The Guide #138: Netflix was supposed to have killed live TV – so why is it now embracing it? | Culture
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Yyou come across the most surprising things on Netflix. The streaming giant’s sheer size — not to mention its habit of releasing new programming on its platform with minimal fanfare — means that every now and then you’re likely to come across a show or movie you didn’t see coming. Ann an unflinchingly honest comedy-drama about the experiences of a Scottish stand-up being persecuted, say. Or maybe one of the biggest comedians on the planet hosting a celebrity-studded live show dedicated to the flora, fauna and idiosyncrasies of Los Angeles.
This second one, for the uninitiated (and I’m guessing that’s a lot of you, since it’s been pretty much ignored) is John Mulaney Presents: Everybody’s In LA (pictured above), which has aired for the last five nights in the United States. A a lot free riff on late night talk show form – albeit a bit closer to Eric Andre than Jimmy Fallon – Everyone’s in LA sees Mulaney welcome both celebrity guests – Will Ferrell, Jon Stewart, Sarah Silverman – and seasoned experts to her Art Deco mansion/studio to discuss a different El-focused topic Hey: helicopters, palm trees or the paranormal. There are musical guests (St Vincent, Weezer, an excellent punk band The Joyce Estate, getting a long-awaited TV spot), pre-recorded skits and many of the other trappings of talk shows. But it’s all so slightly off; a strange semi-ironic tone that I still can’t decide if I find off-putting or intriguing.
More intriguing than the content, however, is the show’s delivery method: live TV, but on Netflix. And this is not a one-off experiment in this regard, but rather a concerted move in recent months by the streamer. Last weekend, Netflix aired The Tom Brady Roast, a three-hour live broadcast of the former NFL quarterback by former teammates and comedians. Currently airing is Dinner Live with David Chang (pictured below), a weekly show in which the TV chef cooks for a pair of yuk-yukking celebrities (Silverman, who seems to be on a never-ending merry-go-round of light entertainment shows, also appears on this one).
That’s not all Earlier this month there was Katt Williams’ stand-up special Woke Foke broadcast entirely live (something Netflix first experimented with in a Chris Rock special last year). The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards were also shown live on Netflix, as they will be in July a truly grotesque sounding boxing match between YouTuber-turned-sparrer Jake Paul and 57-year-old, physically ill Mike Tyson. And next year, Netflix will air weekly live episodes of WWE Raw, the longtime flagship Monday night wrestling show. as part of a multi-billion dollar deal.
It is worth emphasizing what an unusual development this is. Yes, plenty of streamers have dabbled in live TV — especially sports — but this is Netflix we’re talking about. Their model is everything-everywhere-everything-at-once: schedules, the idea of someone sitting down to watch a specific show at a specific time, are anathema to them. While almost every other streaming service has given up the binge eating relief model, Netflix, its inventors, held firm. His whole mindset was in opposition to the idea of date TV – and you can’t really get more date TV than something that’s broadcast live.
So what’s going on here? Is Netflix suddenly abandoning its longstanding principles? Well, not quite. After all, its mission is essentially to replace television, to provide everything you might have found on satellite or cable in one convenient place. It would be understandable then that live programming, which is still a fairly important component of television, would be included in this. Live TV at its best can be electrifying in a way that pre-recorded TV can’t, from the dramatic live announcement of the winner of your favorite reality show to the fierce act of making a live episode of a show like ER.
Still, what’s particularly interesting about the kind of live TV Netflix makes is that it’s designed to be againwatchable After all, Netflix wants these shows to add to the war chest of content they’ve spent the last decade building. Those live TV shows, like the evening news or breakfast TV shows that you’re unlikely to ever watch again after they first air, are useless to Netflix. But something like The Roast of Tom Brady — which will be watched by far more people in the hours and days after it airs than those who watched it live — has value.
Everybody’s In LA goes further, a live show essentially built for repeat viewing. It eschews current events for some weird timelessness: these themes (palm trees, the paranormal) are evergreen, there’s no standard opening late-night monologue riffing on current events, and even the skits—a focus group of old punks, for example—could have worked just as well in 2014 , as well as in 2024. This means that if you come across the series in the next six hours or six years, it will likely hold the same appeal. Or as Mulaney puts it in one episode: “Pretty soon we’ll just be a little box on your homepage under the heading ‘because you’ve been watching Korean romcoms’.”
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