Doctor Who lands on Disney+

Within the UK, the show remains forever and always on the BBC. Outside the UK... It is ripe to be picked.

And picked it has been. (Plucked?) Disney+, the premiere destination for kids TV shows and grown-up TV like Star Wars, has signed a huge deal with the BBC to carry all the new episodes of Doctor Who going forward globally.

The deal comes into effect towards the end of 2023, so it may not include any/all of the David Tennant specials that are set to air. But it will certainly be in place for the next era of the show with Ncuti Gatwa in the lead.

This move to Disney+ is a pretty big deal for Doctor Who, a kids show that grown adult men keep telling me is for big boys too. It puts the franchise front and center on one of the biggest content destinations in the world. It is also a pretty big deal for Doctor Who fans in Australia who have seen the show as a staple of our public broadcaster, the ABC. Honestly, I have re-read this story multiple times concerned I've gotten it wrong because it changes something that feels so fundamental to my understanding of TV. For us in Australia, Doctor Who is on the ABC in the same way that thegrass is green and the sky is (a shade of Na'vi) blue.

Oh, and there's also a new Doctor Who logo for 2023 which owes a debt to logos of years gone by.

Marvel golden boy to head-up DC TV, film, and animation division

James Gunn, director of great trash films like Slither and Super, but more relevantly here, director of films like the hugely successful Guardians of The Galaxy films for Marvel and the excellent, but underseen The Suicide Squad for DC/Warner Bros (not to be confused with the terrible similarly-named Suicide Squad film)... he's been tapped to co-lead the DC film, TV, and animation division at Warner Bros Discovery.

Alongside producer Peter Safran, the duo will oversee the creative and production of all the DC products coming to your screens.

Worth keeping in mind is that Gunn is one of the very few directors who has written and directed a big screen film and also written (and directed most of) a TV spin-off from that same film. This being The Suicide Squad and its HBO Max spin-off Peacemaker. He's a multiplatform guy who understands the demands of both film & TV well and knows the DC source material with a decent level of depth (the big bad for The Suicide Squad was the giant starfish Starro... he's able to get niche and weird).

This is a great news story for DC fans, but I would assume Marvel execs are less than pleased to be losing one of their more successful creatives.

7Plus leads Australia's incoming FAST revolution

Longtime readers of this newsletter and those who have had to deal with my boorish shouting at people on the street will be well-aware of my interest in FAST channels. The global leader in the FAST space is Paramount Global's Pluto TV service.

If you don't know what FAST channels are or what a Pluto TV is, I recommend you read THIS EXPLAINER about Pluto TV that I put together almost two years ago now (but it is still mostly current/reflective of where things are at). But the TL;DR version of it is that it is a streaming version of a traditional cable TV experience, only the channels are all really low cost and supported entirely by advertising. Pluto TV wins by having access to the Paramount library of owned content and deals it has struck with third party providers. There's enough lower tier programming to suit all tastes for when you just want to throw something on the TV and watch mindlessly. AND DID I MENTION IT IS ALL FREE!!!!

Pluto TV isn't the only player in the FAST market (FAST, by the way, stands for Free Advertising Supported TV). Other US players include Xumo, Tubi, Peacock, and The Roku Channel, among others. Worth paying attention to is Samsung which is slowly beefing up its Samsung TV Plus suite of FAST channels. Right now in Australia Samsung TV Plus has about 75 linear channels streaming. The only catch is that you need a Samsung streaming TV to be able to access it. But it is otherwise free. Some of the highlights include PBS America, the 24/7 Baywatch channel, the Iron Chef channel, and the music video channels.

Yesterday, Australian network Seven held its upfronts and announced its 2023 slate of shows. What caught my attention was the promise by Seven to increase the number of FAST channels currently streaming on its BVOD app 7Plus. There's already 40 channels streaming, but with Pluto TV set to debut next year, Seven is currently getting louder about its investment in the space.

Couple the FAST channels with the Channel 7 broadcast channels, which next year will add 7Bravo to its offer (making use of NBC Universal's library of reality shows plus late night chat show The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon), and it makes for a pretty solid linear offer. The Seven FAST set of channels to date are perhaps a little less adventurous and oddball than they probably needs to be at this early stage of attention-getting, but there's some interesting options in there.

The biggest problem 7Plus has with its FAST channel offer is that in order to access the channels, there are too many clicks needed to get from opening the app to mindlessly watching something on the couch. For FAST channels to feel like an intuitive viewing option, they really need to be available from the point where you click a button to open an app on your smart TV. Right now it is opening the app, and then navigating to the Live TV tab. That's too much. Open up Pluto TV's app and you're streaming immediately.

User experience matters.

Jesse Williams (Grey's Anatomy) is joining the cast of Only Murders in The Building. Read: Deadline
The plan for The White Lotus season 3 was for more nudity than what made the final edit. Read: Indiewire
Industry has been greenlit for a third season by HBO. Read: thefutoncritic
Nintendo Online controllers are now supported by Apple TV's. Read: The Streamable
Viewership for House of The Dragon in Europe has been bigger than Game of Thrones ever was. Read: Deadline

New DC chief James Gunn still has Marvel projects on the runway. Here is the Guardians of The Galaxy holiday special which debuts Nov 25... at least 3 weeks before most people are starting to go on holidays.