The industry of TV and movies seems to be in what has to be the most difficult period in history now. From what I've observed, it's near impossible to make new content now that people will engage with, because there's so many great shows already that people want to watch, and humans have a limited attention span.
With the ease of streaming services, people want to watch the tried and true shows and movies. It's not just competing with the other shows that are airing at the same time as your show like it used to be. You are now competing with Harry Potter, Star Wars, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, etc. just to name a few all at the same time for people's attention. Shows that are well regarded and with a huge following.
I feel as though as time goes on, many of these franchises will retain their popularity, and alongside competition from AI which will only grow, I'm not sure how Hollywood survives as we know it. In 100-200 years, the 1900s/early 2000s may be looked at as a golden age, and the content from those times may still be watched frequently. It's just incredibly difficult to compete with those franchises in trying to make something new, and we even see this. Hollywood often doesn't even attempt to create their own things, just create spin offs, prequels, and sequels for the things that already exist.
What do you think? Are we moving into a period where creativity will be relegated to past periods, and audiences will want to stick to old classics over whatever the new directors are making, creating the downfall of Hollywood as we know it?
New shows can work. You just need a good hook, and networks need to allow it time to grow.
Most shows need to find an audience. Back in the 90s, when you had 4 networks and only so many primetime hours, you could say "look, no one tuned in for the first 2 episodes, so its just not going to work" Granted, we wouldn't have shows like Seinfeld and the Office, but it was more understandable.
Now, people watch TV on their own time. Take a show like RJ Decker, which I like. I saw the trailer, thought it sounded interesting, so I set my DVR for it. I had no idea when it premiered, it just just in my library one day. So I watched it sometime in the first week it premiered. But ABC is no longer just competing with NBC, CBS, and Fox. Now its every cable channel, every streaming channel, etc. So shows just get far less chance to grow.
7
humanoideric3 days ago
+3
> Most shows need to find an audience. Back in the 90s, when you had 4 networks and only so many primetime hours, you could say "look, no one tuned in for the first 2 episodes, so its just not going to work" Granted, we wouldn't have shows like Seinfeld and the Office, but it was more understandable. Now, people watch TV on their own time.
I think one of the most prominent examples of this is Schitt's Creek, although you could blame CBC in Canada and Pop TV in the U.S. not being seen as major “water cooler” networks but it ended up sweeping the Emmys by the time s06 rolled out and everyone had caught on to how funny it was.
3
illini023 days ago
+2
I mean, part of that, I believe, was that it got popular when it went on some streaming service.
Like, i didn't even have Pop TV at the time. So not only was it not a major network, even many people with cable didn't have it.
2
Wonderful_Adagio93463 days ago
+3
To analyze, look at the Emmy nominations for Drama and Comedy.
Then track how many new series (and old) get cancelled each year.
How many got multiple seasons?
(*Arrested Development* got extra seasons due to their Emmy noms. DVD box sets helped as well, since it was a comedic soap opera.)
People binge. People want entertaining television. Sturgeon's Revelation means that 90% of everything is c***. We just have a much bigger iceberg, so there's more of that 10%.
Granted, it might be difficult for a new show to succeed. *High Potential* worked very fast. As did *The Pitt*. *Breaking Bad* almost got cancelled. *WKRP* got very lucky its first season. And then there's *Futurama*...
3
dontbajerk3 days ago
+2
Close to 10,000 new films and over 1000 new TV shows in 2025. Why do you think they're dying beyond a gut feeling? That's not really a reliable indicator for global disparate trends like that.
2
TelluricThread03 days ago
+1
There shouldn't be 1000 new shows. They're churning out too much content and canceling shows left and right just to push out more. Its like inflation and they're diluting the overall value of all the shows.
1
TheSuspiciousDreamer3 days ago
+1
Streaming has a lower cancellation rate than network TV had. Networks cancelled 2 out of every 3 new shows.
1
TelluricThread03 days ago
+1
Networks have never come anywhere near pushing out 1000 shows a year. It doesnt matter if the cancellation rate is higher. Hundreds of streaming shows are canceled and replaced by more that will also be canceled. More streaming shows come and go than are ever broadcast on network tv. They've generated a bubble that will burst.
1
PreferenceAnxious4493 days ago
+2
I think you have this backwards.
>it's near impossible to make new content now that people will engage with
I get that nothing is going to have the same mass appeal. But it kinda doesn't matter, because now the product is the platform not the show.
Like Netflix ain't gonna lose any sleep because some shows don't get many views. What keeps them in business is the number of subscribers to the platform.
And what I'm seeing on all platforms is that it might actually be the golden age. They're green-lighting *anything* and bankrolling its production - because they want to own the rights to it. They can make LOTS of bets, and so long as they have a few hits they're good.
I would wager that last year broke records for the number of new tv shows. And that this year will break that record again.
2
TheSuspiciousDreamer3 days ago
+2
The number of shows being produced peaked in 2022 and has been declining since.
2
PreferenceAnxious4493 days ago
+1
Source?
1
TheSuspiciousDreamer2 days ago
+1
John Landgraf.
1
PreferenceAnxious4491 day ago
+1
Not very helpful. Also pretty sure you're focusing on US shows only. There were strikes in hollywood that explain the US dip in 2023. I believe it has been recovered from. And it wasn't global, globally the numbers are going up.
1
TheSuspiciousDreamer1 day ago
+1
Source?
1
PreferenceAnxious44910 hr ago
+1
Tim Berners Lee
1
Sad-Cat-458922 hr ago
+1
If you want a quick way to search across all services at once without googling each one, I built a free tool called StreamFinder [http://streamfinder.org/](http://streamfinder.org/) that does it in one search. Might save you time.
1
PreferenceAnxious44910 hr ago
+1
Why would I want that? Nobody is taking the bet.
1
Reasonable-HB6783 days ago
+1
A spinoff of Yellowstone is doing gangbusters for CBS.
1
Novel-Ad-23503 days ago
+1
If this keeps up much longer the younger people wont even know what tv is and it will all be something else. So much content out there but I have nothing to watch until it just pops up as available. They dont even make us aware when things air.
1
KeremyJyles2 days ago
+1
They are dying because the more we go on, the less the industry cares about including good writing at all. Other factors matter to producers and execs so much more.
1
Sad-Cat-458922 hr ago
+1
If you want a quick way to search across all services at once without googling each one, I built a free tool called StreamFinder [http://streamfinder.org/](http://streamfinder.org/) that does it in one search. Might save you time.
1
LuinAelin3 days ago
+1
Nah
It's just entertainment is just more fragmented. No show will fully reach the monoculture of the past. Nothing wrong with that because more choice than ever rather than whatever the 4 TV channels chose to air
1
MappleStarsSky3 days ago
-1
We are currently living in the best possible world for many people working in TV, and for TV series in general, even with all of its flaws (and trust me, there are many, expecially with now this AI bullshit making CEOs think that editors are not necessary anymore).
People grossly missremember how bad the working conditions for people were in the 1900-late 2000', you went to work on TV because it was considered a work position for people who couldn' t make it on cinema and hollywood. They were considered works to disregard or throw away, basicaly consumable content, for most cases.
Nowadays streaming shows greenlights EVERYTHING, you have shows that would have never aired before.
-1
khz303 days ago
+1
TV in the 1990s and 2000s was far better than what we have now despite less outlets because of the fact that crews and working actors had more opportunities to work multiple unionized productions throughout the year.
The current landscape doesn't allow for that at all anymore and the elimination of royalties on top of the death of syndication means that layers of production and acting talent are effectively locked out.
Thanks to Hollywood actors being ok with TV series and taking up the salary space reserved for working actors, most actors that would usually have a steady career are being pushed out .
1
MappleStarsSky3 days ago
+1
Most people who have worked on the 1990 and 2000s will tell you that the working hours were crazy and nobody wants to go back to that period. I htink the eliminations of royalties and sindication is absolutely the biggest issue here, and things we should fight against.
I absolutely agree that there are issues in our modern working world as well, but we literaly have professionals like Vince Gilligan saying that he shaved years off his life to work on Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, and that he never wants to go back to that same level of yearly releases and producing so many episodes a year. Game Of Thrones had the entire crew burning out by season 6, and most of the crew and actors wanted to leave the show afterwards because of the yearly releases.
TV productions ar einherently dishuman, but post-covid a lot of creatives have decided to actually enforce more human hours to a lot of working departments. Before this ,situation was way worse.
1
Skavau3 days ago
+1
>TV in the 1990s and 2000s was far better than what we have now despite less outlets because of the fact that crews and working actors had more opportunities to work multiple unionized productions throughout the year.
I strongly disagree? There was much less TV made, and much of it was episodic 'monster of the week' writing.
Whether or not that was better *for actors* is a different matter, but I much prefer the 10s and 20s to the 90s and 00s.
1
Kind-Shallot36033 days ago
-1
I mean current Star Trek is finally done after years of failures and poorly received series and blunders. They kept trying to chase every demographic *but* Trekkies and pushed most of us away, some permanently and in the end failed to gain much of a new audience except the psycho diehards who literally will watch anything and be happy.
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