Pittsburgh Pop podcast: Talking ‘White Lotus’ season finale, Steve Byrne, ‘A League of Their Own,’ Beau Berman

In this episode of the “Pittsburgh Pop” podcast, host Tim Benz and TV Talk columnist Rob Owen discuss Pittsburgh pop culture news of the moment, including the status of Pittsburgh-filmed “A League of Their Own.”

It’s now been roughly four months since the premieres of filmed-in-Pittsburgh series Amazon Freevee comedy “Sprung” and Amazon’s Prime Video period drama “A League of Their Own.” Neither has been announced as renewed or canceled but the longer the wait, it seems less likely that either one will be back.

“Sprung” came to a natural conclusion at the end of its first season, so there’s less reason to expect a renewal there.

After a rocky first few episodes, “League” grew more endearing and got to the point where the show made me want to see a second season.

But viewing data provided by PlumResearch, which specializes in precise and granular data measurement from streaming platforms, shows “League” ranked 30th among Prime Video Top 40 series in 2022 in the United States with 3 million unique viewers and more than 11 million total hours watched. That seems like a lot, but compare it to Prime Video’s top-rated series, per PlumResearch, “The Boys,” which had more than 36 million unique viewers and more than 367 million total hours watched. (Of course, “The Boys” has multiple seasons under it is belt. “Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” with one season like “League,” was No. 2 with 28 million unique viewers and 141 million total hours watched.)

“League” ranked behind not only Prime Video originals, but also reruns (No. 8 “How I Met Your Mother,” No. 9 “The Office”) and already-canceled original “Night Sky” (No. 26).

Benz and Owen also discuss the season finale of HBO’s “The White Lotus” (no spoilers!) and former Pittsburgher Steve Byrne’s latest stand-up special.

The pair also give their take on a list of the Top 10 films of 2022 and Owen shares that Beau Berman, a reporter at Pittsburgh’s Channel 4 from 2015-19, is featured in the Peacock documentary “The Battle for Justina Pelletier,” which begins streaming Tuesday.

The Peacock documentary is based on a story that Berman broke in 2013 while working at the Fox affiliate in Hartford, Conn., before coming to Pittsburgh.

Berman can be glimpsed in the trailer of the documentary about a 14-year-old girl with mysterious medical symptoms that raised questions about medical child abuse.

Berman, who now lives and works as a communications manager for a company in Ithaca, N.Y., is working on a book about the case, though he’s yet to line up a publisher.

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