Is TV's Golden Age (Officially) Over? A Statistical Analysis (statsignificant.com)
- Reference: 0179317606
- News link: https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/25/09/17/1445208/is-tvs-golden-age-officially-over-a-statistical-analysis
- Source link: https://www.statsignificant.com/p/is-tvs-golden-age-officially-over
YouTube leads streaming viewership ahead of Netflix, Paramount+, and Hulu. Free ad-supported platforms YouTube, Tubi and Roku Channel continue gaining market share. Subscription prices across major streaming services have increased while scripted content volume decreased. Second season of Severance cost $200 million. Fourth season of Stranger Things reached $270 million in production expenses.
[1] https://www.statsignificant.com/p/is-tvs-golden-age-officially-over
For factual non current affairs... (Score:2)
... content youtube pisses all over TV whether broadcast or streaming. OTOH I wouldn't trust a much of the clickbait "news" on youtube if my life depended on it and as for dramas - forget it. Also quality != quantity and so long as new dramas are commissioned then TV still has life in it yet.
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Sound like the article is not about the rage-generating entertainment that passes for "news" these days, but those neverending TV series.
After the script writters went into strike in 2023 (Score:1)
nothing decent has been done.
For me? Yes. (Score:2)
I live on beachfront on southern Oregon coast, which means I cannot receive broadcast or cable. I also too cheap to pay for any streaming service other than YouTube Premium, so I only watch YouTube videos... which contain plenty of clips of the best parts of Colbert, The Daily Show, etc., so I'm happy. This whole concept that everybody has to watch a show at the exact same time is obsolete; everything except sports should be time shifted to the viewer's convenience. Netflix is producing some pretty good co
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> whole concept that everybody has to watch a show at the exact same time is obsolete
In the sense that largely isn't happening any more yes. In the sense that 'water cooler' television gave as a social opportunity to have some organic national discussions about the issues of the day with a little shared context, I am not so sure.
Obviously it put the power to chose the topics of our national discourse in the hands a very smaller number of people, but it did give everyone an opportunity to discuss their view of the same content.
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Seems like 'Watercooler cooler' tv peaked with GoT and every other attempt (WestWorld, Rings of Power, Succession, etc) has generated some buzz but nothing near peak GOT S3-S4.
And now that it turns out there's no lasting economy of scale with subscription tv (wait for full season to drop, subscribe for a month to watch, cancel), I doubt there will be many more big-budget shows in the future, at least until business models change again. Apple, Amazon, and Netflix (to a lesser degree) subsidize their shows bu
Been over for some time (Score:2)
The golden age of TV ended when the scripted age of TV gave way to low-effort 'reality' TV.
For most, best shows came after reality TV (Score:2)
Most of the prestige TV came well after reality shows became popular. The Real World premiered in 1992. Since then, we've had Dexter, Game of Thrones, Sopranos, Stranger Things, Yellowstone, Alien Earth, Peacemaker...whatever your favorite show was probably came after Reality TV started taking over in the early 2000s. Some theorize it was a response to network TV showing garbage reality shows in prime time....you can watch Big Brother or Biggest Loser on broadcast TV or watch Game of Thrones or Stranger
More Redefining Words? (Score:1)
The Golden Age of television was the 40s and 50s. It's been over for about 70 years.
Netflix (Score:2)
"Netflix has shifted majority output to unscripted content including docuseries and reality programming since 2018."
Yup and all the while raising prices to boot. I liked Netflix a lot but I dropped my subscription when I saw that their new norm was basically the reality TV boom in the 00's which is when I cut the cord on cable TV.
Now that these services have become too numerous and turned shitty and expensive we'll get to hear about how awful the piracy problem has become. What fun.
No (Score:2)
Something isn't over just because it has peaked. While I wish there was more, compared to when I was younger there are a lot more shows available.
What I do kinda dislike though is these mini-abbreviated seasons that have been adopted on new shows. I know its due to expense, but 10 episodes feels kinda short for a season when the shows I grew up with would have 20 to 26 episodes per season. And while I can deal with 10 - a lot of shows have been trying to get away with "seasons" of 6 episodes or less. 6
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I try to view it (for prestige shows) as 8-10 film quality shows (4-5 movies) but when they do the short seasons for basic comedies, yeah, that feels cheap.
And then there's the British weird season stuff; 4-6 episodic episodes and then a year or two later, another 4-6 episodes, going on for 2 decades or so. Thinking of Jonathon Creek and Poirot.
Short Seasons (Score:2)
It used to be 26 episodes per season, with each episode airing twice during the year. It was a nice, simple way of filling the broadcast schedule. That shifted to 24 episodes at some point. There was a bigger shift, I think in the early 2000s, where they started having separate shows for the summer, and seasons started getting much shorter, sometimes more like 13 episodes. Now streaming services will put out 6-7 episode seasons; only a quarter of what a season used to be.
The good part of this is that yo
I agree (Score:2)
I recently watched a The Critical Drinker video where he bemoaned the state of TV these days, where a "season" is really a 6-8 episode mini-series, and then you have to wait two bloody years for the next season, by which time you've pretty much forgotten about the show, and any kind of momentum is lost. Back in the day when a season was 22-24 episodes, with a couple of shorter mid-season breaks, there was only a few months between the end of one season and the beginning of the next, and you could really sta
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And the lunch boxes released durning the summer.
Where's all the Breaking Bad and Game Of Thrones tin lunchboxes with major scenes impressed in steel and enamel?!!
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[1]Here's one. [darkhorse.com]
[1] https://www.darkhorse.com/Products/24-355/Game-of-Thrones-Iron-Throne-Lunchbox
Can't be done quantitatively (Score:2)
The problem is the number of scripted shows doesn't tell us much about the number of quality scripted shows, and quality is in the eye of the beholder. TV has continued to adapt over the years, and people have different preferences. There was:
1) The original "golden age" in the 1950s when TV was just starting up. Because there were only a small number of channels and because everything had to be of general interest, these were relatively high effort productions but were unable to take any real risks. It ten
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The Golden Age ended long ago. TV continued to put out good shows, but there were a lot of poor shows to go with them. It died when reality TV started to take over. It was cheaper to record people doing whatever than it was to put thought into good scripts and plots.
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By that standard there was never a golden age. TV has always been mostly filler and cheap crap.
What they are referring to here is the recent glut of high production value shows produced by new entrants to the streaming market. Lots of miniseries, and some longer form stuff. Sadly a lot of good shows got cancelled.
Now those same services seem to be cutting back budgets and thinning out release schedules.
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> By that standard there was never a golden age. TV has always been mostly filler and cheap crap.
> What they are referring to here is the recent glut of high production value shows produced by new entrants to the streaming market. Lots of miniseries, and some longer form stuff. Sadly a lot of good shows got cancelled.
> Now those same services seem to be cutting back budgets and thinning out release schedules.
"Good" scripted shows seem to suffer from eternal production hell. With two to four years between "seasons" of six to ten 42-55 minute episodes, it's hard to keep an audience interested in. Why these networks/services insist on throwing massive amounts of money and time into production, then skimp out on decent directing and acting, not to mention scripts, is beyond me. I'd rather watch an hour of James Spader and William Shatner riffin' on Boston Legal than most of these "high production value" shows that
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That was as I understand it why Star Trek Enterprise was cancelled. The ratings weren't *that* bad*. But putting on a reality show could match them.
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But the television keeps telling me that this is the golden age of television?!?