Made for TV Mayhem 2.0

Newsletter for February 2025

Well, we’re one month into 2025 and I’m pleased to see people are still looking back at their favorite made for TV movies of yesteryear! This is exciting for me, although I’m a bit rusty when it comes to personal blogging. I spend so much time lately writing essays for various home video releases that I’ve practically forgotten how to use “I” in a sentence, which makes this venture a little exciting, so let’s get started.

My goal is to publish at least one newsletter at the beginning of every month. It will feature announcements, updates on my freelance work, and hopefully I’ll have podcast links to share.

I’ve started hosting a watch-along party on BlueSky too, and if I can, I’ll give everyone the name of the chosen film for that month (we will normally meet at the end of the month so you’ll have time to look up the film and decide if you want to see it), as well as details on the gathering date and time with a link to watch the film along with everyone else.

For me, television has always been about community. Streaming is great and OMG so much is now available that wasn’t before. I will never smirk or snark at that. But nothing, and I mean nothing will ever replace the communal feeling of watching something in your own home and knowing you are not alone. I hold on tightly to connecting through film and TV, and I hope you can join me when we all get together.

For February, I’ll be hosting a Valentine’s watch-along with the film Babycakes. We’re meeting at 1PM CST on February 22nd! Come find me on Bluesky (link above) and (for now) we use the hashtag #TVMParty. See you then!

Every monthly newsletter will also feature what I guess is a “mini-blog” where I will write about something related to film or television. I am hoping to keep it centered on the telefilm, but do expect some soap talk in there! For this month, I’ll just give you a little breakdown on how the Nielsen’s worked for the TV movie and why that is important.

Throughout 2025, I’ll be posting a list of made for TV movies that really deserve a DVD or Blu Ray release. To be blunt, there’s thousands of films that should have this honor, and I’d love to see every made for TV movie enjoy a shot at a second audience, but that might be hoping for a little too much. So, I’ve scaled it back and will spotlight what is really just a sampling of the terrific films that are worth seeking out. You’ll find the list at the end of each monthly newsletter, with some links to watch them online (if available). Just keep in mind that YouTube uploads might not be of the greatest quality. This is why we need those legit home video releases!

O.K… That’s what you can expect. I might open up the chatroom, depending on my time, and I hope everyone enjoys this little slice of television…

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Announcements:

My big announcement for the month is Kino Lorber’s release of the lush and epic 1988 miniseries Noble House. I truly loved putting together the commentary tracks and I am excited to see it’s finally coming out! There are four episodes in the series, so I was joined by three wonderful co-hosts: Frank Djeng, Mike White and Scott Humphries. Each entry centers itself on a specific topic and points of interest include James Clavell, Hong Kong, Pierce Brosnan and Deborah Raffin, and the history of the melodramatic miniseries. The street date is the 25th of February!

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Small Screen Musings for February 2025: The Nielsen Ratings

If any of you have sat through one of my commentary tracks, seen one of my lectures or listen to my podcast, you may have already heard what I’m about to say. But, I find that establishing the way the Nielsen ratings shaped our viewing options is at the foundation of understanding the made for television movie.

The Nielsen Ratings System is essentially a way to generate statistics that allow the networks to gauge who is viewing what. Based on those numbers, the network can determine advertising fees, which bring in revenue for the channel, which in turn helps the network keep up with production costs, etc., etc.

In the earliest days of television networks sought out women aged 18-49, and that remains the number one most desired demographic to this day. Women became the target audience because at the birth of television, they tended to be housewives and were therefore the largest consumer in the household. Since they bought the products advertised on television, marketing focused heavily on these homemakers. Therefore, programming catered to them. This is one of the reasons why you see so many domestic-set shows: the networks wanted to reflect the average (if somewhat aspirational) home as a way to attract these women to their programming.

By the mid-1960s, when the TV movie came into play, women were still generally stay-at-home wives and mothers, but times were changing and women were moving outside of the home and looking for other things in the world. The second wave feminist movement hit almost at the same time as the birth of the TV movie. This is why you see telefilms with titles like The Feminist and the Fuzz and Girls in the Office. TV movie was often focused on women and their issues at the time. There could be some mixed messaging – and we’ll probably get into that eventually – but the point is women reigned supreme and a large number of telefilms produced between 1964-1999 are made for them.

To know this is helpful for me personally, because it exposes some of nuanced subtext that ran through so many of these movies. But I think in general it enhances the viewing of these films, because art (and yes, TV movies are art) has to tangle with business all the time. The filmmakers understood this, and gave a really amazing and creative space to women and their stories while also pulling in advertisers who were leery of anything even potentially controversial (ex: feminism was often portrayed in the media as militant). A lot of this was embedded into the subtext, and that’s where I live… so many things happen underneath the TV movie and it’s fascinating. Of course, not every telefilm was about sisters doing it for themselves (but those are great too), however, it is such an important moment in pop culture history. And, really, television was one of the only venues where women’s issues could be discussed. Hopefully, I can help shine a light on how our stories were told.

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TV Movies that Need a DVD/Blu Ray Release: January Picks

How I Spent My Summer Vacation, 1967

Finally, here are the titles I promoted on my socials in January of 2025 (with links to watch some of them!):

Day 1: See How They Run, 1964 (the first made for TV movie)
Day 2: No Place to Hide, 1981
Day 3: Ladykillers, 1988 (*with original commercials!)
Day 4: Shooting Stars, 1983
Day 5: Million Dollar Ripoff, 1976
Day 6: How I Spent My Summer Vacation, 1967
Day 7: Children of the Lotus Eaters, 1970 (pilot for The Psychiatrist)
Day 8: Secret Night Caller, 1975
Day 9: If Things were Different, 1980
Day 10: Mistress, 1987
Day 11: Midnight Offerings, 1981
Day 12: Invasion of Privacy, 1983
Day 13: Murder by Natural Causes, 1979 (*1980 broadcast with original commercials!)
Day 14: Satan’s Triangle, 1975
Day 15: Pleasure Palace, 1979
Day 16: City Killer, 1984
Day 17: Lisa, Bright and Dark, 1973
Day 18: Katie: Portrait of a Centerfold, 1978
Day 19: Inmates: A Love Story, 1981
Day 20: The Love War, 1970
Day 21: Still the Beaver, 1983
Day 22: Caroline?, 1990
Day 23: Fear Stalk, 1989
Day 24: Co-ed Call Girl, 1996
Day 25: The Loneliest Runner, 1976
Day 26: Five Desperate Women, 1972
Day 27: In the Custody of Strangers, 1982
Day 28: Isn’t it Shocking?, 1973
Day 29: Anatomy of a Seduction, 1980
Day 30: My Very Best Friend, 1996
Day 31: Killer Bees, 1974