A job title that says you are a manager and creative lead of social media sounds ponderous until David Onda tells all that his position at Xfinity entails.
In essence, Onda conducts an ongoing conversation about television that allows him to be a guide, ear, and moderator who helps people navigate the thousand of programs available to them just by having a television.
Talking to David, you realize his job is more of a calling.
A self-described “indoor kid,” who would forgo any soccer or basketball game to watch WWE or Saturday morning cartoon, Ondasifts through Xfinity’s myriad offerings and not only tells people about all the possibilities at their beck and call but conducts chats about popular shows, outlines what an upcoming week holds in terms of new releases and season premieres and acts as both a sounding board and a tastemaker in communicating with Xfinity’s vast, diverse subscriber base that has almost as many personal tastes as television has programs to satisfy them.
Happiest of all for someone whose preference and habit since childhood is to watch television, Onda, even as he might lead viewers in a particular direction, keeps his interactions open.
He says his job is not to be a critic but to be a voice in the dialogue who informs, recommends, leads discussion, and uses social media to bind a large audience to what they might individually enjoy.
“I am an authentic fan,” Onda says in a face-to-face online chat. “I encourage people who watch TV to talk about TV and find more they might like. There’s no judgment involved. It’s all figuring out what people are talking about, giving them the access to talk about it more about what they’re seeing and what they enjoy about it.”
He brings up “Love Island,” a reality show that’s been streaming on Peacock since June 3 and has gained a lot of traction in its seventh season.
The show involves people who are brought to an island and isolated but who have to build a relationship, love or friendship, to survive and compete for a prize.
Onda likes the show, but more important to him is that is among television’s most popular programs at the moment and viewers are eager to express their ideas and about what they see as they’re watching it.
Knowing what people are watching, particularly with enthusiasm, is a source for content on the platforms by which he communicates with viewers, at Xfinity@instagram and at Xfinity@Tik-Tok.
“People are engaged in what they watch. There’s so much entertainment out there and a large community that wants to discuss what they’re seeing, have access to information about shows, see and hear celebrities, and find more that might interest them.
“It’s a matter of different flavors. So many people, so many tastes, so many programs. My platforms help people know what’s out there and gives them a chance to hear about it and talk about it.”
Though Onda keys into what people are viewing, he makes recommendations, more as an introducer than someone who says you “must” watch “x” or “y” to be in the know.
One show he suggests for people looking for “something different” is “The Rehearsal,” an HBO Max program on which comedian Nathan Fielder, playing someone with his name who is not supposed to be him in real life, coaches people about what to say and how to say it regarding real-life situations.
I agree with Onda that “The Rehearsal” is a special show.
Of course, Onda gets access to shows before they debut so he can keep people abreast of what is coming. He talks about movies as well as television and mentioned he is eager to see Peter Dinklage talk at San Diego’s Comic-Con about a new “Toxic Avenger” that will be released in August.
He also talked about a true crime documentary that began this week on Netflix about Amy Bradley, a woman who disappeared 27 years ago.
Onda also talked about some upcoming series.
While saying he shares a lot of viewers’ “superhero fatigue,” he is eager to see “Gen V,” a Prime Video spinoff of “The Boys” because it’s of “a kind of superhero experiment that poses moral questions about being a superhero while introducing a new generation of superheroes.”
Other shows Onda cited are “Alien Earth,” a prequel to the 1979 and 1986 “Alien” movies, coming to FX and Hulu next month and features a young cast with Sydney Chandler and Timothy Olyphant; a revival of “King of the Hill,” that features the son from the Mike Judge-Greg Daniels animated 1997-2009 classic, Bobby Hill, as a 21-year-old beginning adulthood; and “The Paper,” a spinoff of NBC’s “The Office” — Greg Daniels again — set in the paper plant that supplies Dunder-Mifflin.
“The Paper” begins airing Sept. 4 on Peacock.
Asked about good streaming of recent series, Onda recommended “Paradise,” a Hulu series with Sterling K. Brown; “The Pitt,” a 15-part HBO Max series in which each episode is one hour of a doctor’s (Noah Wyle) hospital shift, and “Adolescence,” the amazing three-parter about a juvenile murderer, airing on Netflix. I second all three choices.
Don’t weep for Colbert
My question is not what Stephen Colbert will do when CBS cancels “The Late Show” in May.
It’s what CBS has in mind to schedule in its place.
I am clearly not a Stephen Colbert fan. A running joke in this column is I never let Colbert’s late-night talkfest or ABC’s morning show, “The View,” enter my home.
Not because I think that no one should watch them. That would be none of my business.
It’s because, in Colbert’s case, I prefer true satire, the kind I see more from animated shows by Matt Groening (“The Simpsons”), Seth MacFarlane (“Family Guy”), Mike Judge (“King of the Hill”), and Trey Parker and Matt Stone (“South Park”), to the partisan pandering Colbert indulges in.
Colbert has done sketches that make me laugh and is comedian enough to be funny at times, but I find his humor one-sided and geared to the audience he securely has.
I prefer ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel, who has become monolithically political as well but who is wittier and sometimes throws a barb in an unobvious direction, an equal-opportunity denigrator. Kimmel used to be much more even-handed with his humor.
Even blander, friendlier Jimmy Fallon on NBC has more to offer for a viewer like me than Colbert does. At least I can be entertainedwithout rolling my eyes or muttering, “Stop shilling so much” when Fallon’s on.
As to “The View,” if I want to hear know-nothings who repeat the headlines from their favorite biased news organization and will say anything they believe supports their chosen side — Sara Haines and occasionally Whoopi Goldberg excepted — I’ll eavesdrop political conversations at diners.
At least I won’t be subjected to gossips who pretend to have authority when their research technique is a thumb in the progressive wind or a fast peruse of the papers or commentators they like to parrot.
So don’t expect me to weep for Stephen Colbert.
And don’t expect Colbert to be without a place on television for very long.
Think of the one free agent in any sport you hope your team will land and realize that in television terms, Colbert is that proven superstar, the one worth mortgaging the uprights for.
He is popular whether I disdain him or not. He has a following and garners sufficient ratings to insure his keep, although no late-night talk host can attract the audience Johnny Carson or even David Letterman did at a time when the 11:30 p.m. network time slot offered more variety, less politics, and no competition from cable, streaming, gaming, and other personal choices that keep people from legacy networks.
This isn’t a three-channel or seven-channel world.
That said, Colbert is a hot commodity who will be sought by many.
I doubt CNN or MSNBC — It’s needless to mention Fox News Channel — will interrupt their 24-hour rants with a show as structured as Colbert’s.
But Fox Television might.
Or Comedy Central where Colbert, an actor and musical entertainer before finding his TV niche, developed viewers as a correspondent on Jon Stewart’s “Daily Show.”
Which reminds me Stewart’s contract is, I believe, in its final year. Wouldn’t it be an interesting graduation if Colbert ends up as the “Daily Show anchor?”
Then there’s the streamers.
They could grant Colbert a late-night berth while offering their subscribers all their other programming. It might be a next step in production if a Netflix, Prime or Hulu recruited free-agent Colbert to forge a new kind of show on their platform.
Colbert will come out fine. CBS is the more interesting issue.
The loudest cries ask why The Cyclops pulled Colbert’s plug while “The Late Show” was a going concern and he enjoyed an enthusiastic base.
The most outraged and conspiracy-minded think CBS’s motives were political and that Colbert and his audience were being punished for unceasingly deriding Donald Trump.
More likely it was a comment Colbert made on air about CBS’s parent company, Paramount, agreeing to give Trump $16 million to settle a lawsuit stemming from a favorably edited “60 Minutes” segment with his 2024 Democratic candidate, Kamala Harris.
Colbert called the settlement a “big, fat bribe.” One can imagine how that description was received in Paramount’s executive offices.
CBS says it decision was strictly financial.
“The Late Show” was, to their bean counters, not pulling its weight and needed to be jettisoned for a better revenue-earner.
The argument citing politics would more reliably hold water if the network and its news organization were not so often and clearly on the same general page as Colbert in their constant criticism of anyone who doesn’t have street cred as a Bernie Bro.
If left-leaning politics and disparagement of Trump were the criteria for a TV program being canceled, all of the networks except Fox would have to wipe their entire schedules clean, especially their obvious and unapologetically partisan newscasts.
Even saying that, I find CBS’s financial misgivings about “The Late Show” a tad fishy. Especially in light of Colbert’s “bribe” comment, a likelier culprit in his CBS demise.
Which brings me to my main curiosity: If not a late-night talk show in the Paar-Carson model, a staple of the 11:30 p.m. time slot for decades, what kind of programming will bring in the profits CBS needs for that daypart?
Will we be hearing “The Syncopated Clock” and watching Loretta Young movies?
Will the “Daily Deals and Steals” segments that plague practically every daytime talk show be expanded so that CBS is a late-night department store?
Will, heaven forfend, a news show, fill the bill?
Will it give the time to its affiliates to program? Probably not.
CBS was so far behind its rivals, especially NBC, in mounting a hit late-night talker, it’s difficult to see what it might abandon a seemingly successful one for.
Which seems to give punishing Colbert some credence yet makes no sense, unless it’s filed in the category of “nose to spite face.”
The Cyclops has until May to decide what might become the profit center Colbert wasn’t.
I can’t wait until I hear what CBS has in mind.
And what Stephen Colbert has to say about it from whatever new perch he occupies.
PBS will find other funding sources
I am a WRTI (90.1 FM) listener who gives the Temple-based classical music and jazz station a monthly sustaining gift because I tune in so avidly and appreciate what I hear.
I also listen to WXPN (88.5 FM), a Penn station, and WHYY (90.9 FM, like WRTI public radio stations that depend on grants and listener support.
In general, except for the market’s two sports stations, Dom Giordano on WPHT (1210 AM), and sampling programs so I have a working sense of what is airing, I spend most of my radio time with member-supported outlets.
Even so, I have no strong attitude in either direction about the rescission bill passed last week taking funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Public Broadcasting Service, and National Public Radio, which I will collectively call PBS.
I like it when nonprofits obtain what they need from the public and stay clear of government. More than that, I think the amount the U.S. government gave to PBS was small enough, at most 10 percent of its operating budget, can and should be made up from donations, sponsorships and grants.
Don’t kid yourself. Whatever crocodile tears are shed, PBS gets funding from many corporations and foundations. It doesn’t air commercials like other networks, but it tells you who’s responsible for backing its programming.
It’s also a test of the value a station has to its market to see if I can muster the funds it needs to continue operating.
With Temple and Penn backing WRTI and WXPN, and ‘XPN getting revenue from a performance venue, I can’t lose sleep over their fates.
WHYY, run excellently by Bill Marrazzo and the late Rick Breitenfeld before him, is solvent enough to continue its work.
Grants will keep ‘Great Performances” and documentaries from producers like Ken Burns afloat. I can always increase my monthly gift to WRTI if I find myself worrying about its survival.
I prefer broadcasting to be free of politics. PBS was not good at doing that.
There’s a reason I turn the volume to mute when I hear Jack Speer, who’s announced retirement, is about to deliver the news, and PBS may have exacerbated its troubles considering statements from NPR’s current CEO, Katherine Maher, whose stream of inanities would find a home with the natterers on “The View” or at a coffee klatch with Marjorie Taylor-Greene.
Source: Berkshire mont
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