Where’s the beef?

According to the New York Times, sales of Chicago-style beef sandwiches have been booming following the release of Hulu series The Bear (which is set in a beef sandwich restaurant). FYI, Aussie ABW readers - The Bear is out here on Disney+ at the end of the month.

Jarret Kerr, an owner of Dog Day Afternoon, a Chicago Italian beef and hot dog restaurant in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn, said he had seen at least a 50 percent increase in orders of hot Italian beef sandwiches — at $15, the most expensive item on the menu — since the show debuted. The cramped shop used to sell up to a dozen a day; the staff is now slinging 30 or more a day and selling out daily.

“It’s been a godsend,” Mr. Kerr said. “Now every day we say, well, thank you to ‘The Bear,’ thank you to ‘The Bear.’”

Having just finished watching season one of The Bear, I'm not surprised to hear sales are on the up. I've been hungering for one of these for days now. I'm almost as hungry for one of these as I am a Lanford Lunchbox Loose Meat Sandwich.

If you want to make one of these bad boys at home, here's a recipe by way of chef Matty Matheson (who has a recurring role on the show):

The future of Jim Henson is FAST

Distributor Shout! Factory has signed a deal with The Jim Henson Company for worldwide distribution of 16 of its library titles. The biggest two shows are Farscape and The Storyteller, but also included in the deal: The Storyteller: Greek Myths, Jim Henson’s World of Puppetry, Monster Maker, Lighthouse Island, Living with Dinosaurs, Dog City, Ghost of Faffner Hall, The Fearing Mind, Mopatop’s Shop and Brats of the Lost Nebula.

What caught my attention here is that Shout! has a very strong focus on FAST channels - the sort of free, ad-supported TV channels that run on linear services like Pluto TV and Samsung TV Plus. In distributing these shows, much of it will be for dedicated 24/7 streaming channels. Shout! are rapidly dominating

“FAST Channels are the wave of the future in terms of getting your content front and center for both devoted fans and new audiences,” said The Jim Henson Company’s Vice President of Global Distribution, Kerry Novick.

But what is REALLY what I am interested in by this story is that the rights are for worldwide. Shout! is so dominant in the US FAST space, but now with US media companies rolling out FAST services globally, I was curious about whether Shout! would set its ambitions abroad.

RIP the US daytime soap

When Days of Our Lives makes the move from NBC to Peacock this September, network NBC will be the first broadcast network to no longer have a daytime soap on the air. It is a major milestone in the continued decline of soaps on TV over the past 25 years.

... as NPR reported in 2011, there aren’t as many stay-at-home parents for advertisers to target as there were in the mid-20th century, and those who remain can now watch anything, thanks to streaming and on-demand television. Perhaps, then, it’s no surprise that Procter & Gamble had transitioned from producing soap operas to advertising on social media by 2010, per Consumerist.

Kenan Thompson will host the 2022 Emmys. Read: THR
The Jeopardy! Clue Crew are no longer to be featured on the show. Read: Uproxx
Will losing NBC content next month be the thing that sets Hulu into decline? Read: Indiewire
Greg Berlanti's DC superhero anthology show Strange Adventures (each episode would focus on a different DC character you haven't seen on screen before) has been canned by HBO Max. His Green Lantern series is still moving ahead. Read: THR
Walmart is again trying to build a streaming service. Read: The Verge
A Donald Trump deep fake movie was in development and one day away from being ready to enter production when the pandemic hit and killed it. The film was from South Park creators Matt Stone & Trey Parker. Read: Variety