Tubi's Nielsen debut / "Monk" returns on Peacock / "Days of Our Lives" renewed / WGA: Writers are "falling behind"

Plus today's calendar, Doherty joins "A Thousand Blows," Netflix "Beef" trailer, "Bupkis" hits Peacock in May, and more

Inside.com Part of   Network March 16, 2023

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Tubi made its debut on Nielsen's monthly platform rankings in February, capturing around 1% of all TV use in the US. That puts it ahead of the only other ad-supported free streaming platform in the rankings, Paramount Global's Pluto TV, which claimed around 0.7% of US TV use. More: Pluto was the first so-called FAST platform to make the list, in September of 2022. Nielsen has also tweaked the way it measures audiences this month; previously, views on cord-cutting platforms such as YouTube TV and Hulu + Live TV were counted twice, but this step has been eliminated. Average TV viewership was down around 5.1% in February vs. January, a fairly typical yearly dip that aligns with the end of the NFL season. Streaming use was down overall in February, but it nonetheless increased its overall share of TV viewing; 34.3% of all US TV use went to streamers, boosted by NBC's "New Amsterdam" on Peacock and "The Last of Us" on HBO Max. HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

Peacock ordered a reunion movie continuing the story of the USA mystery series "Monk." Star Tony Shalhoub will reprise his role as brilliant San Francisco detective Adrian Monk, who lives with obsessive compulsive disorder, for the film. More: Original cast members Ted Levine, Traylor Howard, Jason Gray-Stanford, Melora Hardin, and Hector Elizondo will all return for the film, as will the original creative team of Andy Breckman, David Hoberman, and Randy Zisk. The film, titled, "Mr. Monk's Last Case: A Monk Movie," finds the detective returning for one final investigation on behalf of his journalist step-daughter, Molly. "Monk" debuted on USA in 2002 and ran for eight seasons and 125 episodes; the 2009 series finale set a record for cable TV viewership at the time. DEADLINE

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DAILY CALENDAR THURSDAY, MARCH 16 SHADOW AND BONE: The fantasy-drama series -- based on the Grishaverse YA novels by Leigh Bardugo -- returns for a second season. Jessie Mei Li stars as orphan Alina Starkov, whose unique light-summoning power could be the key to saving the world, but only if she can stay ahead of the evil General Kirigan (Ben Barnes). Archie Renaux, Freddy Carter, Amita Suman, and Kit Young co-star. [Netflix] STILL TIME (ERA ORA): Fantasy comedy-drama feature from Italy about a dedicated workaholic (Edoardo Leo) who discovers there really aren't enough hours in the day when he begins uncontrollably leaping years ahead through his own life. Alessandro Aronadio co-wrote and directed. [Netflix] QUEENS COURT: Debut reality dating series in which a trio of celebrity women -- Tamar Braxton, Evelyn Lozada, and Nivea -- try to find new partners from a collection of 21 promising prospective suitors. Holly Robinson Peete and Rodney Peete co-host and also offer support and advice to the main trio; Will Packer ("Think Like a Man," "Girls Trip") executive produced. [Peacock] ZATIMA: Comedy-drama series from writer, director, and creator Tyler Perry, spun off from his series "Sistas," and following Fatima (Crystal Renee Haylsett) and Zac (Devale Ellis) as they embark on a new life as a couple. It's back this week for a second season. [BET+] THERE THERE: 2022 anthology comedy film from "mumblecore" innovator Andrew Bujalski ("Funny Ha Ha," "Support the Girls"), made up of short scenes about intimacy and human connection, each starring just two actors at a time. The cast includes Lil Taylor, Lennie James, Molly Gordon, Avi Nash, and Jason Schwartzman. [Hulu] BEYOND OAK ISLAND: Reality series following treasure-hunting brothers Rick and Marty Lagina as they investigate legends and reports of missing riches and artifacts from around the globe. Season 2 aired in early 2022 on History Channel and comes to Hulu today. [Hulu]

Peacock renewed the soap opera "Days of Our Lives" for two additional seasons, bringing the show through Season 60. This marks the show's first Peacock renewal; "Days" was NBC's longest-running drama series before moving over to the streamer exclusively in 2022. More: Only three soap operas are still running on network television: two on CBS and one on ABC. While soap operas have struggled to maintain an audience on broadcast TV, "Days of Our Lives" has been a hit for Peacock, which reports that it's consitently among the platform's Top 10 most-viewed shows. The show received a Daytime Emmy Award in 2022 for Outstanding Writing. VARIETY

A new bulletin, released Tuesday by the Writers Guild of America (WGA), claims writers are "falling behind" in the streaming era. The Writers Guild is scheduled to enter negotiations on new contracts with studios and streamers next week. More: The report cites new trends such as "mini-rooms" and shorter TV seasons as major obstacles to writers attempting to maintain steady income. According to WGA, media companies are using the transition to streaming as a pretense to "cut writer pay and separate writing from production, worsening working conditions for series writers at all levels." The bulletin also notes that 49% of all TV writers during the 2021-2022 season worked for "guild minimums," the lowest allowable rate that can be paid to a WGA member; that's up from 33% in 2013-2014. Some showrunners are apparently even being paid guild minimums. HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

"The Crown" vet Erin Doherty -- who played Princess Anne in Seasons 3 and 4 -- joined the cast of the Disney+ period drama series "A Thousand Blows." The 12-part series centers on illegal boxing in Victorian London, and comes from "Peaky Blinders" vets Stephen Knight and Stephen Graham. More: Knight created the series and served as the lead writer, while Graham executive produces and stars. Malachi Kirby and Francis Lovehall co-star as friends from Jamaica who find themselves in London's East End in the 1880s, and become drawn into the thriving underground boxing scene; Doherty will play the leader of a notorious all-female gang. Production on the series in now underway in London. The show is being produced for Disney+ internationally but will likely stream on Hulu in the US. HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

Netflix released a trailer for the upcoming dark comedy series "Beef." The show comes from A24, the TV and film studio behind recent Best Picture winner "Everything Everywhere All At Once." More: Stephen Yeun and Ali Wong co-star as two strangers -- both dealing with their own personal crises -- who become locked in an intense feud following a road rage incident. Joseph Lee, Young Mazino, David Choe, and Patti Yasutake co-star. "Tuca and Bertie" and "Dave" vet Lee Sung Jin created the series and wrote some of the scripts. "Beef" has its world premiere this weekend in Austin at the SXSW festival; all ten 30-minute episodes hit Netflix on April 6. INDIEWIRE

QUICK HITS Develop a better understanding of partnership marketing, discover various partnership types and how they’ve helped leading companies flourish in this guide.* All eight episodes of Pete Davidson's semi-autobiographical comedy series "Bupkis" hit Peacock on May 4. On Twitter, "League of Their Own" co-creator Will Graham told fans that this week's announcement about the show returning to Prime Video for a four-episode second and final season was just "a leak" and not yet official; he encouraged fans to mount a campaign to expand Amazon's Season 2 order. Netflix's political thriller series "The Diplomat" -- starring Keri Russell as the new US ambassador to the UK -- arrives on April 20; Rufus Sewell, David Gyasi, and Rory Kinnear co-star. Apple released a teaser for the third season of the spy drama series "Slow Horses"; production on Season 4 begins next week. Netflix is developing the series "One Day in December" with indie filmmaker Drake Doremus ("Like Crazy") and star Lucy Boynton; the series is based on a novel by Josie Silver. Paramount Global announced plans to introduce a low-cost mobile-only Paramount+ tier exclusively in Brazil and Mexico. Multilingual drama series "Drops of God" -- based on the manga by Tadashi Agi -- debuts on Apple TV+ on April 21; the show was filmed in a combination of French, Japanese, and English. "Outlander" regular Richard Rankin signed on to portray Detective John Rebus in a new six-part series for Viaplay, based on crime novels by Ian Rankin; the two Rankins are not related. End the March Madness of manual expense reporting with Divvy. Demo with Divvy to get a College Basketball Jersey of your choice.* *This is sponsored content

Lon Harris is the writer and editor of Inside Streaming and was the very first person to ever write an Inside newsletter. He lives in Los Angeles, California, and also writes about TV and film for Fandom, Screen Junkies, Rotten Tomatoes, Gamma Ray and others. Plus he has a Game of Thrones podcast called "Casterly Talk" and competes on The Movie Trivia Schmoedown as "The Professor." Editor Eduardo Garcia is a writer and editor based in New York. He is the author of "Things You Can Do," an illustrated book about climate action. Bylines in The New York Times, The Guardian, Slate, Scientific American, and others. In one of his previous lives, Eduardo worked as a Reuters correspondent in Latin America for nearly a decade.

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