Acting Producing Writing

Watch this (Streaming) Space!

Like many, many other people, I had hoped that the end to the WGA strike would lead to a quick negotiation with SAG-AFTRA in its wake. Unfortunately, the AMPTP has evidently walked away from the negotiating table because learning nothing is… a power move? I’m not sure. Anyway, I am already speculating on what the future will bring, because even though we’ve heard a lot about how streaming isn’t the most lucrative business model ever…

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Various and Sundry

The Red Envelopes of Netflix Ride Off into the Sunset

I was all ready with another post for today when this popped into my inbox yesterday afternoon: You can learn more about the decision in these articles in The Hollywood Reporter, Gizmodo, and Reuters among others. Even though this decision makes perfect sense –I guess there have to be less than 2 million of us red envelope cinemaniacs left– it’s quite the bummer. For almost all of those 25 years, I have been the recipient…

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Producing

Nothing Gold Can Stay: Prestige TV Edition

Facebook is happily showing me posts from 10 years ago, which –more often than not– relate to The Broken Continent: a fantasy web series I and others produced back before you would instantly ask “what streaming service is the series on?” That would all begin to change in 2013 as the likes of House of Cards and Orange is the New Black made the industry take notice of “streaming” in ways it hadn’t. Honestly, considering…

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Various and Sundry

The Streaming Boom is Gone

I’m interested in the future of TV in an industry-watcher kind of way and, like many of you, my wallet also has a keen interest in what happens next, because it’s very much involved. Peter Kafka and Rani Molla over at Recode (part of Vox) delve into where the industry is going. Two big takeaways? First, the huge spending sprees investing in new content are at an end. Second, everyone is expecting some consolidation of…

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Producing

The Big Media Landscape of Fall 2022

For whatever reason, I get a lot of hits for my “Future TV” posts especially the one about the future of Netflix in the Fall of 2017. Well it’s a whole new world out there in media-land these days because Netflix is far from the only streaming game in town. Heck, traditional Big Media aren’t the biggest of companies in media these days either. To learn more, check out the graphic below and the article…

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Producing Writing

The Showrunner Role in Transition

Thinking of Monday’s post regarding Rod Serling, I’m continuing to read up about showrunners and industry trends in the wake of COVID. And if you’re wondering what a ‘showrunner’ of a TV show actually is, well, that’s changing too — as covered in this very long form article for Vice by Katharine Trendacosta. Perhaps from my time studying anthropology and perhaps my dayjob role of analyzing business processes, but I love detailed articles like these…

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Various and Sundry

The New Streaming Squid Game & the Contraction of Creativity

So based on last week’s post about the schadenfreude over the disruptor Netflix being disrupted, here’s a piece by Joy Press for Vanity Fair about the changing landscape of streaming TV. Now, once you read the article, you may find the title above a tad click-baity, but the article is predicting possible directions for the industry to go. Many of those directions look to be safe, one might even say traditional, avenues in terms of…

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Various and Sundry Writing

Ted Lasso and the Turn, Turn, Turns of TV Seasons

Note: This post and the related links abound in spoilers for Ted Lasso, season 2. This past weekend, my wife and I finally finished the second season of Ted Lasso, the comfort-food comedy-drama that is nominally about soccer, but really seems to be a backdoor effort to assemble a Gen X mixtape playlist whilst making equal numbers of jokes and pop culture references every single minute. The gentle yet foul-mouthed comedy of season one remains,…

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Various and Sundry

Schadenfreude, thy name is Netflix

So, the news that Netflix lost subscribers last week has generated more online articles this week than… well, new shows dropping on Netflix any given week (spoiler: it’s a lot). It seems many people are delighting in the fact that the streaming disruptor is now finding its plans disrupted. Now, I’ve been a Netflix subscriber going back to when they were only DVDs by mail. In fact, I still get DVDs by mail in addition…

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Various and Sundry

Netflix Says “Game On”

Evidently, this month had gotten away from me –at least in term of blog updates– so this is most definitely old news, but remember how I noted that Netflix was getting into podcasts? Well, apparently they’re getting into video games as well. Per the Vox/Recode article, they’re looking to start with games based on their existing properties (e.g. Stranger Things) and their hire of a former Oculus executive may bode a move towards virtual reality…

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