There’s a terrific article on the lack of qualified show runners on vice.com. A number of you have asked my thoughts. I will devote my entire podcast to this subject, dropping the middle of next week. Stay tuned.
Back from New York where the traffic is even worse. Enough people are concerned about taking public transportation in the pandemic that more cars than ever are clogging the streets, tunnels, and expressways. Meanwhile, I braved it and took the E train at 2:30 in the afternoon and it was practically empty.
Usually I record shows and watch them while fast forwarding through the commercials. Last week, in New York, I had to watch BETTER CALL SAUL live. My God! How does anybody put up with these commercials? There was one break that had to be close to ten minutes. By the time they returned to the show I had forgotten what the story was about. And once you get to the last twenty minutes it seems there is more commercial time than program time. I don’t understand why an advertiser would pay to be the ninth commercial in a spot break. No one is watching. Especially now. I got out my computer. I’m sure there were viewers who knew they had enough time to mow the lawn or test drive a car before they had to get back. It’s insane.
If you’re anywhere near Englewood, New Jersey tonight come see a reading of my new play WHAT IS ‘MURDER’? It’s a fun comedy/mystery with a terrific cast. Here’s where you go for info.
Apple +’s coverage of Major League Baseball is just awful. They’ve opted for gimmicks instead of solid coverage. One of their analysts, Katie Nolan, just stopped talking after the fifth inning of her first game. Why? She made the mistake of reading tweets and freaked out. She was afraid she was going to get fired after just one game. The truth is, there are probably two hundred baseball analysts who know more and have more experience but don’t have the job.
Compare that to NBC/Peacock’s Sunday morning Major League game of the week. They went out and hired the best young sportscaster in the business today — Jason Benetti, and each week will team him with the TV analyst from each competing team. Sunday’s inaugural broadcast came off smooth as silk. Benetti, Steve Stone, and Kevin Youkilis sounded like it was their 200th broadcast together, not their first. But it’s what you’d expect from a national telecast. Nolan said she hopes to learn new things each week. Hey, this is a global broadcast, not on the job training. That’s what the minors are for.
The Tony nominations were announced yesterday. Is this the first you’re hearing about it? Usually if you’re a Hollywood star slumming on Broadway you can always get at least a nomination. Not this year. Snubbed were Daniel Craig, Debra Messing, Matthew Broderick, Sarah Jessica Parker, Jane Lynch, Patrick J. Adams (SUITS) along with Beanie Feldstein and everything FUNNY GIRL. A STRANGE LOOP led the pack with the most noms and will doubtless clean up in the ceremony that will air… I don’t know where this year.
And here’s the most interesting and telling thing about current Broadway: Neil Simon’s PLAZA SUITE got terrible reviews — the show is old, musty, out of date, etc. And yet, it’s packing ‘em in. The run has been extended. PEOPLE WANT TO LAUGH. MR. SATURDAY NIGHT with Billy Crystal is doing well. It’s supposedly very funny. PEOPLE WANT TO LAUGH. Meanwhile, a revival of a very well respected but super heavy play was supposed to run through August 14th. It closes May 22. What do people want to do? LAUGH!
I enjoyed Must Kill TV. Can we expect a new novel from you some time?
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteWhile I agree with your comments on the Apple+ baseball coverage (my White Sox have been on there twice already), you should at least point for the first Peacock game (which I didn't see) that Jason Benetti and Steve Stone have been broadcasting together since 2016 so for that game, it was just adding another analyst. However I agree, the Peacock game will probably sound great every week because Jason is great in all the sports he does.
ReplyDeleteLet's be honest about the extension of Plaza Suite.... it was extended to replace the shows that had to be cancelled when the two leads had covid- which is still a decent thing to do for the ticket buyers.
ReplyDeleteCNN is in a commercial break maybe eight out of ten times when I switch to it.
ReplyDeleteWednesday afternoon's Reds-Milwaukee Brewers game from Cincinnati will be shown on a cable channel I don't get instead of its usual TV home and live streamed on Apple+, to which I do not subscribe. With the Reds losing 23 games so far this season, why would they alienate their fans even more by making them pay more to watch them?
It's free, but you do have to register with Apple TV.
DeleteHad to know what well respected, super heavy play is closing. Sheesh, just the title alone. I know I'd like to laugh. I tried the new Mike Meyers show (I know you won't, Ken) and... Sheesh. (That's in place of another word beginning "sh".)
ReplyDeleteAgain, I'd like to laugh. Yes, I WANT to laugh.
Seeing mention of the Plaza Suite revival reminds me of the HAMLET 2 movie where Steve Coogan is is an unsuccessful high-school drama teacher who puts on plays like MISSISSIPI BURNING.
ReplyDelete10-year-old theater critic to Coogan: "Have you ever considered putting on a play that wasn't based on a popular movie?"
Coogan: "No."
I hadn't checked out Crackle in a while, so the other day I called up the app and saw they had a lot of old sitcoms that might be interesting to check out. I gave up after I discovered that they show about two minutes of the show, then 2-1/2 minutes of commercials with no way to skip. When you waste over an hour watching one episode of "Hazel," you know you have way too much time to kill.
ReplyDeleteAMC has piled on the commercials for as long as I can remember. Same with BBC America. Like you, I never watch Better Call Saul live. Same went for Mad Men and Breaking Bad, and more recently for Killing Eve. Ugh.
ReplyDeleteI just read that actor James Olson has passed. I saw him in loads of TV shows and movies, and he was always terrific. For me, he will always be Jesus Christ.
ReplyDeleteI remember when AMC had no commercials! I don't have a DVR or any way to skip commercials, so there I am. So many are promos for other shows that I get confused about whether it is BCS (Germany, what?). My grandson was watching TV at my house, said to me that my TV was broken because it kept cutting away from the movie he was trying to watch.
ReplyDeleteSue in Seattle
I certainly want to laugh. It hurts to even be within earshot of a drama or bleep-heavy reality show.
ReplyDeleteJason Benetti is the best national broadcaster of my generation. Knowing that he's tied to Peacock's new Sunday morning MLB package made me seek out the replay just now.
I've said this before, but my Altice One DVR allows me to forward or back 60 seconds with the channel buttons, forward 30 seconds with the skip forward button, and back 10 seconds with the skip back button. God forbid I forget to DVR a show or develop interest in a new show after it's premiered and have to watch on demand with fast-forward disabled.
A longtime journalist named Michael Hagerty has commented on here, and he once worked at a TV station where I interviewed the GM after Reagan's FCC lifted commercial limits. The GM said, yes, we'll have more ads, but if we go too far, we will lose viewers, so we have to be careful. He was right.
ReplyDeleteI didn't see or hear Katie Nolan, but remember that Jason Benetti and Steve Stone work together regularly, so that probably helped--and Stone is a great analyst who worked with Harry Caray when he was faltering, so he knows how to adjust. None of which is to say that the broadcast wasn't well done, because it was. Meanwhile, the Dodgers have another of the best young broadcasters in Joe Davis, and three different road analysts rotating through with Orel Hershiser not traveling. Granted, the Giants have a pair of backups for when Mike Krukow doesn't do games, but more teams are going with this idea of the analyst for a day, and it bugs me. A lot. And I like all of the analysts in question, though, having been raised on Vin and Jerry in LA, I'd rather have no analyst and just a play-by-play man chatting with me.
It's amazing how commercial time has gotten completely out of hand. My kid has been streaming I LOVE LUCY on Paramount Plus, and I noticed that the running time of the episodes she was watching averaged 26 minutes and 20 seconds. I mean, that's only 3 1/2 minutes of commercial time in a half-hour show! These days, half-hours are down to about 20 minutes, sans commercials. My wife's been watching GOLDEN GIRLS and CHEERS on streaming and reports that those episodes, from the 1980s, run about 24 minutes. When did the explosion in commercial time start? What gets me is that the traditional networks are desperate for viewers, yet they drive them away by piling on a ridiculous number of commercials.
ReplyDeleteI do have a friend who says he likes the lengthy commercial breaks because it gives him a chance to take care of a few emails while he's waiting for the program to come back on.
I'd hate to be one of those who has to take those old 1950s-1980s sitcom episodes and hack 4-5 minutes out of them to meet contemporary commercial load requirements.
On the surface, it seems mean to put Katie Nolan behind the mike as a baseball "analyst".
ReplyDelete(is this a 2022 version of tokenism?)
Her wiki entry suggests nothing that qualifies her. I'm nearly 30 years older - having witnessed thousands more games than she, I'd be reluctant to take the job - at least not without practicing the job as Ken did in the Dodger's bleachers for two seasons.
Somehow I don't believe rhythmic gymnastics helped much in her new job - nor did her "live phone".
I don't watch ANYTHING live on TV anymore. NBC or CBS News? I start watching the recording about 15 minutes after it starts and I finish 5 minutes after it finishes airing. Heck, if I keep my phone and computer off, I can do the same with sports. Start watching halfway through the scheduled time (and record an extra hour for OT).
ReplyDeleteThe last thing I watched live, other than the local weather, was probably the Super Bowl in 2019.
During WWII, some of Laurel and Hardy's worst movies were big hits. People wanted to laugh. But they also wanted their beloved Stan and Ollie, and perhaps the memories of seeing their films as kids. Maybe something similar is at work with "Plaza Suite" and "Mister Saturday Night", backing the laughs with something like (but maybe a little different than) nostalgia.
ReplyDeleteI was impressed with the NBC broadcast. Unfortunately it is my last one, and I am not paying for Peacock. They said next week is SD v Atl. Bally SD has no feed, so Orsillo and Mud are available. Both are great, Orsillo maybe the best anywhere. But they are having Mark Sweeney as the Padre announcer. He is NOT well liked as a color man. And I say that because.........He says "I say that because" at least once an inning and sounds like an arrogant jerk compared to Donnie and Mud. The rest of the US is missing out.
ReplyDeleteFox just gave Tom Brady a 10 year $350M contract to broadcast football if he retires after next year. In his entire football career he has made $330M. He has never broadcast a game in his life, but I don’t care if he is the 2nd coming of Howard Cosell, does Fox really think he will bring in so many viewers that he will increase revenue by $35M/year? And he might be terrible, a la Magic Johnson.
ReplyDeleteIt's not like Katie Nolan doesn't know sports, or that she can't have smart, funny or interesting things to say. I've seen and heard her in other places, where she works fine.
ReplyDeleteIt would seem like she didn't really have any training for live sports broadcast. If so, that's a really unwise place to start...
It slipped my head that WABC-AM's Musicradio era ended 40 years and seven hours ago, known to fans as "The Day the Music Died."
ReplyDeleteJason Benetti is a great play by play broadcaster. He expertly integrated Stone, who he works with all the time; and with Youkilis, who he does not. The team was knowledgeable, funny, and entertaining. It was the best national broadcast that I've heard in several years. Great to hear announcers who enjoy the game. I look forward to seeing how rotating team announcers work in coming weeks.
ReplyDeleteI'm a Katie Nolan fan, but she's miscast on Apple +. But then they all seem to be. Maybe Apple + will get better with time.
Since I'm on a roll, I'll add that I thought Mattea was great. She brought great enthusiasm to the show. The tournament is going to be phenomenal, with several super champs with different styles and personalities. The online snark is ludicrous.
Finally, I like the way Michael Davies has fixed the show. Ken and Mayim continue to grow as hosts. We may never see a season like this again. Enjoy.
Just read a bit about the play A STRANGE LOOP. Jeebus, not my cup of kumbacha.
ReplyDeleteI saw Plaza Suite. It hasn't aged well. There were more laughs in Hangmen (a British play with very black comedy), but POTUS was the funniest of the 3 shows we saw, by far. Funny Girl did get a nomination for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical.
ReplyDeleteVery few people on that E Train: now’s the time to ride the subway trains in NYC if you want 15 minutes undisturbed to be able to tag an elaborate piece of graffiti on the back-rest of a subway seat; or if you forgot to trim your nose hairs and you have a tweezer and a pocket mirror handy, or you can try to do it by looking at the reflection in the window without a pocket mirror…
ReplyDeleteIt is simple for older sitcoms when it comes to modern day television, they either time compress the episodes or extend them a few minutes. An example using the Andy Griffith Show on TV Land. (Central time is used.)
ReplyDelete4 PM: Episode 1
4:36 PM: Episode 2
5:12 PM: Episode 3
5:48 PM: Episode 4
6:24 PM: Episode 5
7:00 PM: Everybody Loves Raymond Episode 1
Note that the more modern stuff has the closing credits over the start of another episode.
When I heard Vin’s voice in the open and the early 80s theme music for the NBC Saturday games used I started to cry. Don’t forget that NBC used team announcers on World Series games for nearly 25 years and indeed gave Mel Allen and Vin their earliest National exposure. Benetti is simply awesome. His banter with Walton is magnificent and your observations on how he handled the booth was spot on. I used to watch White Sox games to listen to Hawk be drunk snd funny; now I watch to see how thorough Jason can be.
ReplyDeleteLaughter teaches too. I'm a trans woman and trans civil rights lawyer, protecting my people from big organizations. I alkso do standup and am working on a sitcom, because laughter teaches commonality a lot better than litigation.
ReplyDeleteAs my name implies I'm not terribly far from Englewood, New Jersey, but I didn't see this until it was too late. If you look on IMdb you will see that many semi-famous actors died in Englewood. These aren't metaphorical deaths on stage; Englewood is the home of the Lillian Booth Actors Home of The Actors Fund, which is where many retired actors and actresses live out their final days.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that there are too many commercials for TV shows to be watchable. I am at the point where I start watching a show 10 minutes in and then skip through the commercials so I end at the same time. I believe Young Sheldon is down to 18½ minutes of content! Even the commercial breaks in Pardon The Interruption are too long since they went from three down to two.
As @Mike Chimeri noted, DVRs can be programmed to skip in convenient intervals. Mine skips forward at 30 seconds intervals and skips back at 10 second intervals, which is perfect for catching missed dialogue, even though I watch with the closed captioning on.
As for Katie Nolan, I will post separately in case Ken wants to censor it.
As guys, we all remember that girl who, while good looking, isn't as good looking as she thinks she is. Because we want to fuck her, everyone listens to what she says with bated breath and no one dares tell her she is annoying because they want to preserve the chance they have to fuck her, no matter how small that chance is.
ReplyDeleteIf, in addition, she is the kind of girl who has more guy friends than girl friends, and she likes sports to boot, you have Katie Nolan. She is a one-trick pony who has really fallen further upward that she can ever have hoped to. If you want to see a brilliant take down of her, look up Jason Whitlock.
I actually still watch a lot of live TV (what can I say - I'm a dinosaur). But I tend to multitask while watching, and during commercials I'm usually on my laptop.
ReplyDeleteWhat I can't understand are the commercials that have great theme music, but that never mention the product being advertised. I'll bop along with the ad and have no idea what it's for. Who are the geniuses who think that just because an ad is being shown means that anyone has eyeballs on it.
Insurance companies have discovered New Wave music. They use Depeche Mode a lot.
Delete@Steve Leblang
ReplyDeleteI didn't realize NBC utilized the team announcers for so long in the World Series. It turns out that he called 5 World Series on TV during this era (53 55 59 63 65). In addition, he was paired with Curt Gowdy for the games in Dodger Stadium in 66 and 74 while calling the game on radio with Bob Prince in Baltimore in 66 and Jim Simpson in Oakland in 74.
While Vin worked directly for NBC for 7 years (83-89) NBC only had the World Series in the even years, so he only called three. Two of those three had iconic games (1986 Game 6 and 1988 Game 1) so those moments are etched in our minds.
Then when Vin left NBC after they lost the baseball contract to CBS, Vin continued to call the World Series on CBS Radio for another 7 years with either Sparky Anderson or Jeff Torborg until ESPN got the radio rights. Vin also called the World Series on CBS Radio 1979-82 with Sparky when he worked for CBS the first time. Therefore, between TV and radio it seems like Vin has called 21 World Series.
At the risk of sounding like Andy Rooney, I too hate the ever increasing commercial to show ratio. It was down to 17 minutes of show on the Big Bang Theory. I quit watching the Young and the Restless 15-20 years ago in no small part because out of every hour, there was only 37 minutes of show. I do drift off during the commercials and become interested in an article online or a twitter feed or cleaning the cat box. I lose track of the show and rarely come back. It makes it easy to stop watching anything that is less than gripping.
ReplyDeleteSide note: I went to college in a small town with one tv station. The local news was on multiple times a day for 35 minutes and there was not enough news in the area to fill 35 minutes a week. (They covered high school sports for several surrounding rural counties with on the spot reports. ) So they had commercial breaks every 3-5 minutes and filled them with the same local commercials every single time. I can still sing the jingles and recite the ad copy for the beauty school, plasma center (where classmates donated for money), and belt out the song that advertised the station itself--"TV3 looooooves yooou!" I will still shudder involuntarily when I remember the high pitched cackle that signaled the beginning of the Christmas commercial for the mall. Same commercial for 4 years, every year. Ah-Ha-Ha! Jingle bells, jingle bells...
There was no internet then. I tried to watch the news for the weather which took up a solid 10-12 minutes per broadcast. There was a very long segment telling you about the weather that had already happened that day--how hot it was yet again, how many times in recorded history we have had so many rainy days in a row or other historical precedents, blah, blah, blah for 5-6 minutes. Then 5 minutes of commercials and I was off reading something or in the kitchen or bathroom when they FINALLY got to tomorrow's forecast. I missed it. Every single time. Got caught in shorts a couple of times as a cold front blew in while I was in classes that I didn't know was coming.