Here’s a look at what media of interest is coming out in May 2024, plus my thoughts on some recent media-related news.
Disney+
A full list is available here.
- Star Wars: Tales of the Empire, May 4
- Doctor Who, premieres May 10
Hulu
A full list of shows is available here.
- Welcome to Wrexham (Season 3), premieres May 3
- Black Twitter: A People’s History (complete docuseries), May 9
Paramount+
A full list of shows is available here.
- RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars (Season 9), premieres May 17
Peacock
A full list is available here.
- Eurovision Song Contest 2024 Final, May 11
Sports
- Indianapolis 500, May 26 (NBC, Peacock)
My thoughts
Disney+ and Hulu (now combined into a single service for Disney Bundle subscribers) both see the return of popular shows. “Welcome to Wrexham,” the Hulu reality series about a Welsh soccer team, comes back for its third season. Meanwhile, “Doctor Who” starts streaming its newest season on Disney+.
“Black Twitter: A People’s History” is a documentary miniseries about the rise of Black Twitter as a social and cultural force. No idea how this miniseries handles Twitter post-Elon.
The annual Eurovision Song Contest takes place in May. This year it’s being held in Sweden, since they won last year’s contest.
Net neutrality is back
While this falls more on the tech side of things, it does indirectly affect streaming services, so worth mentioning here. The FCC has reinstated (along a party line vote) the Obama-era net neutrality rules. Said rules were overturned by Trump’s FCC (for “reasons”) in 2017.
While there’ll be no immediate effects, I imagine the rules will matter more in the long run. And yes, net neutrality rules are a good thing, unless you’re a large for-profit ISP (or someone with ties to such interests). The internet at this point is pretty much a utility like electricity and phone service, not a novelty or luxury (like cable TV).
Sports stuff
A major change is coming for the NHL’s Seattle Kraken this fall. Starting with the 2024-25 season, almost all non-nationally-televised Kraken games will be available both on local over-the-air TV (Seattle’s KONG, KING’s punnily-named independent sister station). Games will also be available on Amazon Prime Video in Washington State, Oregon, and Alaska on Amazon Prime Video.
This is a pretty big shift for pro sports, though a few other sports teams have also gone back to broadcast local TV for games (such as the soon-to-be-moving Arizona Coyotes). A likely reason for this is that the current and future state of cable TV, the home of most pro sports since the 90s, is in turmoil: cord cutting means fewer cable subscribers; the ongoing shift to on-demand streaming services; and some regional sports channels are on the ropes. Perhaps even pro sports (or at least a few teams) are finally crying “uncle,” and decided it’s worth going back to airing games on local broadcast TV.
Besides making games easier and cheaper for fans to watch, it also might be a good thing for broadcast TV—less reliance on filling air time with syndicated talk shows and infomercials? As for Amazon Prime Video, the Kraken’s games will be on what’s one of the de facto streaming services most people already have. Compare that to last winter’s “make football fans buy Peacock to watch an exclusive playoff game” incident.
Image: Actor Ncuti Gatwa, as the Fifteenth Doctor. (BBC)
