Why Roasts Are ‘Vile, Mean, Fascist’ Exercises in ‘Punching Down’ … That Netflix Will Probably Now Want To Do Again and Again

Each weekend, Next TV writers Daniel Frankel and David Bloom SMS chat about the latest news in technology, media and telecom. This time, we actually figured the whole thing out. 

DANIEL FRANKEL: Happy Friday, D. I just got out of Crenshaw Cinemark's jam-packed 4:10 p.m. Friday presentation of Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, the third part of a 10-year-old 20th Century Fox reboot of a well-iterated 56-year-old cinematic property … graphics from which festooned once my lunchbox back in the second grade. (Shocking how many people turned out for this movie, given how much of a tomb this South Los Angeles multiplex has been recently, but more on that in a minute).

First, I was talking to sports media people about the big NBA TV rights negotiations, and it seems the NBA’s plan was to keep things status quo (but with a giant raise) in regard to Disney and Warner Bros., but bring a third big technology partner, Amazon. But then, Comcast disrupted everything with its huge, highly unexpected bid. (Given that we were talking about it back in February, I can't imagine how much of a “surprise” it really was.)

Also read: Third NBA Rights Option Emerges for David Zaslav and Warner Bros. — Match Amazon’s $1.8 Billion Bid

Now, Zaslav is talking like he may let NBCU have its $2.5 billion prize, but instead have TNT take the package carved out for Amazon … which would probably bum out the league. What is going to happen with NBA rights? He did make a point of letting everyone know during Warner’s earnings call last week that he has the ability to match any third-party offer.

DAVID BLOOM: Ugh. I guess the question is whether maintaining some variant of status quo is more valuable than trading in a debt-saddled, fading cable stalwart that’s still shrinking and cutting for a $2 trillion behemoth with global reach and leading positions in AI, cloud, streaming, e-commerce and increasingly, TV sports. I'm also wondering if getting into a bidding war with Andy Jassy and Amazon solves any of Zaz’s challenges.

Also Read: Warner Bros. Discovery Reports $966 Million First-Quarter Loss

We’ll see. Regardless, the league gets richer. Of course, all this is happening just before the principals in this pas de quatre get up on stage in New York for the rejuvenated upfronts presentations. Wrapping up negotiations by Monday, ready for announcements to advertisers, makes sense. But maybe it'll take a bit longer to nail down who's going to be paying these $6 billion-plus in commitments. I have to think NBA commissioner Adam Silver is once again looking forward rather than back, a reflexive inclination that has made him pro sports’ best commissioner. But nostalgia is a powerful thing, even amid rapid changes in audience habits and technology use.

FRANKEL: It seems the NBA has a bit of a mess on its hands. It didn't expect Comcast to do what it did. Maybe they split that existing TNT package and give NBC a slice of it? Sounds like Warner doesn’t want to pay full freight, anyway. I saw our former Variety colleague, veteran TV reporter Joe Adalian, lamenting what NBC's primetime schedule would look like if two nights of live pro basketball charged into the lane of the primetime schedule. “It would feel more like Fox than it would CBS,” he tweeted, calling such a move ”devastating.“

Joe has a unique insight into what's being lost amid all the insurgent dealmaking. But I have to say, looking at NBC's just elapsed spring schedule, which featured one of the worst situation comedy executions I've ever seen, Extended Family, and staring at another half-day each week of Dick Wolf procedurals in the fall schedule released Friday, I don't know that I’d label such a transformation as necessarily … devastating. In fact, witnessing the launch of CBS’s Tracker last February, which led out of the AFC Championship Game, I might even call it progress.

Also read: Rewardist for Ratings: CBS' 'Tracker' Expands Its Audience Again in Week 10, Closes in an Unlikely Broadcast TV Audience Crown

BLOOM: I have boundless respect for the sainted Mr. Adalian, with whom I worked at Variety 23 years ago. As that suggests, Joe’s been covering the business a very long time, which has given him deep relationships and industry history. But he may also have a slightly, hmmmm, antediluvian view on broadcast TV in the streaming era. Perhaps he's just reflecting what his freaked-out producer buddies at NBC shows are saying.

But NBC hasn't been at CBS’s level since Must See TV. Its scripted programming stirs no one’s soul, unless you’re Dick Wolf’s heirs. None of this is getting better with or without the NBA, especially as Peacock starts to show signs of life. Meanwhile, the most compelling broadcast TV usually involves live competitions, whether they feature superb athletes or desperate reality-show contestants.

Did Joe really think NBC’s programming teams were going to get more resources? And yes, the cross-promotion power of tune-in live sports can be golden. Speaking of old standards in new circumstances, it looks like Disney sequel Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is monkeying around with a plus-$50 million theatrical debut this weekend. That’s great by current, debased box-office standards, but more mediocre to those with longer perspective. The film is getting solid reviews, encouraging given that the script leaps generations after the trio of Apes films built around Andy Serkis' great Caesar character. Good news for Disney after a not-good quarterly earnings report this past week following that nasty proxy battle.

Also read: Disney Entertainment DTC Business Gets Out of the Red in Q2

Maybe we should do a documentary called Kingdom of the Planet of Bob Iger. What's your take on the no-name hit ape movie amid that really mediocre earnings report, which sent shares stumbling last week from $117 to $105?

FRANKEL: Listen, I'll never pretend to know what Wall Street is thinking, in the same way I don't know what's on the mind of a vastly rich, profoundly handsome, prodigiously successful man like Tom Brady when he agree to go on global television and let professional insult comics have at him and all that they love, save for not rubbing billionaire Robert Kraft the wrong way. I mean, I've tried very hard to figure out what messaging goals Brady might have achieved here, outside of embarrassing his ex-wife. Not that Netflix, which hoisted a solid water-cooler moment this week, doesn't plan to do another comedy roast as soon as it can find another sucker to headline the thing.

Back to Apes. As I observed these nitwits at Fox News and their disciples celebrate this coarse, debasing, purposeless “comedy” exercise as a victory over “PC” and “woke” insurgency, I tried to drown out the noise in a theatrical environment that felt like a loud Denny’s. I mean, especially if the first number on the scale is a “3,” you don't have to repeatedly tap on the bottom of your 48-ounce “medium” Mr. Pibb so as to extract the last molecule of sugary beverage, or carry out an in-depth discussion about dinner plans — Taco Bell or go upscale to Chipotle? — at full conversational volume. I mean, it seems like everybody has been streaming so much at home, they've forgotten the basic civility of sitting in a theater quietly with other patrons. It’s just another one of the many headwinds this way of media-entertainment life faces in its desperate migration to some kind of survival, I suppose.

BLOOM: Your roast of celebrity roasts is, amusingly, pretty much that of Hannah Einbinder’s snarky, entitled Ava in Max's Emmy-winning Hacks in just-released episode 3 of Season 3 (spoiler alert). She’s helping semi-former boss Deborah Vance prepare for a similar exercise in self- and group abasement:

"Just want to say … roasts are vile. I mean, everything about them is problematic. The material punches down, almost always at the expense of women and other marginalized groups. It’s almost fascistic when you think about it, you know?"

Jean Smart’s wonderful Deborah appeared to enjoy getting and giving the abuse, which is about what you'd expect from her acid-etched veteran comedian character.

The Brady barbecue, by contrast, had a lot of collateral damage (Kim Kardashian got booed, then the boos were excised?). Brady even apologized to Gisele Bundchen over a few stray rockets sent his ex-wife’s way. She left the man for a reason; give her a break! But the show did what Netflix needed as the streaming giant continued its push into live programming with a string of comedy events this week, most especially John Mulaney’s talk-show deconstruction, the six-episode Everybody's In LA. 

Some bits and lines didn’t work but it was so much more interesting and consistently surprising than the Brady roast or most any ongoing late-night talk show. Lots of interesting guests and comics, none of them selling anything. They instead kibbitzed with each other for extended periods along a very long couch. Richard Kind played deranged sidekick. Los Lobos, Beck, St. Vincent and Weezer were among the great bands that played live. And it was all interspersed with nightly L.A. travelogues featuring cool and weird things, people and places. Fabulous. More please.

FRANKEL: Kudos for Netflix and John Mulaney for trying to innovate here. I caught Wednesday night's episode, the one with Sarah Silverman and Cassandra Peterson. Must confess the meandering improv didn’t work for me … which is surprising, because I'm the same age — or even older — than a lot of the folks who seem to be talking about the show the most … and who were around for Merv Griffin. And funny you should mention Hacks — without seeing this Saturday-night message you sent over, I woke up to my wife binge-watching season 2 … which dropped all the way back in 2021, when Jason Kilar ran HBO. I forgot how funny this show is/was. (I think that Hannah Einbinder quote may have been what Fox News was reacting to.) Maybe more people will see Hacks now that they can get Max in a bundle with Disney Plus and Hulu.

BLOOM: Hacks is a delightfully written and acted show, earning Smart two Best Comedy Actress Emmys (among six for the show so far), and Einbinder two nominations. And remember, Hacks was a Kilar-spawned Max-only show, not an HBO creation, launched during those optimistic Peak TV days when streaming did its own thing. Hacks may be the last meaningful streaming-only creation out there as everybody looks to cross-distribute everything they have everywhere they are. The Max-Disney bundle you mention is intriguing, though I'm curious how it pairs with the skinny sports bundle they previously announced with Fox. Prices haven’t been released, but combined those packages surely top $80 a month. Doesn’t seem like much of a bargain compared to cable, especially because they still wouldn’t get you all NFL games or what's left of legacy television.

So I’m less wowed than, say, Needham senior analyst Laura Martin, who called the streaming bundle “the biggest upside surprise” of last week’s otherwise mediocre WBD earnings announcement (as Martin also noted, WBD’s $50 million CEO reported worse-than-expected declines in revenues, adjusted EBITDA, and earnings per share, with revenues down from advertising, distribution, and content). Her point was that bundles typically reduce streaming churn 20% to 50%. And WBD did report a few bright spots. Max could double its potential market in the next year with Latin America and EMEA expansions. Free cash flow, upon which Zaslav's pay is calculated, has amazingly switched from a minus-$930 million a year ago to a positive $390 million this quarter, even as share prices drooped below $8. And Max has nearly 100 million subscribers, with rising average revenue per subscriber. Sports remain a significant part of the company’s $20 billion annual content spend, Martin noted. Let's see how important. I’m feeling like we're fast approaching Kenny Rogers territory. Is it time to hold ’em or to fold ’em?