Jeopardy host Alex Trebek has reported that his stage 4 pancreatic cancer is in ‘near remission’.

"The doctors said they hadn’t seen this kind of positive result in their memory…some of the tumors have already shrunk by more than 50 percent."

Source: Complex

If confronted with the option of watching ads or paying double the subscription charge, Hulu viewers choose ads. The streamer reports 70% of its users are on advertising-supported plans.

Now Hulu, which in the past month became fully ensconced under Disney’s wing, has provided some context around the size of its audience base. Overall, it has 82 million viewers (meaning there’s an average of 2.9 viewers per Hulu account). And of those, about 70%, or 58 million, are on the ad-supported plan, according to Peter Naylor, senior VP, head of advertising sales, citing comScore estimates.

From my own perspective, I appreciate that the ad-load never feels particularly intrusive - I attribute that to the countdown icon at the top of the screen. Knowing it’s going to be less than 90 seconds and seeing just how long the ad-break will be keeps me in my chair. Even if I am mostly glancing at my phone during that time.

Source: Variety

Consider your favourite Hollywood movies of the moments. Now, stop being naive enough to think that they were cast with the best actors for the role, or the script was the work of a single author’s vision. This is Hollywood, Jake.

Polygon have a fantastic article about the artificial intelligence decision-making that goes into making movies now, which includes being able to see how box office is altered by selecting one star over another.

Source: Polygon

NBC has now officially launched its streaming news service, which will have 8 hours of original programming to start with, but eyeing a 24-hour service as time goes on. This puts the service in competition with CBS’ news service CBSN and, well, the NBC-owned MSNBC.

Source: MediaPost

Meanwhile CNN expects to have a streaming news service aimed at cordcutters online within the next two years.

Source: LA Times

It is 2019 and The Pirate Bay is still sailing the seas of the Internet, making sure everyone can access the latest hot albums and MacGyver rips from 1993.

There’s a fantastic long-read from MEL Magazine that takes a very deep-dive into the 15 year history of The Pirate Bay, which, like HYDRA, cannot be stopped. Hail TPB.

Source: MEL Magazine

Fantastic CBS All Access show The Good Fight is getting a run on over-the-air TV in the US, with season one making its debut on CBS over the summer starting 16 June. To date, the series has never aired in the US on terrestrial TV. Though, it has aired on TV in countries like Australia where it is aired on SBS.

As a quick plug which actually doesn’t benefit me at all: Anyone watching the second season of the show should also check out the Good Fight podcast I produced for SBS.

Source: TV Guide

And finally…

TV Week editor Thomas Woodgate insists that international votes in the Australian TV Week Logie Awards are not counted. This comes after actors on shows appealed to international fans to vote in the awards.

“What happens is once all the votes come in, a very detailed verification process is put in place, and what that does is eliminate all invalid votes, and that includes any international votes from that final tally. They make absolutely sure that only votes with valid contact information from local voters are valid.”

Source: News.com.au

Meanwhile, Aussie TV legend Patti Newton, who is no stranger to seeing a few Logies around her house, has been critical of the Gold Logie nominees for this year:

“What is happening with the Logies? I always thought you won a Gold Logie because of your talent,” she said.

“Or because of the show you were in, because it was so popular and it was rating unbelievably, and you were a very respected and highly rated performer.

“When did campaigns start? Where you had to do a campaign to get nominated for Gold Logie? The Logies, I think, needs a bit of revamping.”

Pretty darn naive Patti.

The enfant terrible of Australian TV Kerri-Anne Kennerley commented on Studio 10 that the Logies have always been gamed:

“You had publicists. I have seen it with my very own eyes – it could have been Channel 10 in the ’80s- when social media wasn’t invented, they would literally buy hundreds, if not thousands, of TV Weeks. And all the people in the office would sit in the office all night, fill out the coupons and post them in.”

Source: TV Tonight