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Mar 22

TV Is Going on a Diet – Vanity Fair

Diet Comments Off on TV Is Going on a Diet – Vanity Fair

Its Wednesday, and my butt wont fit in any skinny bundles.

Hello from Los Angeles, where were scrutinizing our cable bills, waiting for Jim Gianopuloss car to drive through the Paramount gates, and handing out barf bags at the Nuart.

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Every month I pay a DirecTV bill roughly equivalent to the G.D.P. of Samoa for the handful of channels I watch most oftenHBO, TCM, FX, Bravo, and HGTV. My husband also watches a lot of sports and cable news, so we also pay for a bunch of channels where guys in fitted suits yell at each other. Along the way come freeloaders we dont ever watchsorry, Golf Channel. But that might change soon. Both Variety and The Wall Street Journal published in-depth, data-driven reports this week about how these kinds of giant cable packages are going on a diet, as media companies shut down the niche networks with smaller audiences to trim costs, and cable companies try to hold onto consumers deserting them for cheaper streaming services. Journal reporters Shalini Ramachandran and Keach Hagey analyzed the financial and viewership information for more than 100 TV networks, and found within some downright bargainsthe Hallmark Channel, for instance, is super-cheap for cable operators to carry considering the giant audience it brings in for its feel-good original movies. MTV Classic, meanwhile, is priced well above retail.

Matthew Broderick in The Cable Guy, 1996.

From Columbia/Everett Collection.

In a slightly more wonkish Variety cover story on the same phenomenon, Cynthia Littleton and Daniel Holloway quote Turner Broadcasting distribution president Coleman Breland on the effect niche channels have on the marketplace. So many of these networks do less than 100,000 viewers in total-day average; there just arent enough eyeballs to support them, Breland said. But theyre taking money out of the ecosystem. The Variety piece also has an exhaustive, color-coded chart that lays out all five of the slimmed-down cable options currently available. Alas, none contains the precise collection of shows I watch, so Ill just keep shaking my fist at the sky every month when my bill comes.

Complaining about your cable/satellite bill is, of course, a long-standing consumer practice. (If youre wondering what a cable bill is, its the thing your parents pay so you can have their HBOGo password.) Which is why I found this one little statistic in a Morning Consult study out this morning on the future of TV so interesting: 80 percent of Americans have a favorable view of Netflix, the biggest name in streaming, vs. 43 percent who have a favorable view of Xfinity, the biggest name in cable/satellite. Buffer that news.

The Motion Picture Association of America released its 2016 Theatrical Market Statistics report today, and there are some interesting nuggets in here. Overall, global box office grew 1 percent to $38.6 billion, while the market in the U.S. and Canada rose 2 percent to $11.4 billion. The average cinema ticket price in the U.S. increased by 22 cents to $8.65 in 2016, and moviegoing in the U.S. essentially stayed steady, with 1.32 billion tickets sold. Still, the M.P.A.A. wants us to know, Movie theaters continue to draw more people than all theme parks and major U.S. sports combined.

One thing that stands out is that per capita attendance is up among non-white audiences. The group the M.P.A.A. classifies as Asians/Other Ethnicities reported the highest annual attendance per capita, going to the cinema an average of 6.1 times in the year. And the movie that drew the most ethnically diverse audience, the M.P.A.A. says, was Disneys live action Jungle Book remake, a big-screen spectacle that starred an Indian-American newcomer (Neel Sethi) and an international cast of voice actors including Idris Elba, Bill Murray, Lupita Nyongo, Scarlett Johansson, and Ben Kingsley. Two other Disney movies, Finding Dory and Captain America: Civil War, were next in line. I can tell you categorically that there is an effort to provide more diversity and inclusion in the creation of content, M.P.A.A. chief Chris Dodd said on a conference call about the data. Theres no question in my mind the message has been received [by the studios].

After a two-week courtship, Paramount Pictures and former Fox chairman Jim Gianopulos appear close to making their match official. The negotiations for the man the town knows as Jim G to take the top Paramount job have played out in the trades with increasing breathlessness. Will he or wont he?! Gianopuloss insistence on autonomy in greenlighting has been a sticking point for Via, according to multiple outlets. The Hollywood Reporters Kim Masters and Gregg Kilday quote multiple sources saying the parties are closer together than ever now, writing, Viacom is now offering Gianopulos greenlight authority for films with budgets up to about $100 million or perhaps more, ensuring that he can operate without a greenlight committee except for the most expensive movies.

VF.coms Joanna Robinson e-mails:

Even smaller-scale dramas are getting in on the Game of Thrones and Walking Deadesque secret-keeping. Until she cropped up unexpectedly in Tuesday nights episode of FXs The Americans, the fate of Alison Wrights much-abused secretary Martha Hanson was up in the air. In an interview, Wright told us that, like Thrones star Kit Harington and The Walking Deads Steven Yeun before her, shes been endlessly hounded with questions since the day Martha disappeared last season. Martha isnt a typical hero like Jon Snow or Glenn Rhee, but Wright explains the allure of her low-level F.B.I. employee: Shes what all of us would most likely be in this scenario. Wed like to think that wed be the Jenningsthat wed be badasses. But the likelihood is that wed be the Martha. This is a huge week for Wright, who also makes her Broadway debut in Sweat and steals the show on this Sundays Feud. In other words, never count a Martha out.

VF.coms Yohana Desta e-mails:

Raw, French director Julia Ducournaus bloody drama, is making quite a name for itself. The gory cannibal film, about a girl whose palate shifts to something more carnivorous (a.k.a. human flesh), made headlines when it was reported some filmgoers at the Toronto International Film Festival gagged and passed out during screening due to the movies graphic content. Paramedics had to be called intwice. But never fear, the Nuart Theatre in Los Angeles has come up with a fun way to ease queasy viewers: handing out custom-made barf bags, of course. Pamela McClintock of The Hollywood Reporter writes that a staff member at the Nuart thought it would be fun to make barf bags out of paper lunch bags, and pass them out right before a screening. Just in case. Imagine the pure horror of someone who decided to blindly go into a Raw screening, only to later be approached by an usher wielding a barf bag and going, Hereyou might need this.

Thats the news for this cloudy Wednesday in L.A. What are you seeing out there? Send tips, comments, and the name of a channel I should be watching to rebecca_keegan@condenast.com. Follow me on Twitter @thatrebecca.

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TV Is Going on a Diet - Vanity Fair

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