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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: 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.