License to Kill...Everyone

License to Kill...Everyone
Number	261
Broadcast Date	April 1, 2019
Episode Length	58:45
Hosts	Brian Brushwood, Tom Merritt
Guests	Andrew Zarian

The Game of Throne prequel gets a cast, Netflix is dominating SVOD, and YouTube TV is now all over the US. All this and more on Cordkillers! With special guest Andrew Zarian.

Guests

• Andrew Zarian

Intro Video

• The Comedian" from The Twilight Zone

Primary Target

• ‘Game Of Thrones’ Prequel HBO Pilot Adds Five Series Regulars To Cast

HBO has a lot of its cast set for the Game of Thrones prequel, tentatively called The Long Night (at least by GRR Martin but not official) that Jane Goldman is writing.

Marquis Rodriguez (When They See Us), John Simm (Strangers), Richard McCabe (Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams), John Heffernan (Dracula) and Dixie Egerickx (The Secret Garden) are set as series regulars.

Previously announced Naomi Watts, Josh Whitehouse, Naomi Ackie, Denise Gough, Jamie Campbell Bower, Sheila Atim, Ivanno Jeremiah, Georgie Henley, Alex Sharp, Toby Regbo and Miranda Richardson.

It chronicles the world’s descent from the Golden Age of Heroes into its darkest hour.

Not the story we think we know

How to Watch

• Sony’s streaming service Crackle sells majority stake to Chicken Soup for the Soul

Sony sold its Crackle streaming service to CSS Entertainment, launching a new joint venture with the company called Crackle plus. CSS Entertainment takes a majority ownership of the venture, with Sony receiving various stock options in CSS. Sony will contribute the Crackle brand, user base and ad rep business to the venture, as well as licensing Sony Pictures content and Crackle original series. CSS will bring it's existing ad-supporting streaming services Popcornflix, Popcornflix Kids, Popcornflix Comedy, Frightpix, Espanolflix, and Truli to Crackle Plus. Crackle Plus now claims to have 10 million monthly active users and 26 million registered users.

What to Watch

• Final Pet Semetary Trailer. Coming out April 5
• Netflix Orders Three New Italy Originals, Including ‘Three Steps Over Heaven’

Netflix ordered three new Italian originals.

“Curon,” a genre show with supernatural elements, which is set in a Northern Italian village

A series adaptation of the teen romance movie “Three Steps Over Heaven”

An adaptation of a bestselling Italian novel titled “Fedeltà,” which translates as “Faithfulness,” and is about a Milanese couple in their 30s.

Eyes On

• Brian: Apollo 11 again, Dumbo, Us, The Office, Binging Trailer Park Boys animated series
• Tom: Barry
• Andrew: The Case Against Adnan Syed
• On the Lookout: A Million Little Things

Front Lines

• MGM’s Epix Now streaming service is now available on Roku and Amazon Fire TV

The standalone version of Epix, Epix Now is available for Roku and Fire TV, adding on to the previous availability on Android and iOS. It's already an add-on channel through Roku, and will be in May for Apple TV Channels. Epix Now costs $5.99 a month and will be the home of the original series Pennyworth about Batman's Alfred.

• FuboTV Is Latest Internet TV Service to Hike Prices

Last Thursday, sports-oriented streaming service Fubo TV raised its base plan prices $10 to $54.99 a month. Fubo Extra also rises $10 to $60 a month. It added AMC, Cartoon Network, CNN, TBS, and TNT over the last year.

• YouTube TV announced it is now available in all 210 US TV markets. Not all areas offer all four major broadcasters.
• Discovery & BBC Reignite Global Content Deal With SVOD & UKTV Agreement, Six Years After Ending Previous Pact

Discovery and BBC have signed a ten-year partnership to among other things, develop a global Streaming video on demand service. BBC and Discovery ended a partnership six years ago. The new deal is effective outside the Uk, Ireland and China and will make the SVOD from Discovery home to all BBC natural history series. Discovery is expected to launch the service in 2020. The two companies will also co-develop new nature series.

• HDHomerun Pulls Plug on TV Streaming Service Following Hollywood Lawsuit

SiliconDust which makes the HDHomeRun connected TV tuners will shut down its premium TV service over the next 30 days. PremiumTV from HD HomeRun cost $34 a month for 45 channels. Omniverse One World Television supplied the service and is being sued for copyright infringement. Omniverse was claiming a far-reaching license to redistribute satellite TV service over the internet.

• Netflix Has 71% Of Global SVOD Market, But New Services Gain Ground

According to Deadline Parrot Analytics says Netflix controls 71% of the global SVOD market. Parrot also found, SVOD platforms have released 319 original series among them, more than the 147 released the prior year. Netflix dominated the originals category, premiering 139 shows. The No. 1 digital originals for 2018 were Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and La Casa De Papel, each of which has the highest demand in 2018 in three out of 10 markets. Star Trek: Discovery and Stranger Things, topped two markets each. DC Universe's Titans finished the year as the No. 2 show in terms of demand, trailing only Chilling Adventures.

• Netflix Ranked as No. 1 Fastest-Growing U.S. Brand in 2019

Dispatches From The Front

I was watching this video about how to connect a hard drive to an iPad and as I was watching it I seemed to remember (from several months ago) a subscriber to CordKillers asked you guys if there was a way to stream movies from a hard drive to an iPad. I THINK this will do what that person was needing IF I'm remembering correctly what they needed...
Connect Any Hard Drive to an iPad Pro
RAVPower FileHub
At around 3 minutes in, he starts getting to the point.
I hope this helps someone!

Thanks,
-Michael

Hi Tom, Brian, and Bryce,

After years of listening to the Tom Merritt Scale of Movies, I have to ask is the Scale and a list of graded movies published anywhere? Recommendations from the Cord Killers crew tend to be spot on in my taste, and would be interested as using the Merritt grading scale as my Digital Sherpa to movies I may have missed in the past.

Keep up the good work!
Your Boss,

-Rob

Quick thought about Apple TV+, and buzz words in general. I'm finding more and more that "machine learning" has become the go-to catch phrase to make something sound advanced. Apple using "machine learning" for the recommended section made me audibly groan. Isn't this just a fancy way of saying "we know what you watch, and we'll send you more of the same." There's nothing fancy about that. Further, what's the main variable in that "machine learning" algorithm? I'd wager its weighted heavily toward whatever new show Apple (or Netflix, or Hulu) has dumped money into and needs people to watch. I'm finding that I no longer view "machine learning" as a good thing. The desire to use it as the lipstick to dress up the pig of forced advertising has really soured the concept to me. Love the show!

-Mike

When I was a teen lad some 50 years ago (yes, we had books back then, wise-acres), the typical paperbook novel might come in at 150 or 200 pages. Anything 250 or higher was both a rarity, and thought to be "boring" or "slow". Today, not only have novels increased to 600 pages length frequently, but they appear as parts of six or eight or whatever part SERIES! And this in a time when we feel attention and time dwindle. Odd.

Continued good wishes, I love your shows maximally.

-Steve S.

Links

• http://www.cordkillers.com/blog/2019/4/1/cordkillers-261-license-to-killeveryone-w-andrew-zarian
• patreon.com/cordkillers
• 2019 Summer Movie Draft

Preceded by: "It's Going to be Great"

License to Kill...Everyone

Followed by: "Brian's Official British Response"