Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Tuesday, March 29th, 2022. THE LAUNCH OF CNN+The new streaming service CNN+ launched today and I had a quick overview up just after midnight, in case you'd like to see my first take on it.While it's not a good idea to judge any streaming service by what you see at launch, so far my worries about CNN+ seem to be justified. Much of it feels like CNN programming from an alterative universe. The topics are well-worn, the guests are generally the same familiar faces and for whatever reason, CNN is not utilizing any of its significant local TV assets to create some distinctive regional news programming.But my question revolves around the decision to not produce a 24/7 CNN+ news feed. Instead, there are live shows scattered throughout the day. But the other times everything is just on-demand, which seems like a viewing method that isn't going to be familiar to most news consumers. It's as if CNN+ wants to sort of be a news product, but it also wants to be more serious or more long-form. In the end, there doesn't seem to be any coherent programming philosophy. But as I said, maybe that will change with time.All of this talk about news programming prompted some discussions on Twitter about NBC's very old NBCi.com experiment and I even spent some time recounting my days as the managing editor of the web site for an NBC O&O station. Check out the discussion here.Have any of you checked out CNN+ yet? What do you think? Let me know by replying to this newsletter or emailing me at [email protected].WHIP MEDIA WATCH REPORTS
APPLE TV+ RELEASES FIRST HALF OF 'FRIDAY NIGHT BASEBALL' SCHEDULEApple TV+ has announced the lineup of Friday Night Baseball games for the first half of the upcoming season. The games scheduled to stream on Apple TV+ will be available to anyone with Internet access for free (at least for now). The games will be available on Apple TV+ in the United States, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Japan, Mexico, Puerto Rico, South Korea and the United Kingdom.Here is the rundown of games:
Friday, April 8th7 pm ET: New York Mets at Washington Nationals9:30 pm: Houston Astros at Los Angeles Angels
Friday, April 15th7 pm: Tampa Bay Rays at Chicago White Sox10 pm: Cincinnati Reds at Los Angeles Dodgers
Friday, April 22nd6:30 pm: St. Louis Cardinals at Cincinnati Reds9:30 pm: Texas Rangers at Oakland Athletics
Friday, April 29th8 pm: New York Yankees at Kansas City Royals10 pm: Washington Nationals at San Francisco Giants
Friday, May 6th7 pm: Chicago White Sox at Boston Red Sox9:30 pm: Tampa Bay Rays at Seattle Mariners
Friday, May 13th7 pm: San Diego Padres at Atlanta Braves9:30 pm: Chicago Cubs at Arizona Diamondbacks
Friday, May 20th6:30 pm: St. Louis Cardinals at Pittsburgh Pirates8 pm: Texas Rangers at Houston Astros Friday, May 27th7 pm: Baltimore Orioles at Boston Red Sox9:30 pm: Toronto Blue Jays at Los Angeles Angels
Friday, June 3rd7 pm: Detroit Tigers at New York Yankees8:30 pm: Atlanta Braves at Colorado Rockies Friday, June 10th8 pm: Tampa Bay Rays at Minnesota Twins9:30 pm: New York Mets at Los Angeles Angels
Friday, June 17th8 pm: Chicago White Sox at Houston Astros10 pm: Cleveland Guardians at Los Angeles Dodgers
Friday, June 24th8 pm: Chicago Cubs at St. Louis Cardinals9:30 pm: Detroit Tigers at Arizona DiamondbacksDISNEY+ ANNOUNCES LAUNCH DATES FOR 42 COUNTRIESDisney+ announced the roll-out dates for its service in 42 additional countries today. Here is the quick rundown:May 18th: South AfricaJune 8th: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestine Territories, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.June 14th: Albania, Andorra, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Kosovo, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Malta, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania, San Marino, Serbia,Slovakia, Slovenia, Turkey and Vatican City.June 16th: IsraelThere are also 11 smaller territories launching on June 14th: Aland Islands, Faroe Islands, French Polynesia, French Southern Territories, St. Pierre and Miquelon, Sint Maarten, Overseas Collective, Svalbard & Jan Mayen, British Indian Ocean Territory, Gibraltar, Pit Caim Islands and St. Helena.TWEET OF THE DAY
ODDS AND SODS* The six-episode limited series Pistol premieres May 31st on FX. Directed by Danny Boyle, it's the story of the legendary Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones.* Here is an exclusive video clip from tonight's episode of To Tell The Truth, which airs on ABC.* The comedy special Bill Maher: #Adulting premieres Friday, April 15th on HBO.* Bravo's new relationship series Love Match Atlanta premieres on Sunday, May 8th.WHAT'S NEW FOR TUESDAYHere's a quick rundown of all the new stuff premiering today on TV and streaming:Cherif Season Two Premiere (MHz Choice)How To Survive A Pandemic (HBO Max)Johnny Hallyday: Beyond Rock (Netflix)Mighty Express (Netflix)Mike Epps: Indiana Mike (Netflix)Name That Tune (Fox)Tandem Season Three Premiere (MHz Choice)The Girl From Plainville Series Premiere (Hulu)The Lost Gold Of The Aztecs Series Premiere (History)True Conviction: Scene Of The Crime (Investigation Discovery)Click Here to see the list of all of the upcoming premiere dates for the next few months.SEE YOU WEDNESDAY! If you have any feedback, send it along to [email protected] and follow me on Twitter @aysrick.