Cordkillers 303 - Just Wild Speculation!
Could the coronavirus COVID-19 bring about home streaming of theatrical movies? Should Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon re-brand to re-focus? All this and more on Cordkillers! With Cordkillers producer Bryce Castillo.
This week on It's Spoilerin' Time: Better Call Saul (503), The Outsider (110), The Larry Sanders Show (302-303)
Next week: Locke & Key (105-106), The New Pope (109-110), The Larry Sanders Show (304-305), Westworld (301)
CordKillers: 303 - Just Wild Speculation!
Recorded: February 9 2020
Guest: Bryce Castillo
Intro Video
Uncorked
Primary Target
AMC Entertainment Hires Mark Pearson As Chief Strategy Officer
- AMC Entertainment (the movie theater business, which importantly for this conversation, is not connected to the AMC TV channel) hired former Fox TV exec Mark Pearson as Chief strategy officer. As Deadline puts it Pearson will "to lead strategy, business development, alliances and partnerships, including with streaming services worldwide."
- That on its own is interesting to think about BUT with Covid-19 shutting down theaters around the world SHOULD theater chains move fast and strike partnerships NOW?
- What if I could log onto the AMC theater website and buy a ticket to watch a current-run movie through a streaming service right now? "For a limited time due tot eh coronavirus" sure. BUT.....
How to Watch
With So Many Streaming Services, What Really Sets Them Apart?
- I struggle often with the complaint that there are "too many services". Because it rests on the idea that you have to get them all. To me this is a much better situation than we used to have where you could pay a lot to get almost everything whether you wanted it or not and a little more than a lot to get some extras.
- But I think an article from Wired may have illuminated the disconnect for me.
- I think of Netflix, Amazon and Hulu etc. as channels you can choose to subscribe to or not. It's a la carte. If they're worth the cost you get them if not, you don't. You set your TV budget and go from here. Prices for the services will adapt over time as people choose to subscribe or not en masse
- But many people view the services as "the replacement for cable." And complain when one replacement doesn't have everything they want.
- We're both wrong. Here's why
- Tyler Coates at wired: "For those who want limitless options, and have the cash to afford them, the market is heaven. But for those looking to pick a few essential services, what's on offer is a little … vague. Netflix, Hulu, Amazon—these services aren't Syfy or MTV or some other kind of channel, where the genre of programming is baked into the brand. Plus, there are already genre-specific streamers like Shudder (horror) and Crunchyroll (anime and manga). "
What to Watch
Black Widow trailer. Hits theaters May 1.
‘The Magicians’ to End After Season 5 on Syfy
- The Magicians Season 5 will be its last on SyFy. The Series finale is April1. (“Wynonna Earp” and “Van Helsing” are now the network’s two longest-running scripted offerings. Season 4 of the former and the fifth and final season of the latter are expected later in 2020.)
- Coming Up: Vagrant Queen, Resident Alien, Chucky, One inspired by Day of the Dead....
HBO will adapt the game "The Last of Us" into a TV series. The writer and creative director of the game, Neil Druckmann will write and executive produce. Chernobyl's creator Craig Mazin will be the show runner.
‘Kids in the Hall’ Revival Set at Amazon
- Amazon is bringing back Canadian comedy series Kids in the Hall for eight episodes. It will feature the original cast of Dave Foley, Kevin McDonald, Bruce McCulloch, Mark McKinney and Scott Thompson and will be executive produced by Lorne Michaels. Kids ran for 100 episodes on CBC starting in 1989, had the movie Brain Candy in 1996 and a 2010 miniseries called Death Comes to Town.
Pornhub is releasing its first non-adult movie
- Pornhub is releasing its first original video that is not itself porn, though it is about sex. Shakedown is a feature-length documentary about LGBTQ women and men from Los Angeles' lesbian strip club scene in the early 2000s. It was previously only available at the MoMA and Whitney Museum. The doc will show on a dedicated page where people can chat about it while they watch and the documentary's creator Leilah Weinraub will make weekly appearances. It will be free to watch until the end of March then head to the Criterion Channel and be for sale int he iTunes Store by summer.
Steven Spielberg's 'Amazing Stories' is now available on Apple TV+
"Home Before Dark" has a trailer out. It's about a 9-year-old who wants to be a reported like her Dad and a cold case in a small town. It comes to Apple TV+ April 3.
Starting in 2022 the PGA Tour Live will be included in ESPN+. Right now ESPN+ is $5 a month and PGA Tour Live is $10 a month.
Netflix approved Lost in Space for a third and final season to premiere in 2021. Showrunner Zack Estrin signed a multi-year overall deal to produce new series exclusively for the streamer.
Eyes On
Tom: 2 Fast 2 Furious
Bryce: Followers on Netflix
On the Lookout: Toon
Front Lines
Hulu's live TV service is finally available on the PS4
- Hulu's Live TV service is now available on Sony's PlayStation 4, joining YouTube TV as options to replace the now closed PlayStation Vue streaming TV service. Hulu's existing PlayStation app will be updated to give access to the Live TV features.
Fubo TV has added the MLB and NHL networks. It already carried the NBA and NFL networks. The Extra and Sports Plus packages have NHL now and MLB in the next few weeks.
YouTube TV Inks Deal for 19 Fox Regional Sports Nets With Sinclair, Drops YES and Two Others
- YouTubeTV and Sinclair have reached a permanent deal to keep 19 of Sinlair's 21 Fox Sports regional networks on the service. The two companies could not agree on terms to carry Fox Sports West and Fox Sports Prime Ticket, the LA RSNs that show the L.A. Clippers, L.A. Kings, L.A. Angels and Anaheim Ducks. There was also no agreement on the partially Sinclair-owned YES network which carries the New York Yankees.
Free ad-supported streaming service Tubi will appear in 30,000 hotel rooms through a deal with in-room entertainment platform Enseo. Enseo will offer Tubi in rooms at more than 20 hotels and resort brands with more to come.
Quibi is giving people a 90-day free trial in hopes they’ll actually sign up
- Quibi is giving people a 90-day free trial if they sign up for the service before launch day, April 6. The service will cost $4.99 with ads, and $7.99 without after the trial. Quibi will launch with 50 shows and movies, half of which consists of “daily essential” programming like "Fresh Daily" from Rotten Tomatoes, The Replay from ESPN and Around the World by BBC News.
Japan's public broadcaster sets its 8K schedule for the Tokyo Olympics
- Japan's NHK has set its schedule for 8K broadcasts of summer Olympic Games, which yes, are still scheduled to take place at this point. Viewers in Japan with the right equipment can get 8K broadcasts with 22.2 channel audio. No details on 8K broadcasts outside Japan have been released.
Dispatches from the Front
Tom, Brian & Bryce --
The conversation about the New Bob leading Disney got me thinking. I do consulting on training and development and interact with HR professionals who work in CEO succession - its' actually a big field. From my second hand knowledge, the likelihood that Chapek is coming in as a patsy to take a fall for tumbling Disney stock is counter to the whole field. While Brian painted an legitimate 'company politics' case, there are some legitimate reasons to promote Chapek and expect things to go well.
The first is a general principle that following a visionary CEO, its best to have a steward CEO - someone who can solidify gains through financial discipline and operational controls. Tim Cook is a great example. Chapek's background looks like he is another example, having increased revenue and profit margins for the parks, along with taking on consumer products before that.
Another factor is that while we are all looking at Star Wars and Marvel movies, both television and theme parks are more than twice the size of movies, with projected $27 billion in revenue for each and $12 billion for movies. I think it's easy for us to focus on the big media products, but Disney is still mainly in the business of getting people to consume content at home so that their kids scream to travel to the happiest place on earth.
Just some HR-centric thoughts about the New Bob and why I think Disney appointed him: solid manager of financials with experience in the biggest part of the business.
Cheers
- Joe
I don't know how much I can help with suggesting a podcast format since I've never done podcast, but maybe I can share how I listen to Spoilering Time.
1. Listen for shows that have complex character and plot points. I mainly want to find connections or plot points I missed.
2. Listen for shows that are the big popular watercooler shows. Spoilering Time is my virtual watercolor
3. Tend to only listen to the show segment of the show I am watching.
4. Brian mentioned watching Red Letter Media recaps of movies he kinda wanted to see. It is easier to get a 20 min recap than watch 2 hrs. This maybe is an audio vs video thing. Though I do that also with RLM at times, I do not do this with audio. I am more of an active listener with audio, but do more passive tv watching.
Have you checked out the format of Vanity Fair's Still Watching podcast? They have one show feed, they (usually) watch 1 show at a time, 1 ep per week and when that show is over, they just do another show in the same feed. Maybe a modified version of this format would help?
Peace and love,
- Mari
Hi guys. I found your recent discussion on the purpose of Spoilerin’ Time interesting and slightly scary. I’ve been a long time listener going back to the TWiT days and a Patreon supporter for years.
While I get a lot of the news that is discussed in the main show from other outlets - DTNS, Reddit, Twitter, etc. I enjoy the perspectives that Tom and Brian bring as well as their perspectives.
I listen to Spoilerin’ Time for similar reasons. For some shows I’ll listen to other podcasts for the deep dive hour plus long shows that analyze every detail. I will still listen to Spoilerin’ Time to hear Tom and Brian’s take and to continue the thread from season to season on what you all are thinking.
There are many times where I will not listen to the entire show if I’m not watching a show but I’m ok with that. The time codes and Overcast make it easier to skip to the parts that are interesting to me. I’ve even kept previous episodes for movies I haven’t watched for months until I do watch it (The Joker is an example where I didn’t want to spoil the movie but was interested in hearing your take after I watched it).
I like the mix of shows that you watch and am ok when shows drop off because interest wanes. We can feel when you aren’t interested in a show, so I don’t think being forced into a show is a good move going forward.
I understand the purpose of the discussion, but I hope that things don’t change too dramatically or in ways that longtime listeners/patrons lose out on the pieces we enjoy - a myriad of shows to choose to listen to you talk about, the banter and insight that we’ve come to love, and the rotation of shows that keep things fresh.
Cheers.
- Mike
Hey guys,
Listening to after talk I have to say I'm one of those Patrons in the "Spoilerin' Time is definitely not for me" that you theorized existed. If I could get a feed with just the main show and after talk, I'd subscribe to it.
I don't have time to watch TV, really, and a huge backlog, so I'm never caught up enough to listen. Once in a blue moon I will actually save a few episodes because we're actively trying to watch something recent (e.g. The Mandalorian), and I really want to hear your take on it, and I can see in the show notes you discuss it... But, yeah, that's so rare as to be statistical noise. In fact, I've completely lost the plot on the movie draft since you moved those updates to Spoilerin' Time, as I just automatically delete those episodes in PocketCasts.
I'm guessing I don't represent the typical subscriber, though... How many Patrons are subscribed to a show about watching What You Want, When You Want, on Whatever Device You Please when they don't have the time to watch anything!? But that's my two cents.
- Chris B
Gentlemen-
Enjoyed the discussion in After Talk this week. Just want to throw out how your shows are consumed in my household. No real suggestions likely here, but at least a little more data.
Cordkillers: I watch this weekly, usually Tuesday. On youtube rather than the Patreon feed, mostly so the first 90 seconds make sense.
After Talk: I generally watch this immediately after Cordkillers, off the Patreon feed.
Spoilerin Time: This is the segment that my wife watches with me, so I wait until we can sit down together. We skip through the shows/movies that we haven't seen - and sometime wait till later in the week so we've had time to catch up on the shows you're chatting about. If we get to before it shows up on youtube, I'll hit the video from the Patreon feed. (This means starting the link from patreon post, so it shows up in my history, so it's available on our TV's youtube app)
For me, Spoilerin Time is the most complicated of these to consume. Partly because we both watch it, as it is the most directly entertainment linked (the others fall my under my responsibility as household CTO - the CEO get summaries when relevant.) Skipping through the episode on the TV's Youtube app isn't the best, but it works. The method of getting the episode to the TV's Youtube app rates about the same.
Regardless of other changes, I'd love to hear if there is a better Patreon->Youtube (especially app based) workflow.
The discussion of multiple feeds isn't terribly relevant to me, since I'd likely grab the combined feed and go off that. I expect we'd still watch the Movie Draft (as this is a great proxy for a 'weekly box office news' show) and then jump to the shows we care about - same as now.
For reference, last November we'd watch 4 of the 6 show segments. This week, it's none. That's fine - just seeing shows on the docket each week is sometime nudge enough to get us to get them in the queue. Occasionally we'll love something enough to go back and watch you're segments on them - but generally we watch whatever we happen to be sync'd up on.
Looking forward to whatever changes you make - or don't.
- Joseph
Dear Employees,
After listening to the Spoilerin' Time discussion on Aftertalk 302, I thought I'd share how I view it. There have been many occasions over the years where I have not seen everything you cover in a week (especially movies) but still want to hear what you say about the things I *did* watch. This was frustrating in the old days, but since you started giving the time codes for each segment it works very well for me. I'm currently watching Better Call Saul and Picard, but I haven't gotten into The Outsider, The New Pope, or The Larry Sanders Show. I can listen to the opening and movie draft update (in season) and then skip to the segments I'm following. I think it would be about the same from my end to select the appropriate separate casts from my feed.
When you announced the Spoilerin' Project, I was excited by the idea of being able to go back and watch something like The Wire with your commentary, and I doubled my pledge. Since there don't appear to be enough people who really want this, is there any way that we could crowdsource some of this project and reduce the workload to get it started? I'd be willing to go back and listen to some really old shows and note timecodes if it would help.
Keep up the good work!
Your boss,
- Mike
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