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I have formally moved everything over the new TooMuchTV.com website. Which is newsletter-centric, but also leaves space for other coverage of the industry.
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Speaking of resonating with readers (or not), please consider checking out my community section. It has been sparse so far, so if you have any suggestions, please pass them along.
Raney Aronson-Rath Talks ‘Frontline,’ ‘American Experience’ And ‘Nova’
Next to its lineup of kids' programming, when the average person thinks of PBS, they likely think of the network’s impressive lineup of documentary series, including Frontline, American Experience and Nova.
Raney Aronson-Rath is the editor-in-chief overseeing GBH’s documentary programming, which includes American Experience, Frontline and Nova. She is also an Oscar-winning producer and has been executive producer and editor-in-chief of Frontline for the past decade.
American Experience recently announced several new projects, including the three-part documentary series Lindbergh, which premieres in May 2027. Ken Burns will be the executive producer of the project, teaming up with acclaimed director/writer Stephen Ives.
The other major documentary coming from American Experience is a four-part series, The Bureau: A Secret History of the FBI, directed by Sharon Grimberg and Sarah Colt, “charting the rise, weaponization, and survival of the nation’s most powerful law enforcement agency.”
I recently spoke with Aronson-Rath about those projects and what to expect from Frontline and Nova. We all discussed the impact of the federal funding cuts on the shows and how she has learned to lean into the new digital audience:
How does that digital long tail impact the production of these shows? Where you have the opportunity of deciding, “Look, don’t just discard that footage because it doesn’t fit in the completed thing. We can use it elsewhere.”
We can pop that on YouTube. We can do a short and put it on TikTok. For example, how does that change your production flow for Frontline, which you’re probably the most intimately involved with?
Raney Aronson-Rath: So one of the big changes for Frontline has been that we started to share our underlying interviews. We did that as an act of transparency. I did that as a trust-building exercise to bolster our democracy. It was a high-minded idea.
However, what we found is millions of people love to watch the uncut, unedited versions of interviews. And that's just like, who knew about that community? Then we have the micro shorts that we're really all pushing into so aggressively.
So basically, everything that you film is now important. Everything that you film actually needs to be archived, has to be shared. And it just is amazing how much you can get out of a single documentary process now across social, across digital, across text.
So it’s actually an exciting time for filmmakers. Who are really used to gathering materials and making a bespoke version of what they've gathered, fact-based and fair, but they've really spent a lot of time in the edit room making it that story. That was a little disruptive for my filmmaking team at Frontline, but I would say most everyone has embraced it because they see the upside. We're reaching a younger generation.
We're reaching millions of new people. We're now 60% global at Frontline, which is amazing. And that's because of our reach across the YouTube landscape with all these new properties in addition to our films.
You can read the entire interview on Forbes and it will be available on TooMuchTV after a five-day delay.
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The Reinvention Of Dolly Parton
You have no doubt already read a lot about Dolly Parton today, and she was arguably one of the best-known female entertainers of our generation. But she was also someone who set a high bar for philanthropy, providing everything from money to help pay for the initial COVID vaccine to launching a nationwide program to provide free books to low-income children.
But to me, one of the most fascinating things about her life was that she was able to successfully reinvent herself, skating away from controversies and personal questions that would have followed other celebrities. To be clear, I think her personal life was her personal life. However, I am fascinated that no one ever attempted to TMZ her.
I just watched the NBC TV package on her life and it was an extensive one. But it also illustrated what I am talking about. There was a brief recounting of her country music career. But not a word about Porter Wagoner, the country singer who was arguably the person most responsible for her early singing and songwriting success. And the man who was rumored to have been the inspiration for the song “I Will Always Love You.” He was also the married man whose wife Parton hinted for years was the inspiration for the song “Jolene.”
Although she recorded her first one-off single for a small label when she was 13, her early success came as a songwriter, co-writing several country music hits with her uncle Bill Owens. She signed with Monument Records in 1965 and despite having a couple of singles reach the bottom of the country Top 40 charts, it wasn’t until country music entertainer Porter Wagoner asked her to join his show that her career really took off.
She began making regular appearances on his syndicated weekly radio show and started touring with him. He convinced his label - RCA Victor - to sign her and they recorded the duet “The Last Thing On My Mind,” which hit the country music top ten chart. And while she had several solo hits in this period, the duo cranked out eleven Top Ten country hits before Parton left in mid-1974 after the success of “Jolene.”
“I WIll Always Love You” was the first solo single released after the split, and while she would admit at the time it was about Wagoner (although she would insist it was just about their business relationship), that part of the story faded over the years.
And if you were around during the 70s and early 80s, you’ll remember Parton being a regular fixture on the tabloids, with stories linking her to everyone from Burt Reynolds to Sylvester Stallone.
Dolly Parton was a true icon and by accounts, a wonderful person. But she also a lot more complicated than you might realize after reading today’s stories about her life. And I think that’s important to remember as well. She was tough when she needed to be and determined to tell her story her way. But she never forgot where she came from and the responsibility she felt to help pull people up along the way.
As a side note, I was never lucky enough to meet Ms. Parton. Although when I was a young teen in Evansville, Indiana, I remember my mother coming home from her job at a local restaurant and telling me the Wagoner/Parton tour bus has stopped for a meal and she saw the two of them making out in a booth. She was both fascinated and shocked, which is pretty funny, looking back. And it’s also a reminder that Parton wasn’t a saint, but she did more good than 100 people with her level of success.
The world will miss her.
Odds & Sods
Season four of The Gilded Age premieres Sunday, November 1st on HBO. Here is a first look at the trailer. Here is the official logline: “Bertha Russell changed Society at a cost. Now, her family must reckon with the consequences as Agnes van Rhijn seizes an opportunity to regain her position. Meanwhile, Marian forges a new path for herself, and Peggy works to be accepted by her future in-laws. In this new era, you must be careful what you wish for.”
Spectrum is offering qualified low-income subscribers a complimentary membership to Amazon Prime. Amazon Prime already offers a discounted subscription fee to qualified low-income subscribers.
Hulu has decided not to renew the Mindy Kaling-created series Not Suitable for Work for a second season.
Here is a first look at the new comedy The Varnell Hill Show, which premieres Tuesday, September 1st on Paramount+. Here is the official logline: “Set behind the scenes of Varnell’s long-running late-night talk show, The Varnell Hill Show finds the larger-than-life host fighting to stay relevant in an ever-changing television industry. Surrounded by network executives with big ideas, a writers’ room trying to keep up, celebrity guests and a team tasked with managing his outsized personality, Varnell remains convinced of one thing: he’s still the biggest star in the building. Blending workplace comedy with satire, cutaways and fourth-wall breaks, the series explores the corporate, creative and personal chaos that goes into keeping “The Varnell Hill Show” on the air.”
Mike Ryan might be the only person I know who has more strange showbiz stories than I do. Like this one from his most recent newsletter, where he recounts meeting a guy who claimed to have written the Rodney Dangerfield song “Rappin’ Rodney” while taking a bus on its way to a Bruce Springsteen concert.
Jesikah Suggs, a writer-producer of Netflix’s My Life With The Walter Boys, died at her home in Studio City, California, on August 18th after an eight-year battle with breast cancer.
The USA Network has picked up a medical drama called Diplomatic Immunity, about a doctor assigned to the U.S. embassy in Rome.
CBS News will air a special on Tuesday paying tribute to Dolly Parton. A CBS News Special: Dolly Parton — An American Icon will air on Tuesday evening at 10 p.m. ET.
Updates On The Paramount/WBD Merger Story
No huge updates so far today on the legal wranglings between Paramount and the state AGs opposing the merger. But here is a brief round-up of what is happening:
Paramount says in statement to Bloomberg Business that it is open to structural remedies in order to close its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. But it not yet ready to specify what it might be willing to sell:
“Paramount is not aware or interested in engaging with unsolicited conjecture regarding our business. As stated earlier today, we remain hopeful and stand ready to continue good faith discussions to resolve the attorney generals suit inclusive of structural remedies to move forward with our transaction."This guest column in The Hollywood Reporter by Joseph M. Singer provides a more nuanced take on the argument I have been making for weeks: Paramount can’t give up anything substantive without risking blowing up the entire merger.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta told reporters on Tuesday that “we don’t have anything scheduled” with Paramount to negotiate a potential settlement of the antitrust challenge.
“It is the alleged disclosure of the substance of the conversations of what occurred in those meetings that is the problem,” Bonta told reporters. “Those are required under federal law to be confidential, and for good reason. So you can be candid. So you can be productive. So maybe you can even be creative in those discussions. If you’re having confidential settlement discussions, and as you’re having them, one of the parties is going out to the press and representing to the press what’s being said by you in those negotiations and lying about it, whether it’s true or whether they’re lying, neither is acceptable.”
What’s Coming Tonight And Tomorrow
TUESDAY, AUGUST 25TH:
American Masters: Mary Oliver: Saved By The Beauty Of The World (PBS)
Bobby’s Triple Threat Season Five Premiere (Food)
Jeopardy! Masters Season Four Premiere (ABC)
1000-lb Roomies Season Premiere (TLC)
Stamptown (Netflix)
The Good Ship Murder Season Three Premiere (Britbox)
The Real Housewives Of London Season One Finale (Bravo)
Untold: The Testimony Of Vince Young (Netflix)
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 26TH:
Death Of The Pastor’s Wife (Netflix)
Mom Knows Best Series Premiere (Netflix)
One Hundred Years Of Solitude Series Finale (Netflix)
The Last Sunrise (Prime Video)
The Simpsons: "Yellow Mirror" (Disney+)
Totally 90s House Series Premiere (HGTV)
Trying Season Five Finale (Apple TV)
2026 Miss Teen USA (The CW)