Too Much TV: Why I Am Still On Substack?

Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Sunday, August 31st, 2025:

AN ANSWER TO A QUESTION I HEAR A LOT
This newsletter is on Substack and I moved to the platform about four years ago. It was an easy choice for me, primarily because I could send as many emails as I wanted for free. At that time, I was sending out a weekly newsletter that consisted primarily of links to pieces I had published on my website. It wasn't especially successful, but given that each new email cost me money and I didn't have way to monetize it, I wasn't sure that I could afford to have it grow very much.

A lot has changed over the years. My weekly newsletter has become a Monday-Friday extravaganza which someone recently described to me as being "at the sweet spot between rambling and comprehensive." Which I prefer to take as a compliment. 

Being on Substack in 2025 is a lot less of a slam dunk decision that it was more than four years ago. The company seems to spend a lot more time on building out its social network than adding features to its newsletter project, which means it still lacks everything from a workable ad option to the ability to bundle various Substacks into one package.

But the biggest problem is that there are a growing number of people that don't want anything to do with Substack because of what describe as its "Nazi Problem." Read this piece if you're not familiar with the controversy, but it's an issue that threatens to impact my bottom line in ways I can't predict. I regularly have readers tell me they would pay for a subscription if I weren't on Substack and ask why I haven't moved to one of its rivals.

My glib answer - and one that is basically truthful - is that if you are truly concerned about patronizing a platform that hosts Nazis, you probably shouldn't have a YouTube account either. But I get their point. Unlike YouTube, there are alternatives to Substack.

So why haven't I moved yet? (And I consider it on a weekly basis).

The honest answer is a financial one. Once the Google search traffic disappeared, this newsletter became my primary source of income. And for all of its faults, Substack offers some things I can't replace. At least not a price I can afford.

Between all of my newsletters, I send out a LOT of emails over the course of a month. And since the majority of my newsletters are free, I can grow it without it costing me anything. That's why I don't have a paywall up for my nightly newsletters. Getting new people to read it is the best way to grow the audience, and keeping it free allows me to do that without worrying about the costs.

Shifting everything to one of the Substack rivals, where I would have to pay an enterprise rate up front....let's just say it's a lot of money. Thousands a month. And as much as I love and appreciate all of my paid subscribers, there aren't enough of them that I can afford to absorb that cost without drastically impacting my income. I honestly don't think I could afford to do this.

But the second factor is Substack's recommendation engine. Yes, the standard recommendations Substack sends my way are useful, but not in a groundbreaking way. I keep track of every person who signs up for the free newsletter and then when someone upgrades to the paid version, I look to see how they originally found my newsletter.

Less than one percent of the free subscribers who came here via a Substack recommendation eventually upgrade to a paid subscription. That percentage goes up to around 5-6% for people who found me through Google or an outside source. But because Sustack has a healthy number of like-minded entertainment industry newsletters, most of which are paywalled, the percentage of free subscribers who upgrade to paid after being recommended by one of those newsletters averages around 14-16%. I suspect it's because they are already interested in the topic and are accustomed to paying for it.

That is a massive pipeline to walk away from, especially given the difficulties of convincing readers to pay for a subscription for any newsletter. I have racked my brain trying to come up with an alternative option and short of launching a cheesy "GoFundMe to move off Substack," I don't see an alternative right now.

I respect anyone who says they don't want to give money to Substack. Although I would mention it's probably hurting me more than it's hurting those VC-backed Substack weasels at corporate. 

I hope this answers your questions about Substack and if this more than you wanted to know, I apologize. But one of the great things about doing this is being transparent and that is what I am trying to do every day with this newsletter.

YOU READ ABOUT 'ANDOR' IN THE MOST UNEXPECTED PLACES
I am sure that when the powers that be at Disney+ gave a greenlight to the series Andor, they weren't expecting to end up with a show that has developed a life far beyond the world of entertainment. Whether it was intended to resonate with the world we live in now, it has had that impact on many viewers and I have a suspicion that 20 or 30 years from now, we'll look back on Andor in the same way we look back on The Sopranos or The Wire. They are all shows that transcended their origin stories and became something more than mere television.

I was just reading the fabulous Ana Marie Cox profile of Graham Platner in the New Republic and he is even more impressive than I had heard. He is running in the Democratic primary in Maine hoping to unseat longtime Senator Susan Collins and he has an impressive background. Four tours of duty, a longtime oyster farmer who everyone in the state seems to know even though he's never ran for public office. 

You should read the entire profile, but this part at the end caught my attention because it showed the impact Andor has had on people who know a bit about war and fighting the good fight:

After 12 hours together over two days, I’ve mostly given up taking notes while we ride to the AFL-CIO event in Brewer; I’ve too much material already. We start talking about science fiction again and Platner takes it upon himself to preach the gospel of Andor to the young comms guy who’s been babysitting me, the only person in the car who isn’t already a believer. Platner calls it one of the best television shows ever, alongside Battlestar Galactica and The Wire. “Somehow,” he says, “they convinced Disney to do an entire show about the realities of violent resistance.” Platner’s friend Chris, who served with him in Iraq, is driving and nods vigorously. “It’s not pretty. You might fight beside bad people. You need them.” 

I’ve written before that the left’s embrace of Andor is part of a recognition that things might get quite bad, that people are bracing themselves for violence somewhere over the horizon. I share my theory: “I think people are really preparing for Andor.”

They both chuckle. Almost in unison, they say: “People aren’t ready.”

“Take it from an infantryman.”

Platner adds, “You’re never ready. People think they are, but they’re not.”

He turns around in the front seat and stabs a thick finger at the notebook that I had set aside. “Write this down,” he says. “No matter which way it goes—taking the Senate or the fall of democracy—whatever the eventuality, the work remains the same.”

“You have to build things for people to access. You have to build the apparatus for change, even if no one else shows up. If you don’t build the movement, it won’t be there when the day for action comes. It’s thankless. People live their entire lives building something they may never see succeed. And you do it anyway.”

I'd would love to see this guy in the Senate. And what a smart distillation of the things that make Andor something special.

THIS IS WHY CNN CONTINUES TO STRUGGLE
And if you'd like an example of a profile that is more frustrating than enlightening, the New York Times is back with another one of their patented for puffy profiles that is 50% quotes from the person being profiled (in this case, John Malone) 45% quotes from people who talk about how much they admire him and 5% quotes that suggest a few random people don't believe he is perfect (in this case, Al Gore).

Look, I get that having access to John Malone is a big deal. He doesn't do a lot of in-depth interviews. But the New York Times continues to score access to media executives and then the reporter just allows them to talk. No context. No follow-up questions. This profile has a lot of quotes in it, but I suspect you won't learn much from reading it.

Although this paragraph gives a pretty good indication of why CNN's "reboot" to a supposedly non-partisan news network has been a failure:

Mr. Malone, who identifies as a libertarian, says in his memoir that CNN is now “a shadow of what its founder had envisioned,” though he adds that it still has “some of the best journalists in America.” One problem with CNN, he said, is that the network’s employees — whom he described as being largely “left of center,” — “express their opinions too much in their news.” He said Mr. Zaslav had been “unable to have any meaningful impact” in fixing what he viewed as the channel’s partisan tilt, a problem he said affected every news network.

“They can’t help themselves,” Mr. Malone said. “And so what you’ve got is a left-leaning, anti-Trump news service.”

Malone has made similar comments in the past, but no reporter has asked him the logical follow-up questions: "What is it about their coverage that makes them an anti-Trump news service?" "How should CNN be covering this administration?" 

And I'll also make the observation that the media world is full of people who describe themselves as "Libertarians" primarily because it would be inconvenient to be described as a conservative.

WHAT'S COMING TOMORROW

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 1ST:
* Ms. Rachel (Netflix)
* Nick Cannon Presents: Wild 'N Out Season Premiere (VH1)
* POV: Driver (PBS)
* Ruby & Jodi: A Cult of Sin And Influence (Investigation Discovery)
* The Chrisleys: Back to Reality Series Premiere (Lifetime)
* The People Vs. Michael Jackson (A&E)
* The Runarounds Series Premiere (Prime Video)

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 2ND:
* Bachelor in Paradise Season Ten Finale (ABC)
* Betrayal Season Three Premiere (Hulu)
* Bobby's Triple Threat Season Four Premiere (Food)
* Hard Knocks Season Twenty Finale (HBO)
* Return To Paradise Season Premiere (BritBox)

SEE YOU ON MONDAY NIGHT!