Podcast #1117: Network TV Scrambles to Fill Out Their Schedules

This week we discuss how the network TV programmers are dealing with the SAG and WGA strike. We also give you some alternative ways to deal with the strike. Plus we read your emails and take a look at the week’s news. News: Upcoming Hulu (No Ads) Price Change Disney to Release Genuinely Insane Blu-ray Box Set Featuring 100 Animated Films This Fall Amazon Says Its ‘Thursday Night Football’ Opener Was ‘Most-Streamed Game Ever’ Max Will Stream Live NBA, MLB, NHL Games For Free Through February With “Bleacher Report” Sports Add-On Other: WHAT REALLY HAPPENED TO MARANTZ Tear Apart Your House For $200 With This Rotary Subwoofer | Hackaday YOU Lost the Streaming Wars LUBA AWD 5000: Perimeter Wire Free Robot Lawn Mower Owner Quick Review LUBA AWD Series is the first and only Perimeter Wire Free Robot Lawn Mower that can handle complex lawns up to 5000 ㎡ (1.25 acres) with 75% slope (37°). MSRP $2,599  Since you guys talk about home automation, I figured I would tell you about my new toy.  I bought a Mammotion Luba robot lawn mower and it is awesome!  You don’t have to bury a line for your perimeter.  It uses GPS/RTK technology and you drive it around the perimeter of your lawn so it knows the area.  Then it mows.  It does straight lines and not just the random all over thing and you can alternate what direction it goes.  When it gets down to 15% battery, it just automatically goes to the dock and recharges and then continues where it left off after.  It has a motor on each wheel so it is all wheel drive and durable and heavy so it can climb up to 37 degree grade of a hill.  It also looks like a formula one race car.  If it starts raining it will go back and wait too.  It is pretty sweet!  It mows my lawn 3 times a week while I am working and so no more allergies.  I do the edging and weed eating once every other week and that is it.  Automation!  Love it! Jason Petty The SAG and WGA strike continues The SAG and WGA strike has been going on for a couple of months now. Have you noticed anything missing? If you haven’t, you're not the only one. Negotiations broke down shortly after the strike started but this week they have started up (Writers Guild Says Negotiations Set to Resume Wednesday). In the meantime networks have come up with a strategy to get you through the TV season and we have some ideas as well. This show is in place of our yearly new Fall TV preview. Bill Maher was slated to bring his show back without the writers but has since put that idea on hold since negotiations have started up.  Good idea? Should he just go for it? (Bill Maher Becomes First Host to Make Late-Night Return Without Writers) CBS decided to start broadcasting its premier episode of Yellowstone. It originally debuted on the Paramount Network back on June 20, 2018 and got 6.6 million viewers for CBS. When you consider that brand new episodes of The Equalizer, wish was in the same time slot last year, garnered 6.47 million viewers last season. This may not be a bad idea! Disney announced that 10 Monday Night Football games will be broadcast on ABC and ESPN. ABC had planned to run two hours of Dancing With the Stars from 8 p.m. - 10 p.m. on Mondays, with new reality spinoff The Golden Bachelor airing at 10 p.m. The network has decided to pair The Golden Bachelor with nine-year-old sibling Bachelor in Paradise to fill Thursday primetime, while DWTS will move to Tuesdays, starting September 26.  The MNF average audience was 22.6 million viewers across ESPN, ESPN 2 and ABC for its season-opening matchup. Which was a record. ABC's entire Thursday night lineup consists of game shows: "Celebrity Wheel of Fortune," "Press Your Luck" and "The $100,000 Pyramid." The ABC has no new scripted programming on its fall schedule. On Fox Gordon Ramsay will work double shifts with shows airing on two nights. Survivor and The Amazing Race moving to 90-minute episodes this fall If you are missing late night hosts, they have created a podcast for you. Jimmy Kimmel, John Oliver, Seth Meyers, Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Fallon. They are planning to release 12 episodes with the guys talking about their time in Hollywood with some comedy bits thrown in. . Three streamers are in good position to weather the strike according to Forbes from the article: Discovery+ (Now Max) Which one is in the best shape? That appears to be Discovery+ (which recently merged with corporate sibling Warner Bros.’ HBO Max to become the megastreamer Max), and that makes sense. Before the merger, Discovery+ was known for its unscripted content, reflecting the Discovery family of cable brands from TLC to HGTV to Food Network, which is relatively cheap to produce and easy to make a lot of. Ninety-five percent of Discovery+ content is unscripted, according to Parrot’s research. Peacock Ranked second is NBCUniversal’s Peacock—40% of its content is unscripted. With rights to Bravo hits like the Real Housewives franchise and Vanderpump Rules, Peacock is well situated to thrive without new scripted content. To wit, the recent Vanderpump season 10 reunion part one drew 514,000 households when it was released on Peacock on May 25, according to Samba TV, with a Bravo audience of 1.1 million households. So there’s clearly an appetite for such shows even well into their runs. Paramount+ Paramount+ had the third-highest level of unscripted fare, 35%. Fully a fifth of its viewership comes from unscripted programs, driven largely by mega-hit RuPaul’s Drag Race, which also airs on Hulu, and CBS programs such as Survivor. What about the Emmys? The Television Academy and Fox TV, which was scheduled to air the show this year, initially kept the original Sept. 18 show date in place, with hopes the strikes would end quickly. But with no realistic prospects for resolution, Fox and the academy decided in mid-August to change the show date to Jan. 15, 2024 The new date looked a long way off when it was scheduled, but Emmy organizers may have to face the prospect that the strikes could still be going on in January. Writers have currently been off the job for 4 1/2 months, the actors for two months. The stoppages spilling into next year would make them historically long, and go well past initial predictions. Prolonged strikes could mean another Emmys postponement, or a show transformed into a glorified news conference, as happened with some awards during the pandemic. Our Picks for rewatching or watching for the first time if you missed it. Community - Six seasons of gut busting laughter! If you only watch a couple of episodes don’t miss the paintball episodes Bosch - Seven seasons. A crime procedural based on the best selling novels by Michael Connelly.   Chuck - Five Seasons. When a computer geek inadvertently downloads critical government secrets into his brain, both the CIA and the NSA assign an agent to protect him and exploit his newfound skills. White Collar - Six seasons. A white-collar criminal agrees to help the FBI catch other white-collar criminals using his expertise as an art and securities thief, counterfeiter, and conman. Castle - Eight seasons. A suave, best-selling author teams up with a strait-laced detective to solve crimes in New York City.