On this week’s TV news link roundup: pilot season mad-dash, the Sopranos final sequence by its director, a cable victory lap, some YouTube garbage and ABC Family targets a new buzz word.
Tight Production Schedules Put Pressure On Pilot Quality
An interesting look at the mad-dash of pilot season, especially since pilots are being ordered later and later.
All networks, particularly ABC and CBS, were again way behind in their pickups, compressing the time for staffing, casting and producing the pilots.
Let’s be honest here. Network pilots have never had that much lead-time to begin with. It’s always been an insane game of last-minute reshoots and deliveries. There’s a reason pilots have often (if not always) been considered a show’s weakest episode. That is, until “they” run the concept into the ground by season five.
The crazy news of the article however comes from the opening date of Upfront Week: May 11. Yes, that’s hell-a early and “the earliest in at least a decade”. Good luck to post-production.
Eight years after it aired, David Chase explains how he created the excruciating tension of the last Sopranos scene
It was my decision to direct the episode such that whenever Tony arrives someplace, he would see himself. He would get to the place and he would look and see where he was going.
Spoiler alert: he doesn’t say what happens after.
Although not directly related to the show’s writing per se, it is still worth the gander. Definitely a must-read if if you care even just a bit about the visual component of this historical HBO show.
And speaking of HBO…
At the Head of the Pack, HBO Shows the Way Forward
The NY Times rocked it with an in-depth look at the inside of HBO’s current programming direction. Watch and read as Richard Plepler, HBO’s CEO, makes a victory lap.
Interesting, isn’t it, that at a time that’s been called the most competitive moment in our industry’s history, we have, in my opinion, the best array of content in our history.
Best array of content in your history? While HBO’s 2015 series are certainly more popular while airing than the ones from the 2000s, I’m not sure the quality and endurance compares. The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, Rome, Deadwood, Carnivàle and The Wire just called. And it was a weird conference call.
The piece also states that back in 2007/2008 “[HBO’s] content cupboard was bare, and rival TV executives openly referred to the cable network as HB-Over.”
Was “HB-Over” an actual thing? Well, yes. In fact, it came from this previous NY Times piece where Showtime’s chairman and CEO Matthew C. Blank was quoted:
HB-Over. I’ve heard that term used for HBO both outside and inside our network.
Tough pill to swallow now that Starz has taken Showtime’s second place in the premium cable world. Woops.
It’ll be interesting to see how CBS competes with HBO Now’s (nearly) independent streaming service.
Seinfeld calls YouTube a ‘giant garbage can’
Although Seinfeld was joking, he was in fact touting his Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee arriving at Crackle.
When you get to a certain point in the business, what a man is looking for in a network is the same thing he’s looking for in his underwear. He’s looking for a little bit of support and a little bit of freedom. And that’s exactly what Crackle offered.
You can tell how much he respects online content. I think he’s reached that rare apex of making people giving him money laugh as he openly mocks them.
ABC Family Doubles Down on Original Programming to Reach Young Women
Or as they call them, the “becomers”. Shudder.
In non-buzzy marketing words, they’re referring to young women between 14 and 29 “entering new life phases”. This is good news for the content side of things: the cable network is on the verge of announcing at the upfronts it will “double its original programming slate over the next four years”. ABC Family president Tom Ascheim also added:
The phone is the first smart TV. It’s an incredible source of video. We’re also embedding the social tools they love so much into the ABC Watch experience.
ABC Wat–Oh. For a second there I thought you were referring to Android Wear and apps for your wrist. You’re just talking about your VOD service. Gotcha. Actually, that makes me want to develop some kind of app for smartwatches. Maybe a crappy asymmetric viewing experience?
ABC Family is actually revamping its online viewing service this summer to increase mobile viewing. No surprise there considering that phones are now the way most 25-and-under watch video content.
And the AdWeek article is already talking about Generation Z. God help us.
