THB #475: The End Of... Stuff...
Two stories got me churning today… and it turns out, they are much more connected than they seemed at first.
Joe Adalian at Vulture did a Buffering column (I think you need to sign up to get this or wait a week or two for it to be on the website) on the record low ratings for the Emmy Awards and Indiewire did a piece on the reduced film countr and venues of Sundance 2024.
Both pieces are, essentially, about how its not the size of the thing, but how it is being used.
Fair enough. Often true. Not always. But let’s go a little deeper.
I’ll start with Sundance, as the 40th festival launches tonight. I will be in Los Angeles, which I didn’t realize would be as disconnective from the festival as it will be (though the information about the lack of streaming until mid-week next week was apparently noted by the festival months ago). As a result, I have really laid back about the whole thing, thankful to get what access I will have next week as a member of the press who has covered the festival for 3 decades, but frustrated.
I have known Eugene Hernandez for a long, long time. He has taken a leadership role this year that was filled by Tabitha Jackson (replacing the long-tenured John Cooper) who lasted just 2 years. His executive partner, Sundance CEO Joana Vicente, had a nearly 3-year tenure at Toronto (TIFF) from November 2018 - September 2021, under fire by the board the entire time, before heading to Sundance.
So that’s my first touchstone… the incest of the festival business. Of course, in many businesses, a person makes their bones at a smaller organization before rising at another, bigger organization. But it’s not quite that in the festival world. Did either of Sundance’s fresh leadership team significantly improve their prior festivals… or did they just show that they have experience in the care and feeding and continuation of festivals?
I am put in mind of my childhood, when I worked for a year at Saturday Night Live, and made relationships inside the corporate structure well above my pay grade. As a result, I knew that Dick Ebersol’s planned exit at the end of my season was leading to NBC considering cancelling the series. Having had a bit of a disaster with Jean Doumanian taking over before, The Bosses decided that the only producers whose hiring would cause them to continue the show were Lorne Michaels or John Moffitt, who had produced Fridays with Bill Lee (who had passed away too young in 1981). They were the only ones who had the experience of producing a weekly late night comedy sketch show. Lorne came back, which is the only reason that World Wrestling didn’t take over the SNL slot full-time.
Lorne - as I still call him by habit like I know him, in spite of having had very, very little contact with the man - returned. First year was ugly (including the troublesome young Robert Downey, Jr and Anthony Michael Hall). Then he hit a good vein of talent, then a few off years, then another round of great talent and so on and so on.
But Lorne had created the form. Not so Eugene or Joana. And don’t get me wrong. I don’t think they are untalented or incapable. But neither has shown that they are change agents so much as experienced hands.
And make no mistake, the major festivals are under fire. Like the awards world, they are in need of serious reconsiderations, not just quality maintenance.
So when I read one day that Eugene has led the decision making process to pull back the streaming model that Sundance really led amongst festivals, starting in January 2021, under the cloud of COVID, because the movie sales people requested/demanded it, it hit me very wrong. And then, today, reading about the reduction of both films in the festival and the venues, I was further discouraged.
I understand that these choices might be the responsible choices. I hear that. The subtext not being discussed is likely based in tight sponsorship dollars. I have no doubt that the big money being spread around by luxury brands looking to be associated with THE American glam festival have thinned in the last few years.
Heck, South by Southwest has been sold to Penske Media, which also happens to own indiewire… though indiewire founder Eugene wasn’t there for the 2016 Penske sale… he had sold the site to a different billionaire, Ted Leonsis, in 2008. This is where I mention another kid billionaire Todd Boehly, a Penske partner, just so he doesn’t feel left out.
CODE SWITCH!!!
We just got through the Penske/Boehly Golden Globes, which had ratings growth from their worst TV ratings ever (6.3m viewers)… to their 3rd worst TV ratings ever (9.4m viewers). If it appears on Linear TV next year will be dependent on whether Penske/Boehly are willing to roll the dice again, hoping there will be ratings growth to some level that will eventually create a return on their investment. (I believe they can dump the $8 million or so they pay HFPA members to vote - by dumping them altogether - after 2 more years, making profit easier to reach then.)
Joe Adalian’s piece today was about the even crappier ratings (4.5 million) for The Emmys, which have been on an annual rotation between FOX, ABC, CBS, and NBC for a while. He openly questions - correctly - whether the Primetime Emmys will continue to air on Broadcast TV after the contract ends after the next 3 Emmy shows.
Joe - who I know much better than Lorne - also suggested that the show could, rather than retreating to a single streamer (as SAG Awards have landed on Netflix) this could be an opportunity for Netflix and Amazon to join The Broadcast 4 in the rotation, making a rotation of 6. Smart thought. That makes a lot of sense to me.
We will see, soon, what the Netflix numbers are like for the SAG Awards. Unlike The Emmys, the “Peacock NFL exclusive” issue of recent weeks should not be an issue, as the SAG Awards have been cable exclusive for a long time (TNT… since I was working there in the 90s).
The Independent Spirit Awards, which got so hot for a moment that it broke up the national Independent Film Project organization, will once again be on YouTube this year, hoping for a six-figure audience. The Critics Choice Awards, which were pretty good this year as a show, will wait to see if the new ownership of The CW wants to keep the show after its 1 million-ish viewers. No major serious critics group has a televised show. And The Academy doesn’t bother to televise The Governors Awards… in part because it is fun to not have it on TV.
BLENDING!!!
So what do the Sundance and Emmy Awards stories have in common?
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