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The Guardian asks: Is the golden age of television over?
Money is the root of TV's problems. In the US, where the TV economy is headquartered, TV and internet access costs two to three times what it does in the UK, and networks are in a tug-of-war with Americans, who are increasingly shredding steep cable bills in favor of Netflix and streaming services. This summer, many networks became locked in all-out legal battles with cash-strapped cable companies, with multibillion-dollar distribution deals at stake to fund those networks' huge programming budgets.
Executives are planning for a less luxurious future, in which TV shows may be briefer, lower-budget and filled with the kind of product-placement ads that audiences hate and advertisers pay for. Worse still, the company that started much of the trouble may soon confront flaws in its own business model.
Netflix reports earnings on Monday. Its problems, and those of companies like it, are more pressing than those of traditional television. At a conference in New York this month, chief executive Reed Hastings was blunt.
"Disney, who is very good in China, had their movie service shut down," he told an audience at the New Yorker Tech Fest. "Apple, who is very good in China, had their movie service closed down. It doesn't look good."
Hastings said his company was seeking to expand in other countries, India in particular. But there's a reason media businesses seeking vast scale tend to view China as the solution to all their problems: internet penetration in India is rising from 26% according to the World Bank. In China, it's rising from 50%.
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Netflix needs the money that increased scale would provide, in part, to pay top dollar for shows such as Arrested Development and Lost. In January, it told investors it owed $10.9bn in TV show licenses alone, with $4.7bn of that due this year. After that, almost the entire balance is due before the end of 2018.
Netflix will have to keep buying reruns at what will almost certainly be increasing rates if it wants to retain its users, and the companies selling those shows are now in a tight spot too – largely thanks to the ad-free Netflix model.
At US television networks, budget struggles mean making shows more as UK networks do, except with lots of ads and product placement: shorter lifespans, fewer sets and special effects, fewer episodes per series – and then little margin for error if shows look like they're failing early on.
Netflix cannot scale back. Its viewers pay for it outright and express their displeasure by canceling subscriptions, not by changing the channel. If anything, its executives are spending more: Baz Luhrmann's 1970s New York period piece, The Get Down, came with a record price tag for a service that had already driven up the cost of new scripts: $120m for 12 episodes, according to Variety.
In short, television content is expensive. With fewer people watching, the advertisers are getting fed up with paying the premiums the television networks ask for, and people aren't willing to pay the real price required for good television content. Unless something changes soon, expect cheaper television shows with shorter seasons and lots of product placements within the shows.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 18 2016, @10:32AM
...I'd say the Golden Days of television have just been getting started in the last 5 years or so. We've seen the rise of long-arc story telling shows like Breaking Bad, 12 Monkeys, Game of Thrones, etc. We're seeing more sci-fi than ever before, and the Marvel fans must be lapping up all the new Marvel properties that are being rolled out.
Last five years? Long-arc story telling? More sci-fi than ever? Are you twelve years old? The X-Files and Babylon 5 invented the Myth Arc. The 1990s was an entire decade of space operas: Star Trek, Andromeda, Earth Final Conflict, Roswell, Farscape, Stargate.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday October 18 2016, @01:03PM
Also I see grand-op identifies as a troop carrying helicopter which I guess is an improvement on identifying as an attack helicopter, but more seriously I can tell op is identifying as a male, because my female wife was addicted for decades to a decade long soap opera called "as the world turns" and although that series was cancelled after like 50 years on radio and tv they are still pumping out potboiller woman-themed soap operas. It was interesting as an outsider watching my wife watch the last decade of that soap opera, on the short scale it was incredibly stupid like a romantic couple getting stuck in a well on a tropical island level of stupid, but on the long run it was interesting that its been multi-generations of family members that all hate each other for 50 years of radio and TV. Kind of pessimistic outlook, in that way.
Great grannie was listening to story arcs on her vacuum tube pre-ww2 radio decades before we were born (unless you guys are all century old vampires or something).
(Score: 4, Interesting) by DannyB on Tuesday October 18 2016, @02:47PM
Yes, TV has figured out long form story telling.
But unlike Babylon 5, none of these shows have an actual ending.
Babylon 5 had a beginning, a middle and an ending. A satisfying, climactic ending. In the final episodes the characters are moved off the chessboard in satisfying ways. Yet it leaves plenty of room for prequels and spin off shows in the same universe.
Today there are sometimes the one-season wonders. One person came up with the show and had a plan for the first season. And it shows. Then in the 2nd season it starts wandering and eventually goes off the rails. They start doing radical things to the characters just to attract viewership and boost talk about their show. But it ruins the characters.
How about this for an idea: create a show with a planned ending. Say two or three seasons. Make it extremely satisfying like a novel. A book you might want to read (or re watch) again and again. And even twenty years later, new generations of viewers might want to watch it, just like a great book. During its initial run it would still attract the viewership of the long form shows that just make it up as they go along. And yes, it would have an ending. But that ending is what adds the long term value. The show will get watched and re-watched because it's a great story with a resolution to everything.
I would point out Lost and Battlestar Galactica as two examples of shows that made everything up as they went along, and then pretended to have an ending. But that ending didn't really resolve all of the questions. It wasn't that satisfying. It was in fact, anti climactic. More of an excuse to say there was an ending when there really was not.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Tuesday October 18 2016, @03:13PM
I was going to say something similar. Although it is not a completely new problem, all TV shows these days seem to follow the same formula described. They start off with some interesting premise, perhaps the first few episodes are interesting, and with luck perhaps the first season is good. Then they start pulling wild shit out of their asses, sending any remaining story off in wild senseless directions, randomly killing off characters for no reason, ect. After that any two episodes probably don't even relate to each other, and that somehow is still better than some shows where any 5 minute segment doesn't even relate to anything else in the episode (Such as Family Guy, Simpsons). And they will all get canceled with no real ending.
So why should I waste my time attaching myself to some TV show when it is an automatic given that it will just turn to shit?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 18 2016, @06:24PM
randomly killing off characters for no reason, ect.
It's etc. It's short for et cetera, not ec tetera.
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Tuesday October 18 2016, @07:57PM
Thank you Capitan Pedantic Man! The Internet is a much safer place with you guarding against the evil forces of lexdysia, fart fingeringh, and crappie spiel cheekiers!
(Even that would make a better TV show than much of the crap out there.)
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday October 18 2016, @06:34PM
Your last sentence is why I am extremely picky about what I will begin to invest time into watching. There is only so much time. Life is short. I've got plenty of things I could be doing. If I'm going to watch a TV series, or a movie, ect, it better be worth my time. Increasingly, I find, it isn't.
(And I put "ect" on porpoise nto by accident)
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 1) by daver!west!fmc on Tuesday October 18 2016, @05:32PM
And yet, when Babylon 5's spin-off series (Crusade?) was over, I felt a great relief, like I had just got an hour a week to do something more like fun than watching TV.
Really, I blame the seasonal structure imposed on TV storytelling. During B5's fourth season, there was some question during the fourth season whether it would be renewed for a fifth season, so JMS moved bits of his story around from season five into season four so that there could be a satisfying wrap-up at the end of season four. Then the fifth season was approved and was largely about side stories and aftermath and was really kind of tiresome in comparison.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday October 18 2016, @06:27PM
There are other unfortunate things that affected B5.
Actors are one problem. Michael O'Hare's unfortunate medical problems leading to a story line change.
In season one when Ivanova's father died, you just know there would have been a huge payoff for that in season 5 episode Day Of The Dead, but the actress wasn't in the 5th season.
I would love to know what the original story would have been without the changes.
"My shoes are too tight." -- Londo Mollari
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday October 18 2016, @06:22PM
Babylon 5 had a beginning, a middle and an ending.
More like a beginning, middle, and ending...then another ending the next season...then the last, "real" ending.
The Shadow War wraps up, then they go back and take care of Earth, then...something with the Centauri. I couldn't finish the last season because I was tired of watching Sheridan rant about ethics.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday October 18 2016, @06:29PM
Despite the problems you mention, everything was wound up pretty well IMO.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday October 18 2016, @06:49PM
Oh don't get me wrong, it was a very well-told story. As far as sci fi shows go, it's right up there on my list.
As other people have pointed out above, I just get the impression they could have ended it after the fourth season.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday October 18 2016, @06:58PM
I'm glad they dealt with the telepaths story. Explained Lyta Alexander better. The last few episodes where the major characters all move on to better futures is also quite satisfying. So the 5th season isn't bad. Although at first I thought wtf, upon reflection I really enjoyed Day Of The Dead in season 5. It doesn't have to be completely believable, just great story telling. Just leave the "how" unexplained, it's the comet.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 18 2016, @08:48PM
> But unlike Babylon 5, none of these shows have an actual ending.
Breaking Bad.
Six Feet Under.
The Wire.
Buffy. Fucking Buffy, best ending ever.
Chuck.
I'm sure there are more.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 18 2016, @08:58PM
The Shield
Justified
Battlestar Galactica
Friday Night Lights
The Sopranos
Maybe you don't like the deliberately open-ended nature of the Soprano's finale. But it was no cop-out, all the other shit leading up to that scene made either possibility completely legit.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 18 2016, @05:09PM
The long arcs are part of the reason I stopped watching TV. Everyone these days has to have a "myth arc" and as a result it's a pain to jump in and out of a series on occasion. I don't binge watch either, I don't even care much for movies that over 2 hours anymore.
At least with the Star Trek series while there was continuity but you could easily hop around and cherry pick episodes. Same with X-Files and to be honest my favorite episodes to re-watch had little to nothing to do with the over-all "myth arc".
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday October 20 2016, @10:40PM
See, I keep wanting to see television go the opposite direction, particularly now that it's not tied to a broadcast slot.
A lot of providers like Netflix are starting to experiment with shows designed to be binge watched. And you can do a much more complex and interesting story that way, because you don't have to assume the audience forgot or missed half the last episode and needs to be reminded of all the important points. But if they're releasing an entire season at once, designed to be watched quickly, why impose these artificial limitations that there need to be minor story arcs that last exactly 41 minutes that all combine to form the larger story?
What if they just release a single long video with some intelligent tagging and apps to match? Basically a ten or twenty hour long movie, and you tell the app "I want to watch for about an hour" and it checks and finds there's a good place to stop at 56:08, and stops you there. You could even have different types of endings which a user could configure in their profile -- prefer cliffhangers, or prefer calmer stopping points, or director's choice or whatever. They could even have different tiers, so maybe top tier stopping points are the most logical places to break the story, mid tier are reasonable places if you're going to pick it up again soon, and bottom tier are for running to the kitchen to grab some snacks.
I've replaced a lot of my TV time with YouTube, and that's one of the best parts. The story lasts as long as the story lasts. You can find anything from five minute clips to three hour discussions, and watch whatever you have time for.
They could do some cool world building too. Jessica Jones and Daredevil take place in the same universe and I believe there was a bit of crossover already with more planned. With a more interactive, internet-based TV experience there's no reason you couldn't go even further and just have one story with multiple viewpoints. Unfortunately television may not have the budget for that kind of experiment anymore...Although maybe you could get the budget if you sell it as an enhanced movie rather than television. Ultimately I expect the two industries ought to converge...and then probably diverge in different directions again.