James Poniewozik
speaker
256 appearances
3 recordings
2 series
first heard Dec 2024
last heard 21 May
James Poniewozik’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in May 2026 with 1.
Appearances
And that creates this money gusher directed at starting up a lot of new shows in order to create enough content for these platforms to produce a lot of prestige-y looking thumbnails when you get to the home screen of the app. And what is serving up those thumbnails to you? It's the algorithm. It's deciding what you are likely to click on and keep watching to generate those viewing hours for them.
And that creates a different kind of incentive. That's not the kind of incentive where you're like, oh, I'm going to create a drama about a mobster in New Jersey because people haven't seen that before and it'll be so surprising they'll watch it.
It is, I'm going to generate something that kind of reminds you of that show that you watched about the mobster in New Jersey, so that you'll click on that and watch our streaming platform for a little longer. Each man in the 101st Airborne would be going home. You loved Band of Brothers back when it was on HBO.
All right, Apple TV is going to give you Masters of the Air, which is more boring, but it's good enough for now.
You liked Big Little Lies on HBO.
Okay, we'll make Apples Never Fall, another Leanne Moriarty novel. Not as distinctive or original or surprising, but probably good enough for now.
It's this tsunami of familiar, safe content that results in just a deluge of mid-TV.
Well, I think it's definitely a danger for the TV industry. You know, I think if you have a lot of same-seeming stuff out there, you run the risk of just oversaturation of the market, which in fact is what we seem to be experiencing now. I mean, I don't think that the artists of television have gotten less creative. Yeah.
I think that it is more difficult in this environment to pitch off-the-wall, idiosyncratic and personal ideas. You know, something like Fleabag, which was an amazing show that really represents a risk for a programmer that is responsible for answering to boards and all the people who've put up all this money.
You know, talent always finds a way out. There are times in the history of any medium when it gets a little more difficult for talent and originality to find its way. But artists want to create, even when all the forces of money and business and the culture and technology are pushing against that and trying to smooth out the bumps. And that's what gives me hope.
One show this year that I absolutely loved and could recommend unreservedly was We Are Lady Parts. It is this fresh, irreverent, screamingly funny British sitcom about a band of female Muslim punk musicians.
Part of what works so well about We Are Lady Parts is that it is very much a story that is about trying to make original, outspoken art under the constraints of working for a big entertainment corporation.
Another show that I really liked and is so original that I almost have a hard time characterizing it was Fantasmas, which was a comedy on HBO this year starring the comic funny person, Julio Torres.
I think a term I used for it was sketch fantasy about a young man trying to rent an apartment in New York. It's kind of this surreal stream of consciousness look into his imagination and the workings of his mind. Julio, you need a new apartment. And to get a new apartment, you need proof of existence.
It's the opposite of mid-TV. It's not trying to be familiar or safe or, you know, kind of a turn-your-brain-off experience. It's a surprising, fun show that makes you pay attention because it's so original.
That's one thing I love about television is that it's a medium that ideally is very responsive to changes in the culture and shifts in the currents. And it's a way for different voices that you may not have encountered before to percolate through and kind of shift your perspective. So talent will out. Talent will out. It may take a little longer sometimes than the others, but talent will out.
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