Collaboration at IBC, The Emmys Boneheaded Bear Move

1. Collaboration at IBC

I love IBC because it’s a great way to catch up with many European friends and colleagues who I don’t otherwise get to see. It also takes me out of my US-centric bubble to a world where the TV landscape looks very different and very similar all at once. 

Plus Amsterdam versus Las Vegas is not really a contest.

That said, there was no dominant theme at IBC this year beyond “everything is still in flux and we still don't know what to do next,” which has been the global industry anthem for a couple of years now.

So with that said, I’ll focus in on two topics I wound up speaking on at the show, collaboration and personalization. They each touch on a very different area of the business and thus provide an excellent overview. This week we’ll only talk about collaboration though, because to do both would be to write a short novel and I need to severely excoriate the Television Academy for The Bear this week, said excoriation being far more timely.

Why It Matters

You’ve probably heard me say this before, but Benjamin Franklin nailed the current state of the industry some 250 odd years ago when he told his fellow revolutionaries that “we must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”

And yet, maddeningly, no one seems to get this.

The enemy, my friends, is not the other media companies. It is Google and Amazon and Meta. (And to a lesser extent, Apple, Microsoft and TikTok.)

That is who you are fighting against. 

And yet you do your utmost to ensure their victory is all but assured. 

When you insist on creating walled gardens for your data and fail to agree on how exactly CTV is being measured, when you make it all but impossible to buy across multiple platforms, when you’ve got OpenAP in the US all but begging the various media companies to combine forces to create standards for measurement and not everyone joins… all you are doing is moving ad dollars to Google and ensuring your own demise.

I say Google, because YouTube in particular is poised to win. A recent study from the UK, cited by this Economist podcast showed that more than 60% of views of trending YouTube videos in the UK were for content that could be considered TV-like.

And friends, Google is easy. It’s easy to buy, easy to measure, easy to not get fired for picking it. 

The “why” (as in “why won’t the TV companies collaborate?”) is easy too.

Because they all foolishly believe that they are going to win.

Let me repeat that there will be no winner. It is borderline insanity to think that any one company can “win.” You will have some winners. And, if things keep up at the current pace, many losers. Many, many losers.

The thing is, it’s not that hard. Pick a measurement system. Or two or three. Pick a standard for what constitutes a “view.” Figure out a way to make “impressions” work with “GRPs” (or just eliminate GRPs altogether.)

But something-something to make it seem like you’re actually trying. Like you actually care about your own bottom line more than getting one up on the other guy.

Because that is not the way ahead in a world where the only thing you really have going for you is the ability to create better programming than the tech companies. “Better”, of course, being in the eye of the beholder, but you still do maintain an advantage on that front for now and things like Mr. Beast harassment lawsuits give you some additional runway.

For now. It’s not as if those tech companies can’t open their wallets and just buy all the people who make those great shows for you. 

And do not deceive yourself: everyone has a price.

What You Need To Do About It

If you are a media company not attached to a multibillion dollar tech company, stop trying to win. No one is going to win. Start working together, really working together and get your oars all dipping into the water in unison and you just might be able to survive. 

Which is a whole lot better than losing. 

Also, if I were the TV industry, I would take this article from the NYT about how ads from major brands are running on YouTube videos promoting hateful right-wing lies about Haitian immigrants, and beat advertisers about the head with it until they understood the huge brand safety risks that exist on YouTube, risks that are non-existent on TV.

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2. The Emmys Boneheaded Bear Move

Many people were surprised last January when a series they had kinda sorta heard of, FX/Hulu’s The Bear, swept the Comedy category in the delayed 2023 Emmys.

Then they watched it and surprise turned to confusion because while The Bear was an excellent series, there was nothing remotely funny about it. Nor was there supposed to be—it wasn’t a dark comedy like, say, HBO’s Barry, that some people just didn’t grok. It was a drama that somehow wound up in the Comedy category and the Television Academy seemed to think that was okay.

There was an explanation offered—that somehow according to Academy rules, “dramas” needed to be at least 60 minutes and 30(ish) minute shows like The Bear were automatically entered as “comedies.”

A largely outdated rule, but at least it seemed to explain what had happened.

Only this week, The Atlantic’s Hannah Giorgis pointed out that “[t]he Academy stopped using run time to distinguish entries in the drama and comedy categories in 2021, and there’s precedent for series being moved from one to the other.”  

So WTF Television Academy?

Why It Matters

At a time when television in general has ceased to be all that relevant to large chunks of the population, and award shows have become even less relevant, all but announcing that “we have no actual standards, just give us your money” is not a good move.

Because seriously, did The Academy really think that audiences wouldn’t notice when, again this year, a show that clearly was not a comedy was sweeping all the comedy categories? Not even after Eugene Levy made a joke about it in his opening monologue?

And the thing is, it’s not even a “we’re redefining the boundaries of comedy” Hannah Gadsby kind of thing. No one is pretending that the decision to enter The Bear as a Comedy was anything other than a gaming of the system to try and win more awards.

Let that one sink in.

I mean yes, people have more important things to worry about than whether or not the Emmy Awards voting process resembles a Venezuelan election, but it’s still not a good look as it makes the industry seem depressingly desperate.

Plus there’s that thing that I have not seen discussed, which was that the first thing that came to my mind (and I suspect many of yours) was that if I were Jeremy Allen White, Ebon Bachrach-Moss or Liza Colón-Zayas, I’m not sure how I’d feel about winning a comedy award for doing some kick-ass dramatic acting. 

Sure, there’s the thrill of winning an Emmy. But, I don’t know. I keep thinking that if I learned that TVREV was nominated for an award for “Best Music Industry Analysis” it would feel a lot like cheating to actually accept the award given that we do not actually do music industry analysis.

Or maybe I’m just overthinking. (I’ve been known to do that.)

What You Need To Do About It

If you’re the Television Academy, you need to put your foot down and tell FX/Hulu and their parent company Disney that you’re not playing their game anymore, that Comedy is a separate category for a reason and that a show that is clearly not a comedy belongs in the Drama category, period, end of story. 

As a trade organization, your goal is to boost the industry and the players in it, not sit back and watch one of them game the system.

If you’re the producers of The Bear (and FX and Hulu and Disney) you need to realize that you’re not helping. That people who care about these sorts of things no doubt now think less of you for messing with the system and that comedy, which is a struggling category in streaming as it is, could use a boost rather than a takedown.

Or, it should not be hailed as a surprise when the funniest sitcom of the year and its lead actress actually win Comedy awards. 

Collaboration. 

It’s the only way you’re going to win.