with a Google engineer, explaining that independent publishers don’t need much traffic. “You can keep giving most of it to the big media companies,” he said, “we only need a tiny bit of space to operate in. We’ll take anything! Right now we have nothing.” His pleas fell on deaf ears.
And so, we’re all going out of business.
I came close to experiencing PTSD reading the piece. AllYourScreens topped at around 3 million unique visitors a year ago and traffic dropped to around 80,000 at the low point in August. I've managed to increase that by working around Google search, but there's nothing like having 80 percent of your income disappear within a couple of months to make you reconsider your career decisions.
I've been lucky that this newsletter is making a bit of money and it's kept me afloat. But the most frustrating part of this for all of us in this sector is that for the most part, Google just swapped out links to our content with links to Reddit forums and AI-generated crap from overseas.
This is a good time to thank everyone for their support and a special thank you to those of you who opted for a paid subscription. This newsletter is a big part of my future and you help make it possible.
TWEET OF THE DAY
ODDS AND SODS
* What should CNN do under a Trump presidency? I wrote over the weekend that it needed to reboot itself and embrace populism.
* Reality Blurred has a great piece from Jenna Moore, story producer for the series Life Below Zero: First Alaskans and Life Below Zero on National Geographic. The network recently decided not to renew either series and she writes about that means for representation on television.
* An independent journalist wrote about what it's like to deal with legal threats when she doesn't have the support of an actual legal department to back her up. This is definitely something I worry about.
* The Food Network has extended its deal with Bobby Flay.
* Here is a rundown of all of today's global TV news.
* Netflix has renewed America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders for a second season, which will premiere in 2025.
* Marvel’s What If…? returns for a third and final season December 22nd. New episodes will debut daily for 8 days.
WHAT'S NEW TONIGHT AND TOMORROW
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 11TH:
* Spellbound (Netflix)
* The American Soldier (History)
* Uprising (Netflix)
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12TH:
* Adrienne Iapalucci: Dark Queen (Netflix)
* Beat Bobby Flay: Holiday Throwdown (Food)
* Christina In The Country Season Premiere (HGTV)
* Extreme Road Ragers Series Premiere (A&E)
* High Potential Fall Finale (ABC)
* In Cold Water: The Shelter Bay Mystery (Prime Video)
* Larger Than Life: Reign of the Boybands (Paramount+)
* Moonshiners Season Premiere (Discovery)
* Operation Undercover Series Premiere (Investigation Discovery)
* Rhythm + Flow: Brazil Series Premiere (Netflix)
* Road Wars Season Premiere (A&E)
* St. Denis Medical Series Premiere (NBC)
* The Curse Of Oak Island Season Premiere (History)
SEE YOU ON TUESDAY!