This isn’t a correction per se, but I did miss something in yesterday’s newsletter. I complained about the lack of accuracy of streaming availability listings on Just Watch.
But the fine folks at Reelgood reminded me that you can access their data at Reelgood.com or in their app.
And they are right. I was playing with it today and their data is much better than anything else I’ve seen.
Evan Shapiro And The Attention Economy
Beginning on June 15th, I am going to be at StreamTV in Denver. And the primary reason I want to be there is that in some ways it is the polar opposite of the recently wrapped ATX Television Festival. ATX is great and it’s a wonderful way to celebrate the best of broadcast, cable and streaming television.
But StreamTV is more about the future. It’s not that any of these new digital platforms are better or worse than the legacy networks. But it’s a big part of the future of media and it’s a world I want to better understand.
Evan Shapiro has built a career in recent years being the bridge between those two worlds. He used to work in legacy media and knows that world well. But he also understands the new universe of media options and the ways companies need to engage viewers in 2026.
On Thursday, June 18th, he will be hosting the Evan Shapiro Media Universe Summit at StreamTV and it’s described as an “interactive experience will map out the shifting landscape of media, exploring the convergence of streaming, technology, and consumer behavior.”
“Discover how to navigate disruption, identify new opportunities, and position your business for success in an ever-evolving universe. With Evan’s expertise and actionable insights, you’ll leave ready to chart your path in the next era of media.”
I’m looking forward to attending, and ahead of the event I spoke with Evan today about a variety of issues facing the industry. I’ll be posting the entire interview next week, but here is just a little taste:
One of the things that I find frustrating is that in a lot of ways, whether it's the press or the studio execs, the US entertainment industry is sort of on this weird island. They don't really pay that much attention to what's going on in Europe or anywhere else outside the U.S. And there's all these great ideas, all this stuff happening, and no one knows about it in sort of the traditional press and studio C-Suite.
Yeah, and present company excluded, I think there's a real deficit of attention by trade journalists and analysts, in particular. They don't dig into the details. I'll use the Colbert thing that just happened recently as an example of this.
You know, Ellison said Colbert wasn't profitable, and the whole trade press just copied and pasted. They didn't do the math. We did the math, we proved that's not true. Is it a great business? No, it's going down.
But to look at that show, the number one show in late night, and say it's not profitable, it's obvious bullshit, and it is not looking past the edge of your own desk.
There are tons of examples: ZDF in Germany, ITV in the UK, France Television, and TF One in France, a lot of really good examples. What FIFA is doing in Brazil, there are tons of really amazing case studies that you can learn from and steal the lessons from, and go adopt. But this incurious nature of the American trade press, and frankly, the American C-Suites, you're right, it is, it is going to be the death of them.
And as a reminder, if any of you are going to be at StreamTV, please reach out. I’d love to meet you in person.
The Three Remaining Correspondents Are Staying At 60 Minutes, For Now
The three remaining fill-time correspondents on 60 Minutes - Lesley Stahl, Bill Whitaker and Jon Wertheim said on Friday that they will remain with the show.
The correspondents’ complete memo announcing their decision that they sent out to the show’s staff:
Adventures In Vague Viewing Data
The Hollywood Reporter sent out a “Live Feed Alert” this afternoon touting…well, I won’t call it ratings numbers, given the data they have to work with:
The NBCUniversal-owned streamer says the first three days of season eight have pulled in 824 million viewing minutes, a record for any Peacock original series over that length of time. That figure is up by a robust 74 percent compared to the first three days of last year’s season.
Peacock also says that 23 percent of Love Island viewing so far this week came from mobile devices, based on its internal data. That equates to about 190 million minutes of watch time, with the other 634 million or so minutes coming from TV screens.
At that pace, Love Island USA is set to blow past its first-week totals from last season. Per Nielsen, viewers spent 772 million minutes watching the series in its premiere week in 2025. Nielsen’s streaming ratings only cover TV-set viewing, and its methodology differs from Peacock’s internal data. Still, if the two measurements are anywhere near each other, the start of season eight will easily surpass season seven’s opening.
I like to think of myself as a reasonably smart man, but I have no idea what any of those numbers mean. There’s no context, the numbers are reported in minutes watched, so we have no idea how many people watched more than a couple of minutes of any show.
And as a side note, the fact that Nielsen still can’t track mobile viewing numbers is embarrassing.
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Odds & Sods
Paramount+ today revealed the surprise premiere of its new original animated series Among Us, announced live at Summer Game Fest in Los Angeles. Created by Owen Dennis and produced by CBS Studios and Innersloth, all ten episodes are now available to stream exclusively on Paramount+. Here is the official logline: “Among Us follows a group of eccentric, monochromatic Crewmates of a ship transporting junk across the galaxy who must root out an Impostor in their midst before they fall victim to its villainous designs. The series is based on the globally popular multiplayer social deception game of the same name.”
Season three of Lioness will premiere Sunday, August 2nd on Paramount+.
Triangles Are Your Friends
Robert DeNiro, eating a sandwich in “Cop Land”
Tony Tost (Longmire, Damnation) doesn’t send out an edition of his Practical Screenwriting newsletter very often, but when he does, it’s always worth reading. He has a perspective about screenwriting that is enlightening, whether of not you ever intend to write a screenplay.
For instance, this story about the struggles to make a scene work in the movie Cop Land is wonderful, because it shows how the smallest changes can shift a scene that’s just okay to one the audience will remember:
And like my post-punk guitarist pal Zack, Mangold is also a fan of triangles. When we were working together on Damnation, sometimes Jim would nudge me towards making my two-character scenes more complicated by introducing a third factor. Thus, creating a scenic triangle.
To illustrate his point, one time Jim told me an anecdote from the filming of his great film Cop Land. One of the best known scenes is when Sylvester Stallone’s small town sheriff visits the office of Robert De Niro’s internal affairs investigator. It’s the “you blew it” scene. And it’s great. But it wasn’t as special at first.
The initial scene was just a straight-up dialogue exchange about Stallone’s character (Freddy) having blown a chance introduced by De Niro’s character (Tilden) to bring down some crooked cops.
On set, this was the version they were trying to film. And it was falling flat. Jim couldn’t figure out what was missing. You had two great actors — yes, I think Stallone is a great thespian when he wants to be — performing a pivotal scene with obvious conflict. But still, it wasn’t quite special.
When filming broke for lunch, Jim tried discussing the scene with both actors. If I remember the story correctly, Stallone was very engaged but De Niro was kind of futzing around with his sandwich, not really participating. Jim kept trying to connect with De Niro but was getting nothing in return. As the lunch period was coming to an end, Jim’s frustration was mounting.
That’s when Jim had the epiphany—he needed De Niro to bring the sandwich into the scene itself. So that’s what they did when filming resumed.
Even though I am not a screenwriter, I find this kind of insight incredibly helpful when an episode (or an entire show) isn’t working. Some of this comes from having a lot of experience and that is often the thing that is missing in these streaming shows where all six episodes are written and directed by one person. Often one person who has never run a show before.
And FYI, Cop Land is available to watch for free on Pluto. And in a weird coincidence, Paramount+ just announced it is putting a TV version of the movie into development. James Mangold did the 1997 film and the TV series will be co-written and executive produced by Mangold and The Old Man co-creator Robert Levine and will be directed by Mangold.
What’s Coming Tonight And Tomorrow
FRIDAY, JUNE 5TH:
Belle Collective Season Premiere (OWN)
Cape Fear Series Premiere (Apple TV)
Everything On The Menu With Braun Strowman Season Premiere (USA)
Groundswell (Prime Video)
Hannah Berner: None Of My Business (Hulu)
Her Husband's Double Life (LMN)
Mexico '86 (Netflix)
Office Romance (Netflix)
Pop Culture Jeopardy Season Two Finale (Netflix)
Teach You A Lesson Series Premiere (Netflix)
The Marked Woman (Netflix)
Totally Funny Animals Season Premiere (The CW)
Your Friends & Neighbors Season Two Finale (Apple TV)
SATURDAY, JUNE 6TH:
The Greek Aisle (Hallmark)
Thou Shall Not Commit Adultery (Lifetime)
Wild Spring Series Premiere (Acorn TV, AMC+, BBC America)
SUNDAY, JUNE 7TH:
Best Of The World With Antoni Porowski Series Premiere (NatGeo)
Building Baeumler Series Premiere (HGTV)
100 Cooks Series Premiere (Food)
79th Annual Tony Awards (CBS, Paramount+)