Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Wednesday, May 14th 2025:
DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS
My apologies for the errors in last night's newsletter. I accidentally sent out the draft version of the newsletter instead of the final edited version. I'm still not sure HOW I did it, but I promise to be more careful moving forward.
DAVID ZASLAV AND 'THE PETER PRINCIPLE'
While it's a business title that has nearly been forgotten, the 1969 Laurence Peter and Raymond Hull book The Peter Principle has a premise that still is incredibly relevant today, especially when you look at the executive suites of most major media and entertainment companies.
The book argued that the adage "The cream rises to the top" often becomes "The cream rises until it sours" in many companies. In other words, excellent performance is inevitably rewarded by promotions and greater opportunities. Until people rise to the level where they no longer perform their job effectively. Even worse, employees tend to remain in positions in which they are incompetent because mere incompetence is rarely sufficient to cause the employee to be fired.
Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav could be the perfect real-world example of the Peter Principle in action, and watching the company's Upfront presentation on Wednesday was a stark reminder that he and top advisor John Malone were consistently wrong about nearly every decision they made after considering merging Warner Brothers and Discovery Communications.
The two men desperately wanted the merger to take place, in large part because it was a business model that both of them understood and had been successful with in the past. You combine like-minded, undervalued assets, forge them into a larger entity, and strip away every ounce of discretionary spending and job overlaps you can find. Then, you are in a position to either sell off the new company for a profit or retain control and use the company's size and power to push back competition and raise margins.
But from the beginning, Zaslav and Malone made some very key miscalculations.
Because the duo were so convinced a deal would be wildly successful, they agreed to terms with AT&T that ensured the combined company would be strategically limited in what it could do for years to come. AT&T owned Warner Media and agreed to spin off the company and merge it with Discovery. However, the combined company took on around $55 billion in debt, $43 billion of it from AT&T. That debt forced Zaslav to immediately promise to immediately slash at least $3 billion worth of spending at the company and in the proceeding months and years that effort to lower the company's debt would come to dominate every move made by Zaslav and his executive team.
WBD would slash original content spend at both the company's linear networks as well as its streaming service. Which, in an indication that Zaslav still can't craft a coherent strategy for the company, revealed in today's upfronts that it is changing its name back to HBO Max. A move that I had been predicting for a while because it seemed like the logical endgame. Although I didn't predict WBD would announce the move a month after launching a color-changing rebrand of Max.
The streaming strategy of Warner Bros. Discovery had some problematic problems from the very beginning. Even before the merger took place, Zaslav told investors and the press that the streamer Discovery+ was going to go away. All of that unscripted linear TV content would move to Max and so would the bulk of Discovery+ subscribers.
But he and his advisors misjudged the audience. Most Discovery+ subscribers were just fine where they were and weren't interested in moving to the more expensive Max. And when the company included much of the unscripted programming on Max as well as Discovery+, it found the additional content not only made the Max interface even harder to navigate, but the shows weren't especially popular with Max's subscribers.
The company also wavered back-and-forth about the content strategy for Max. Zaslav and Malone believed the streamer should be a "destination" streamer, so they shut down some of WBD's smaller niche streamers and moved programming from channels such as TCM and CNN onto the streamer. Max announced in late 2024 that it was launching a B/R Sports tier on the service and eventually planned to put that behind a $10 paywall. Within a few months, the streamer reversed course, abandoned those plans, and decided instead to not make that programming available to subscribers on Max's basic plan with ads tier.
And then during Wednesday's rebranding announcement, Zaslav and his team acknowledged their strategy had been flawed from the beginning. And now the path forward was "HBO and some other stuff:"
This evolution has also been influenced by changing consumer needs, and the fact that no consumer today is saying they want more content, but most consumers are saying they want better content. With other services filling the more basic needs with volume, WBD has clearly distinguished itself through its quality and distinct stories, and no brand has done that better and more consistently over 50+ years than HBO.
At one point, WBD executives announced plans to roll out a stand-alone AVOD service, which would feature a number of FAST channels built around specific genres and WBD-owned titles. The company even pulled some high-profile titles off of Max in anticipation of that move, along with several seasons of programs that had yet to premiere. Within a few months, that plan was quietly discarded and those FAST channels were instead distributed across the various major AVOD services such as Freevee/Prime Video, Pluto, Plex and Tubi.
There is a great book to be written about the corporate missteps and miscalculations that have defined the short history of Warner Bros. Discovery. I'm not sure that anyone could have successfully integrated these two companies given the various financial and strategic challenges. But if the company does split apart again (as is being rumored), it will serve as a fitting coda for one of the biggest sad sack media mergers in history.
SOME OTHER NEWS FROM THE WARNER BROS. DISCOVERY UPFRONTS
Warner Bros. Discovery held its upfronts on Wednesday and here are some of the highlights:
* Discovery announced Dancing With Sharks, a Shark Week special hosted by former Dancing With The Stars co-host Tom Bergeron
* The Food Network is premiering two shows that sound like slightly reworked versions of previous programs. In Guy’s Flavortown Games, "two fearless chefs accept Guy’s invitation to the epic restaurant row at the heart of Flavortown Square. Their goal: to prove they have the cooking cred to prepare a winning dish in any type of kitchen imaginable—from an awesome smashburger in the cramped food truck to a Michelin-worthy dinner in the state-of-the-art kitchen of a fine dining restaurant." And Octavia Spencer will host Family Recipe Showdown, "a multi-generational home cooking competition that celebrates secret family recipes and traditions—where pride is on the line and the stakes are deeply personal as duos compete for a $10,000 prize."
* Vanity Fair and Dick Wolf are teaming up on a still-untitled unscripted true crime series for Investigation Discovery. That network will also premiere They Know What They Did, narrated and executive produced by Jennifer Love Hewitt, which "explores a group of interconnected individuals haunted by a murder from their past."
* And in what can only be described as the most horrific mash-up of unscripted IP in television history, HGTV will premiering Renovating The Bachelor Mansion, in which "former Bachelor and Bachelorette contestants who possess expert reno skills return to the iconic Bachelor/Bachelorette house to duke it out in various design challenges with the hope of winning a cash prize."
* OWN announced Heart & Hustle: Houston, "a new docuseries following a dynamic sisterhood of successful Black women living and working in the vibrant heart of Houston. These women are redefining what it means to be a boss, a wife and a mother, while navigating a labyrinth of unique daily challenges. Despite appearing to ‘have it all,’ they face insecurities and pressures to maintain a perfect image. Their unbreakable bond of friendship and support helps them to rise above the chaos, reminding them it’s okay to be ‘perfectly imperfect.’"
* TLC announces yet another 90-Day spin-off series, 90 Day: Hunt For Love, which sadly doesn't involve any actual hunting of the opposite sex. Instead, over two weeks, the cast will travel to Tulum, Mexico, to take part in an exclusive, singles-only retreat to meet, mingle, party, and hopefully find the one."
* TNT will premiere the mini-series High Value Target, which "tells the intimate story of two men at the heart of one of the 21st century’s most formative conflicts. In 2003, John Nixon, a CIA analyst, became the first American to interrogate Saddam Hussein. During their time together, Nixon began to understand the potential consequences of the invasion, humanitarian horrors and geopolitical turbulence that would follow Saddam’s deposing."
NETFLIX'S BIG, OLD-SCHOOL UPFRONT PRESENTATION
There has been so much news today that I am going to have to limit my coverage of the Netflix upfronts from today, although I'll be posting the various trailers and other news throughout the evening and will link to it in tomorrow's newsletter. But here are some of the highlights:
* Netflix announced a flurry of renewals: Bridgerton seasons five and six, Forever season two, Love On The Spectrum season four, Million Dollar Secret season two, My Life With The Walter Boys season three, Survival Of The Thickest season three, The Diplomat season four, and The Four Seasons season two.
* The streamer also announced some additional live events: a Katie Taylor vs. Amanda Serrano rematch fight on July 11th, a reboot of Star Search that will stream new episodes twice a week, and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell unveiled this year's two NFL Christmas Day matchups: the Dallas Cowboys at the Washington Commanders, and the Detroit Lions at the Minnesota Vikings.
* Netflix also unveiled some new series and movies: in the series All The Sinners Bleed, the first Black sheriff in a small Bible Belt community must lead the hunt for a serial killer. There is an un-titled comedy series starring Dan Levy, Laurie Metcalf and Taylor Ortega. The Denzel Washington and Daisy Edgar-Jones film Here Comes The Flood, "chronicles a bank guard plotting with a master thief to steal, the rise and fall of his relationship with a bank teller and a series of twists that unveil the con game at the center of it all." And Jamie Foxx stars in the film Fight For '84, in which "a new coach (Jamie Foxx) is brought in to rebuild the the US Olympic boxing team after it is tragically killed in a plane crash in 1980."
What struck me is that whatever you think of the respective visions of Warner Bros. Discovery and Netflix, they have two incredibly different takes on how to define streaming success in 2025.
ODDS AND SODS
* The children's program Not A Box premieres Friday, June 13th on Apple TV+
* The unscripted series House Of Fire premieres Tuesday, June 5th on BET+. The series follows the "relationships and rivalries of seven members of the modern-day ballroom dynasty House Of Mugler, as the family juggles their efforts to make a name for themselves. Viewers get an inside look into the intense rivalries that occur behind the scenes and each episode unpacks the drama, dreams and drive it takes to earn your spot, trophy by trophy, ball by ball."
WHAT'S NEW TONIGHT AND TOMORROW
WEDNESDAY, MAY 14TH:
American Manhunt: Osama Bin Laden (Netflix)
America's Most Wanted: John Walsh's Dirty Dozen (Fox)
Fred And Rose West: A British Horror Story (Netflix)
Mini Reni Series Premiere (Magnolia)
Rhythm + Flow: Poland Series Premiere (Netflix)
Snakes And Ladders Series Premiere (Netflix)
TMZ Investigates: What Happened To Justin Bieber? (Fox)
THURSDAY, MAY 15TH:
Bet Series Premiere (Netflix)
Doctor Odyssey Season Finale (ABC)
Duster Series Premiere (Max)
Franklin Series Premiere (Netflix)
Grey's Anatomy Season Finale (ABC)
Haaland Breaking Ground (Viaplay)
Haaland Conquers England (Viaplay)
Love Death + Robots Season Premiere (Netflix)
Mermicorno: Starfall (Max)
9-1-1 Season Finale (ABC)
Overcompensating Series Premiere (Prime Video)
Pernille (Netflix)
Secrets We Keep (Reservatet) (Netflix)
SkyMed Season Three Premiere (Paramount+)
Thank You, Next (Netflix)
Vini Jr. (Netflix)
The Amazing Race Season Thirty-Seven Finale (CBS)
The Reserve (Netflix)
The Secret Lives Of Mormon Wives Season Two Premiere (Hulu)
Welcome To Wrexham Season Premiere (Hulu)
SEE YOU ON THURSDAY!
