The Press Box - CNN Dives Into Streaming, Brutally Honest Oscar Ballots, and a Twitter Time Machine

Episode Date: March 25, 2022

Bryan and David discuss the new streaming service on the market, CNN+. They break down the content it will provide, including shows featuring Wolf Blitzer, Anderson Cooper, and more, and then address how this transition will affect the way we consume live news (0:33). Then, they touch on The Hollywood Reporter’s "Brutally Honest Oscar Ballot No.3," in which another anonymous member of the Academy has come forward to discuss their honest thoughts on the Oscar nominees (20:33). Plus, the Overworked Twitter Joke and David Shoemaker Guesses the Strained-Pun Headline. Hosts: Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker Associate Producer: Erika Cervantes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For as long as I've known the NBA, it's been a Stars League. But even among the Stars, there's an exclusive club. Russell and Dr. Jay, Jordan, Kobe. They're all part of a select group that paved the way for the NBA superstar of today. And some even shared secrets with each other along the way. From Spotify and the Ringer podcast network, I'm Jackie McMullen. And this is the icons club. Hello, media consumers.

Welcome to Friday Press Box, Brian Curtis, David Shoemaker, producer Erica Servantes here. We're going to talk about the media phenomenon known as the brutally honest Oscar ballot in just one second. But yesterday, David, we learned the programming lineup of a brand new streaming service. No, this streaming service will not be doing Kevin Costner Westerns or the spinoffs of Kevin Costner Westerns. This streaming service is all about one big star. Wolf Blitzer. I speak of course of CNN Plus. It rolls out on March 29th.

It's going to cost you $5.99 a month. And we have our first look, David, at what cable news will look like when it crosses the divide from cable into streaming. Should we take a peek at the opening day lineup of CNN Plus? Okay. He reluctantly says You were the one texting me

About Chris Wallace's new show Well, we can talk about that one Do we want to start with the title? Who's talking to Chris Wallace? Did the same person Who invented Alan Keyes is making sense Come up with this title, do you think? No, listen, it's in a totally different category for me.

You shouldn't ask a redundant or literal question a question of any sort in the title of your show that could have that is this they could have such a negative connotation right this it shouldn't be the question that people are at that you're that you're like most the adverse listeners are wondering

when they click when they like see the name of your show right like I'm not going to have a podcast that's called like how many beers is David Shuemaker had right like it's it's it's that it's just a really it's when you say oh Chris Wallace has a streaming show Who's talking to Chris Wallace? Like that's the wetsy reaction to the show. It also reminded me a little of like when you have the White House or a paranoid corporation

and there are a bunch of scoops being broken by a certain reporter. Who's talking to Maggie Haberman? Yeah. Who's talking to Chris Wallace? Yeah. Well, unfortunately, the answer is not going to be deep throat. The answer on this show is going to be, well, I don't know. I don't want to assume too much.

Well, the guest, David, will come from a spectrum of news, sports, entertainment. art and culture. So not just politics. The write-up here also says he seeks light, not heat. So, which is interesting, by the way, for cable news.

I can't believe he stole the motto of the press box. That's crazy. Some other big highlights from here. I mentioned Wolf Blitzer. He is doing a 730 Eastern show called the newscast with Wolf Blitzer.

They went a little more straightforward with the title here. Mm-hmm. No doubt about what that is. I was a little confused by the write-up, which said it was an evening newscast with a sleek, modern twist. Then the next sentence says, the old-school nostalgic approach featuring original reporting from around the world,

et cetera, et cetera. So it is both sleek and modern and has an old-school nostalgic approach. Okay. I'm not quite sure we're going there. Casey Hunt has a show. she is now seeing an anchor and chief national affairs analyst, a four o'clock called The Source with Casey Hunt. The Big Picture was Sarah Snyder,

an in-depth look at the most important and interesting story of the day, a show called Go There that takes you to the front lines of breaking news. Then we get to the weekly programming schedule. Okay. Anderson Cooper Full Circle, a twice weekly show, David, featuring Cooper interviewing, authors, entertainers, etc. Who's talking to Anderson Cooper, you might say?

A show called Boss Files with Poppy Harlow. What does it take to be a boss? Harlow gets the answers from the biggest names in business. Jake Taber's book club is a show. Parental guidance with Anderson Cooper, in which he gets parenting advice from experts as he navigates life as a working parent. A show called No Mercy, No Malice with Scott Galloway.

Don Lemon has a show. Rex Chapman has a show. Wow. He brings heart and positivity to conversations with celebrities, athletes, and everyday heroes. Sure, I'd heard the phrase everyday heroes since my local news days as a kid. So this is all kind of interesting. I mean, I guess I have a couple of reactions to this. One is a question that you and I asked Chuck Todd way back when, which was when news moves from cable or in his case network to streaming,

does something about the grammar of TV news change? Are we going to be getting news in a different way? Yeah. The answer here is not exactly in these first offerings from CNN Plus, right? This is kind of like what's on CNN, but with maybe a slightly different twist, but it sure, to me, it sort of feels like another CNN. Yeah. Well, I think that's the problem, right?

as these channels, and this goes back to, you know, MSNBC's, Fox has done this, I mean, it goes back to ESPN, you know, when news channels recalibrate for streaming, they obviously have a different job than, you know, an entertainment channel, someone that's just producing sitcoms or, you know, whatever else. And there's this sort of tension because they're sort of, not sort of, they're, they're, they are literally counter programming against themselves, right? Yes. If you have live content, what you were doing is necessarily drawing eyes away from your other live content.

Um, and so that goes to the question. Like, do you get more, do you go for a more perennial sort of feel on some of these shows? Well, some of those, you know, the weeklies, I'm sure it can be perceived that way. Chris Wallace's show maybe, maybe, you know, they have a little bit more of a, of a expiration date, a little bit longer expiration date on it. But in general, it's like when you see the lineup, what you want to know is like, why should I watch this instead of what's on CNN?

But of course, they can't address that. I can't answer it. They can't even address the question because that's the central tension in this whole thing, right? Yes. You can do, Fox Nation sort of went to, you know, at the very start went the route of like, we're going to go for a younger demographic

and we're going to like try some things out and be kooky and whatever. And the only thing that really matters there now is Tucker Carlson doing, you know, his normal schick in a sweater. So it's, it's, it's tough. I mean, it's, it's hard to really know what to judge it by, you know, but when you get, you know, if you're going to ante up for, well, like ESPN streaming, you know, whether or not you're getting SportsCenter live in the moment, you know, at the beginning,

what you're thinking, what you're, what you're, I'm sure hoping for is the, you know, being able to watch sports, the same sports live that you would on the TV. on your phone, right? So when it's, you, I don't, and especially for these news channels, which obviously the demographic skews pretty old, right? Like, I'm a really specific example. Man, I'm trying to acclimate my mom to peacock, you know, on her TV. And she's like, well, where's MSNBC?

You're like, whatever. And I'm just like, well, okay, there's an MSNBC hub. And she's like, okay, so that, so it's eight o'clock. So like, you know, Chris is on or whatever. I'm just like, well, no. some of these things are available on delay. There's another programming bundle here. They do have live content, just not the stuff you're familiar with.

It's just, I mean, that's a lot of the audience, and it's just sort of perplexing, right? It is. And when you talk about the unaddressed tension, the economic tension is we know the cable bundle, aka where you pay for CNN because you're paying for everything else. You know, you're not choosing CNN, right? you're just getting everything. We know that's shrinking. But all these networks want to get as much money out of the cable bundle as they can.

At the same time, they know the world is eventually going to be a streaming world and sort of already is. So they have to plant their flag in streaming. So and you want to get money out of there too because eventually that's going to be the money. Yeah. That cable bundle money is either going to go away or just drastically shrink. So you have to try to do. two things at once.

And I guess this is what it looks like. Yeah, I mean, listen, you could do, it's not like this is an impossible bridge to gap, right? I mean, you can use your streaming network as you're kind of farm league, you know, you can, or go the other way. You know, what do we always talk about? The shows are all seem a little bit redundant because they're all just sort of hitting the same beats and trying to get through the same stations before you, you know,

get off the air. Well, maybe you just do a little bit more of like a slow food show or whatever. Maybe you'd try out some, I mean, of all of those shows on CNN, doesn't the one, to me, the one that surprises me the least is Wolf Blitzer, because it just seems like, you know, we have so much data that shows that he could just go for 12 hours a day and would probably be happy to, you know, maybe there's a market in that, you know, maybe there's a market in that, you know, maybe you just have these like, infatigable anchors of old, just see how long they can go every day. Just as an endurance test. Yeah, wait in it. You know, you have a contest, you know. It's like a telethon every day. We're in an hour. or 12. You know, but maybe you could try out different things, but that's, but that's the problem. I mean, like all these news networks are operating on the smallest of margins, you know, 100,000 viewers makes a real big difference in terms of like whether or not you lose your job, you know, on some of these networks.

And I just don't think there's probably an appetite to innovate too much, you know, because they think they've probably tried and they probably have the general feeling that, you know, there's only real one way to go, really one way to go. Sort of reminds me of newspapers over the last 10 or 20 years, where you still have a paying audience that is showing up in not insignificant numbers, but it's an older audience. So if you change things too much, you just piss off the older audience. Yeah.

Take away the comics. The audience goes, this is why I buy the newspaper. Why did you take away the comics that I like so much? Where did family circus go? Well, Bill Keene's dead. I don't really care. Keep having it. I'm not worried about such things.

You do mention the sort of slower idea of like slower news, slow food, whatever you put it. Remember during the Zucker era when CNN went in real big with documentaries? And there was both like the 80s, the 70s, big historical things. There was also like Anthony Bourdain when he was still alive was doing those kind of shows for them. You can absolutely see that stuff living on. starting on CNN plus if you have a big subject and big names attached to it. It's like, it's like, you know, F1, we talked about last time. I mean, there's a lot of like newsy reality style, documentary style programming that you

could do that feels timely, you know, that still has a little bit less of an expiration date. And yeah, I mean, it could fit the model. But that's a lot of the reason that we go to streaming, you know, in all these different platforms. Exactly. Because guess what? Those shows have a season two and a season three. And that to me is their big challenge here. Because right now, I want CNN in my life a lot.

You know, now I'm working on the cable bundle, right? But I want to be like, I want to watch CNN because Ukraine is at war right now. And I want the latest going on. but if you're it CNN doesn't work the same way as Netflix does or Disney Plus does where it's like okay I have just watched season one of the Mandalorian and here comes a season of another show I must watch yeah so I'm not going to turn this thing off right news doesn't work like that it sort of did during the Trump regime but I don't know that it's going to work like that ever quite the same way ever again. And so there is this thing of like, especially with younger people, let's say they sign up

for the app, then what are you giving them that you can just kind of promise them is going to happen, right? If that's how we consume things now. And I hate to say that with news, but it's the way people consume everything. Why am I paying for that this month? Oh, because this new succession's ending, but this new show's starting, so I'm going to watch that. I think CNN is probably going to have to figure out a way, whether it's through documentaries, whether it's through, as you say, kind of newsy reality to figure that out? I don't quite know what the answer to that is. Or you can do what you're doing, but I think that, you know, you have to have an appetite for something different than just like moving the needle, right? Like I said, this is your

developmental league or this is just planning a flag for the future when everything is going to be streaming, whatever it is. But it would just be kind of, it's just kind of inane to think that someone could start, could launch a show on this streaming service and then be like, have their career affected negatively by it, right? Because it's not, you know, Casey Hunt's fault that this is a slightly misbegotten quest that they're on, right? So, I mean, it's, I should just hope that everybody's expectations are in check. it's funny because it's less AAA developmental league than it is our big star hires from elsewhere right right that's obviously not what they're doing audy cornish jamel hills on here with carry champion news show or slightly different show than they've done before so that's kind of interesting

too it's like we're going to go poach the big people but instead of putting them on cnn's air which you know only has so many hours in the day we're going to carve out spaces for them on the on the streamer. Right. I mean, it's kind of testing their their magnetism,

right? Testing their star power. But in it, I don't know, it feels a little bit, it feels like a little bit of an unfair test if it's really,

if that's what it's going to be. Because, you know, just because you figured out that somebody works as a draw on, you know, whatever time slot on CNN,

it doesn't necessarily, it isn't necessarily going to convey to doing this, like, you know, it doesn't mean that there's a whole bunch of fans specific

to that host, that are just like foaming at the mouth to get more content. I do think they are CNN super fans, though. Sure. They're different than Fox and MSNBC super fans. But I think they do exist. And I think there are people that will say, I really like Jake Tapper. Okay, Jake Tapper is doing something else over here on streaming.

So I'm going to follow him over there. And certainly Anderson Cooper, right, Don Lemon. I think those people, again, I think they may have a fairly different attachment to those hosts just because CNN is a different kind of news network in the broad strokes than Foxes, certainly, and also MSNBC. It's perhaps less personality driven, though in prime time still very personality driven. But there's some of that. You know, we haven't done instant think piece in a while.

All right. Can we cook up an instant think piece? Sure. This is where David and I sort of sketch out something that we might have written, but we just talk it out. do you remember, and David, good think pieces always are responding to other think pieces that were written weeks or even years before. Remember a couple of years ago when people said, you know what,

there is no place for authors to go on tour anymore. Yeah. The radio shows, the newspapers have shrunk. An author doesn't have a place to talk about their book anymore. And they said, aha, this is the new author tour.

It's Stephen Colbert's show back when he was still on Comedy Central. it's Seth Myers in late night, John Stewart. They're the ones that are now giving authors there do. Well, I look at this CNN Plus lineup here and I have Jake Tapper's Book Club. Oh, yeah. Host interviews a diverse roster of newsmaking authors and a few of his all-time favorites. I have Anderson Cooper full circle. And the first thing it says he's interviewing is authors.

Yeah. I have nine billion podcasts, including the one you and I host, who are standing on their hind legs saying, hello, author of a new book, please come on to my podcast and talk to me. So isn't there, and here's where the think piece comes in, remember we've got to have the billboard sentence. Isn't there a new author tour that in fact is not limited but never ends? Well, sure. I mean, you can see, I mean, you can imagine if you're having these meetings about, you know, about how you're going to program these channels and you're like, well, where's the where's the supply, right? Like, what, like, what are we being offered that we're not using do

its fullest extent. And the answer is obviously, you know, authors. He's like big, you know, successful authors, big books that are coming out. They just don't, they don't necessarily convey on, you know, three-minute segments on an evening talk show very well. And certainly they're not as in demand as policymakers or whoever else. So it's, I mean, it's a pretty obvious opportunity. And, you know, I think if, if the COVID era has taught us anything, it's that, it's you can get a lot of content out of authors remotely you don't have to it doesn't everybody doesn't have to be hanging around in new york studio waiting for their call up right so i'm sure that'll be a part of it too but yeah i mean if you can get on you know the book publishing

numbers are always sort of amazing i mean you can find there you can look up book scan numbers and stuff like that but you know when i worked in the business it was always funny that like a modest like indie movie like a like a like you know just like whatever's playing at your indie movie theaters that like no one that only half the people that you that would normally go went to go see like not even an Oscar nomination just something but something that came out that was acknowledged that you saw reviews of that could the book version of that was based on a novel that book would be huge compared to other books right the movie and the book like that's all that's all it really takes so you know if you get a nice hour long interview or even

15 minute interview with Jake Tapper, that could be really, really big for a book. And so, you know, it's a good sort of crossover there. The new author tour, instant thing piece. Folks, help yourself. We just, we put the data points out there. Just find two more and you've got a trend. David, I want to talk Oscars, but let's first do the overwork Twitter joke of the week. All right. Celebrate a gag that was so obvious that all of media Twitter made it at exactly the same time. Send nominees to have press box spot where they were always gratefully received. David, some sad news from the world of tech this week. Stephen Wilhite, the creator of the GIF, or some might say GIF, has died. It was an overworked Twitter joke to write, he's with Jod now. We would have also accepted Jod Speed.

Thanks to Luke B, Dave Pickleball Hero, and David Welgweez, if you reminded us of the internet's Longest standing and craziest argument, congrats you made the overworked Twitter joke of the week. All right, in the notebook dump, I want to talk to you about the phenomenon of the brutally honest Oscar ballot. You have perhaps seen this in the Hollywood Reporter, which publishes these this time of year.

The third one went up last night. An anonymous member of the Academy basically lets her rip about the Oscars and talks in the way that those anonymous scouts used to talk in Sports Illustrated. Oh, yeah. Remember that? Remember that was the best writing in Sports Illustrated for a while, was the anonymous scout? They're like, I think Russell Wilson's done.

Like, whoa, wow. I didn't know anybody else say that. That's kind of what the brutally honest Oscar Bellet is. So I can give you some examples here. Some of these are really out there. Some of these are kind of like stuff we'd say in a ringer podcast. Here we go. Here's some excerpts from the Hollywood Reporter's Anonymous Oscar voters. The Power of the Dog took me without exaggeration 10 viewings to get through. There's literally no story in Paul Thomas Anderson's Lickers Pizza. On the movie, drive my car, a three-hour Japanese movie about Uncle Vanya with long shots of driving cars. I knew going in that it was going to be tough for me. And if I'm being honest, I couldn't get through it. To me, don't look up was a, you. a one-note flippancy.

It's only true virtue was its stunning cast. I don't know. It sounds like a quote on a poster. I wish Belfast has been half an hour longer. Here's another one. Jane Campion, who had a very, very weird moment at the Critics' Choice Awards,

self-aggrandized herself by making it about how she has to compete with men, but that is by no means a detriment anymore. She is not the Rosa Parks of female directors and the power of the dog is not a feminist film, et cetera, so. Wow. Yeah.

So there's kind of two draws here. One is the, this is how Hollywood people really talk draw, which is a little bit what anonymous scout was in SI. I think Mike Sando does those pieces still on the athletic where he talks to like anonymous GMs and scouts and people in the league. Here's what they're, here's the way these people talk when they're not on camera about the industry. Right.

That's draw number one. We're all interested in that, right? You want to know, want to know with the conversation. But here's the bigger draw. Number two. These are the morons who are deciding the Academy Awards. And these are the bad reasons they're choosing to vote for or against other movies. Yes.

That's the big draw, right? One isolated voice crying out in the wilderness, well, that's a podcast, right? But I mean, but if you get the kind of accumulation of these or the appearance of it, then you do sort of get to read, you construct a larger, narrative in your head, right? I mean, it's, it's, it's pretty gratifying in a, in a backhanded sort of way. Yes. And some of these, and you'll, you'll see if you go down to these things, here's, this is about the best visual effects award. Here's a quote from anonymous voter. I didn't see free guy or Shang Chi and the legend of whatever. That would be the legend of the 10 Rings. This is the one category

where I went for Dune. It was close to a no-brainer for me. So I didn't want. I watched some of the movies, and I just voted for Dune because I wasn't interested in the movies. Best Live Action Short. These were too difficult to get through, so I didn't vote. And this is, this goes to, to me, the single, speaking to think pieces, the single biggest theme of Oscar coverage for as long as I've been alive. The Academy is screwing it up again. Yeah. And that's a very, very exciting thing to say over and over again, because one,

one, they do screw it up. I remember you and I doing a segment about Green Book the day after. That was not that long ago. But also, it's just like, I mean, the academy is almost like the NCAA or the IOC that does the Olympics. You're never, you're never going to go broke by just saying like, these people don't know what they're doing. And then you get this Oscar thing and it's like, aha, look, look the evidence. this is how they think this is how they vote

what would be the IOC version of this just like corrupt people talking about the money they got to put the the games somewhere in a certain country yeah I think explaining how they chose a host nation

sort of on background right I'm not gonna lie this country had the fifth best presentation but the beaches there are unbelievable yeah here are all the things we overlooked yeah right yeah it would

And yeah. So that to me, it's just all of a piece and it's very, very funny. I am interested in this. So the Oscars last year had 10 million-ish viewers, which is way down from when it used to be one of the biggest shows of the year. And maybe we'll just table this for the future. But I am interested in like the future of Oscar media machinery. If the Oscars continue to shrink or just remain at a low level, even if it

bounces back a little bit. Because there is this big media machine for the last. several months, right? They're buying ads. I get a physical magazine from the LA Times in my mailbox called the envelope that exists to cover the Oscars, which is to say to run Oscar ads in it. There's, of course, they're putting the nominees out there and giving them to talk shows and podcasts and all that stuff. I enjoy all that business, but I do wonder what happens if it continues to shrink. Also, the Curtis rule, remember, never be mad about an award. You can follow an award.

You can watch the award show. I do all that. Just don't be mad when something wins the Oscar or someone makes the baseball hall of fame. Life is so much simpler. I got one more thing for you, David. Okay. Funniest tweet of the week. It's from a guy named Eric Harvey, who's a professor at Grand Valley State University.

He found a clip of Donahue. Remember Donahue? Yeah, of course. 1992. This was after the verdict and the trial of the police beating of Rodney King. and Eric Harvey says, sometimes I try to explain to my students that the audiences for 90s daytime talk shows

were essentially proto Twitter. Now, this is Donahue walking through the audience with the microphone. Tell me if this does not sound exactly like a stroll down Twitter lane here in 2022. Yes, briefly, sir, you wanted to say. Yes, I don't believe that the rioting and alluding of the property

and a killing of innocent people and enhances the cause to fight against racism. Yes. If we as a society would repent, God will heal our land. Yes.

The jury is guilty. Yes. Yes. I wonder about whether there was any jury tampering. Yes. What if Rodney King had been a female and those police officers had been raping her on videotape?

Then what? Yes. Yes. Yes, sir. Yes, sir, you wanted to say. We've got to get respect back for authority in all walks of life. I like the last one. I'm just saying, I'm not coming down on either side.

I'm just saying we need more respect for authority. Isn't that incredible? Yeah, that was some living tweets right there. I mean, first of all, the just pure variety of opinions expressed in that segment, I did not see where a couple of those were going. But also the way they were seemingly willing to stick to. a 280 character limit. Yeah.

Like, none of them went more than 10 seconds. They all knew exactly how to get it. It's like they were coached, except they just, the whole scene, if you watch the video, it was so chaotic. Like, this is not six people standing in a row while Phil Donahue just, you know, has them hand the mic one to another. He's climbing through, he starts going up the aisle, but then he's climbing through the audience to get to whoever has their hand up with just an incredible display of dexterity.

and athleticism. There's no sound, there's no like pause between the people speaking, but some of those people are like, you know, 30 yards away from each other. It's pretty great. It's, it's good to watch too. But yeah, just the audio is, it's, that feels very modern. That was the skill of the 90s talk show host, scampering up and down the stairs, thrusting out the mic and saying, yes, sir.

And then, of course, you did the second move when everybody started booing. Oh, no, no, let them talk. Let them talk. All right, it's time for the second weekly edition of David Shoemaker guesses the strained pun headline. Yeah. Monday's headline about what we can learn from Penn State's spring practice with spring gleaning. David today's headline comes to us from our friend Noah Leiford. It's from the economist.

I'll read you the subhead here. After more than two decades, Britain is finally rid of turrets. Turmites. Britain is finally rid of termites. I'll spot you the word weevil. What was the economist strain pun headline? It's always weevil. Weevil's way more fun than termite.

Lesser of weevils, the weevil, um, no more. No. No. Good. God, it should be so easy. I actually think there's a better one here than the one they did.

Evil. Okay, let's say the weevil lives in Britain. He's an occupant of Britain. He is the... Resident evil? Resident weevil. Resident weevil is the answer. But wouldn't see no weevil? Yeah, see no weevil.

That's much better. I love it. Resident weevil. is David Shoemaker, I'm Brian Curtis. Production magic by Erica Zervantes. David, we have a rare press box masked man show crossover event

next week. And I'm not even really a part of it. No. We just kind of cross the content streams here a little bit. I'm so excited for this. So you might have intuited that David Shoemaker and his pal Brian Curtis

watched a lot of professional wrestling together over the years. And that my fandom has lapsed in various ways. I defer to David for all my opinions and knowledge of the history of professional wrestling. But I still do. I still am fascinated by professional wrestling. And I'm also fascinated by announcers. And I am doubly fascinated, David, by professional wrestling announcers.

And exactly what that job entails. It's almost like parallel universe Joe Buck. And we have Michael. Cole, who is the voice of the WWE, their play-by-play announcer, and has been for 25 years this year, by the way, what a run. We taped the interview this week. He is going to explain just what is done by a professional wrestling play-by-play man. Oh, yeah.

It was fascinating. I got to say, just as a further tease here. I didn't know any of this stuff. You know, you know this stuff. I didn't know anything about what a professional wrestling play-by-play man does. I think I'm going to learn a lot of stuff from this too. There's a lot, a lot I don't know. Shoemaker and Ramback Monday with more lukewarm takes about the media.

See you then, David. See you later, Brian.