PASADENA, Calif. — A roundup of news from the Television Critics Association winter meeting, where TV networks and streaming services present details on upcoming programs.
WILLIAMS RETURNS
Michelle Williams is returning to television for the first time in 16 years. She’s playing dancer and actress Gwen Verdon, whose career aspirations were supplanted by her marriage to choreographer-director Bob Fosse.
Oscar winner Sam Rockwell plays Fosse in the eight-episode FX series “Fosse/Verdon,” debuting April 9.
Williams’ last TV work was the hit series “Dawson’s Creek” that ended in 2003.
She sees parallels with Verdon, who was a working mother like Williams.
Williams pointed out a long gap in Verdon’s career while she stayed home to raise Nicole, her daughter with Fosse. Nicole Fosse is a creative consultant on the series.
Williams said that such gaps are something all working mothers struggle with and called it “a very complicated dilemma.”
FX VS. GOLIATH
Someone is standing up to television’s Goliath, with a prominent competitor saying that Netflix is deceiving the public about what is a hit and what isn’t.
John Landgraf, the FX Networks chief executive who has frequently pointed out the glut of scripted TV, said Netflix is using cloudy measurements to claim increasing dominance among viewers. It’s an approach he said reflects a worrisome Silicon Valley arrogance.
Applying long-used industry standards to Netflix, “their true batting average would be viewed as unimpressive,” Landgraf said.
The streaming service has upended the TV industry with a gusher of programming beyond that of any other outlet. This year, Netflix also realized its goal of earning a best-picture Oscar nomination, for the film “Roma.”
But success doesn’t necessarily stem from an “endless money cannon,” as Landgraf described spending by what he called Silicon Valley’s “monopolistic titans.”
Netflix’s claim that 40 million households globally watched the series “You” is suspect, Landgraf said, contending the U.S figure would be only 8 million viewers if the industry’s average-viewership standard was applied. The streaming service generally refuses to release viewership numbers, emphasizing the subscriber growth it now pegs at more than 130 million worldwide, with nearly 60 million of those in the United States.
“By creating a myth that they have used data to find the magic bullet of guaranteed commercial success that has eluded everyone else since the creation of television, they have given the impression that the vast majority of shows on their platform is working … and that they have or will soon have many more hits than anyone else,” Landgraf said.
Netflix said in an earnings letter it counts a viewer if they “substantially complete at least one episode.”
Landgraf, who dismissed that measure as meaningless, said a program like “Stranger Things” is rightly cited by Netflix as an audience “home run” but called it an outlier.
