Phoebe Waller-Bridge's Fleabag was one of the shows able to stand out in an increasingly crowded field. Photo / Supplied
The number of original series continued to swell in 2019, with Apple and Disney adding to the glut. When will the bubble pop?
It has been on a steep upward trajectory for years, and in 2019, it finally happened.
There were more than 500 scripted television series in the United States last year, a high. The estimated number: 532 comedies, dramas and limited series that were broadcast or streamed, according to the research department of the cable network FX, which tabulates and releases the figure every year.
It marked the first time the 500-show threshold had been crossed, representing a 7 per cent increase over 2018.
The 2019 total was 52 per cent more than the 349 shows that existed in 2013, the year that streaming started to become a habit for many viewers, with the debut of House of Cards on Netflix. And it's a jump of 153 per cent over the 210 series available in 2009.
The FX tally did not include reality shows, daytime dramas or children's series. If those were included, the number would swell to significantly more than 1,000.
The 532 figure denotes scripted fictional shows, including the final seasons of Game of Thrones and The Big Bang Theory, as well as critics' favourites like Fleabag, Succession and PEN15. It includes Dick Wolf's army of shows — Law & Order: SVU, Chicago P.D., Chicago Med, Chicago Fire, FBI — as well as Greg Berlanti's prolific output, an oeuvre led by Riverdale and You.
The number also includes a slew of shows that did not break out in an increasingly crowded field. For instance, there was Netflix's Another Life, a 10-episode series about astronauts searching for the origins of an alien artifact. It also included the first half of the fifth season of Fuller House, which centered on D.J. Tanner turning 40 and a midseason finale concluding with a surprise proposal amid a flash mob dance sequence.
Streaming services once again helped drive the growth. Last year, Netflix plowed as much as US$15 billion into original content. Apple joined the streaming party in November, with Apple TV Plus. Its slate of new shows was led by The Morning Show, a drama starring Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon that cost an estimated US$120 million for its first season. Disney added to the almost overwhelming number of viewing options when it unveiled Disney Plus weeks later. Its buzziest show was The Mandalorian, a Star Wars series that took off thanks, in part, to the viral appeal of 'Baby Yoda.'
The change has come on quickly. According to FX, there were 24 series from so-called online services in 2013. That same year, there were 131 series from the broadcast networks and 161 basic cable shows. Five years later, in 2018, the streaming platforms accounted for 160 series, more than the number of shows made by the networks (146) or basic cable (144).
For 2019, FX did not distinguish between streaming and cable — John Landgraf, the FX chairman, has argued that measure was antiquated — but online services are now the dominant players in television.
In 2015, Landgraf argued there was "simply too much television" and coined the term "Peak TV." He predicted that an inevitable decline was likely to set in soon. Instead, the growth has seemed endless.
And it is not just the streaming services. Even the old guard made more shows last year.
HBO had so much programming in 2019 that, for the first time, first-episode runs of some of its series spilled into Monday, rather than the channel's traditional Sunday night slot that was once home to The Sopranos and Sex and the City. Last year, the network said it planned to air 150 hours of original scripted content, a 50% increase from 2018. In May, it will fully commit to streaming, with the unveiling of a new platform, HBO Max.
There is now so much TV that even the people who watch it for a living have had a hard time keeping up. "The idea that you could cover it all is gone," said Willa Paskin, a television critic for Slate.
Matt Roush, a senior critic for TV Guide Magazine, pointed out a seemingly innocuous upcoming day on the calendar: "February 6, a Thursday, there are six major series premiering," he said. "A network sitcom, a network drama with Edie Falco, a big USA Network project, plus another season of The Sinner with Matt Bomer in it. There's a CW show. And this 'Interrogation' thing on CBS All Access."
Netflix and Apple have major releases planned for February 7 — Locke & Key for Netflix; Mythic Quest, a live-action comedy for Apple.
"That's the next day!" Roush said. "And Homeland is Sunday. Every week is, 'Oh my God!' Everyday is an 'Oh my god!' It's an embarrassment of riches, but also a calamity of overkill."
Paskin said the calculus for reviewing a show has changed as well — sometimes it includes reader input, in addition to the cast and the network that makes it. An HBO show, for instance, is something that she would almost automatically watch, even if she didn't plan to review it.
"The fact that it's on HBO means that I watched it," she said. "A drama on HBO — for now, until HBO Max has like 200 shows — seems to me like a more serious proposition than a lot of other network offerings."
Paskin estimated that she had at least sampled 150 series, at some point, of the 532 series that ran in 2019. But sometimes it was all too much.
"There were lots of shows I hadn't seen, but I'd heard of," she said. "But there were also totally a handful of shows that I was like, 'I don't even know what that is.'"
Written by: John Koblin
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