Why TV Shows Are Getting Worse
Фильм және анимация
This is my video essay on a recently strange trend in television. While movies are being stretched longer for streaming services, bumping up attention time, television seems to be doing the opposite.
Instead of 24 episodes, now the normal is around 10. Instead of lengthier seasons, now it’s all about limited series or once-off events. It seems like we’re getting less and less of the shows we want to watch and more and more of the movies that we don’t.
But why? What’s changed in the last decade or so to cause this decline?
This is my video exploring those questions.
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What are the trends in runtimes for Television Shows?
In North American television, a series is a connected set of television program episodes that run under the same title, possibly spanning many seasons. Since the late 1960s, this broadcast programming schedule typically includes between 20 and 26 episodes. Before then, a regular television season could average at least 30 episodes, and some TV series may have had as many as 39 episodes in a season.
Until the 1980s, most new programs for the US broadcast networks debuted in the "fall season", which ran from September through March and nominally contained from 24 to 26 episodes. These episodes were rebroadcast during the spring (or summer) season, from April through August. Because of cable television and the Nielsen sweeps, the "fall" season now normally extends to May. Thus, a "full season" on a broadcast network now usually runs from September through May for at least 22 episodes.
A full season is sometimes split into two separate units with a hiatus around the end of the calendar year, such as the first season of Jericho on CBS. When this split occurs, the last half of the episodes sometimes are referred to with the letter B as in "The last nine episodes (of The Sopranos) will be part of what is being called either "Season 6, Part 2" or "Season 6B", or in "Futurama is splitting its seasons similar to how South Park does, doing half a season at a time, so this is season 6B for them. "Since the 1990s, these shorter seasons also have been referred to as ".5" or half seasons, where the run of shows between September and December is labeled "Season X", and the second run between January and May labeled "Season X.5". Examples of this include the 2004 incarnation of Battlestar Galactica, ABC's FlashForward, and ABC Family's Make It or Break It.
Since at least the 2000s, new broadcast television series are often ordered (funded) for just the first 10 to 13 episodes, to gauge audience interest. If a series is popular, the network places a "back nine order" and the season is completed to the regular 20 to 26 episodes. An established series that is already popular, however, will typically receive an immediate full-season order at the outset of the season. A midseason replacement is a less-expensive short-run show of generally 10 to 13 episodes designed to take the place of an original series that failed to garner an audience and has not been picked up. A "series finale" is the last show of the series before the show is no longer produced. (In the UK, it means the end of a season, what is known in the United States as a "season finale"). Streaming services time finales to the next quarter to induce consumers to renew at least one more quarter.
A standard television season in the United States runs predominantly across the fall and winter, from late September to May. During the summer months of June through roughly mid-September, network schedules typically feature reruns of their flagship programs, first-run series with lower rating expectations, and other specials. First-run scripted series are typically shorter and of a lower profile than those aired during the main season and can also include limited series events. Reality and game shows have also been a fixture of the schedule.
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Пікірлер: 37
so back in the day, we had just over-the-air tv shows. and only on a number of networks that could be counted on one hand. so one show was needed to fill all that time. so most shows ran up to 40 or so episodes a "season", once cable and big dish satellite came out, syndication really took off. and shows kinda floated between a few configurations. such as: all year round weekly shows, with some special breaks for holidays and special broadcasts. like a sitcom that ran "every week", like your "friends", "seinfelds", "cheers", "frazier", only taking a break for the summer and a few holidays. or children shows that typically ran bi-annually about 26 episodes a season. tv shows were piloted for a run around the places to try and sell it, if it sold they would initially order a pilot season, 13 new episodes, if it runs well in those 13 weeks, they often renew for a full season, or the rest of the that season. once netflix became the ONLY game to for sure get your script published, they turned everything into a miniseries or a "limited series". even concepts meant for the movies. its not hard to a take a movie and retool it for the smallest screen, and netflix was producing groundbreaking new content. even if it was all algorithm driven, they produced results. however it seems the novelty, or the usefulness of algorithms has waned. maybe its because netflix isnt the only streaming game, and now their prediction algorithm isnt as accurate or detailed due to missing input consumers lol, who knows. but i truly miss long form tv shows, like Stargate SG-1, Star Trek, a lot of Sci-Fi really benefits from a long form season. gives more opportunities to flesh out the world they are bringing to life. i miss the days of a few filler episodes in tv shows. But even sitcoms, like Friends and How I Met Your Mother, Big Bang Theory, they all benefit form a 20+ episode per season format. i think it helps a show stay current and intriguing. South Park is a great example. It started in long form, but now is like 10 episodes a season. And i totally get the HUGE amount of work and stress that goes in to an episode every 6 days, but in the same hand, they choose that schedule. maybe its time to spin it off, or just let it go. getting 1/3rd of the episodes and calling it a season just bums me out.
Funny you use that clip of Futurama at the end, because I don't think people give Disenchantment a fair try because it's not what people expected (it really picks up after Part 1)
Also, back in the day, you knew who the studios were that packaged/were behind certain shows owing to their distinctive identities/vanity cards/plates (i.e. you knew that Columbia Pictures Television was behind a show if you saw either the Sunburst/Abstract Torch of the 70s, or the 80s Coke Lady [80s Torch Lady w/Coca-Cola ownership byline] w/Suzanne Ciani's jingle when I was a boy; by the same token, you knew that Paramount Television was behind a show if you heard that slow-paced Lalo Schifrin "Color ID" music w/their Blue Mountain logo, and so on and so forth). Nowadays, the vanity plates that show the people behind the shows do not have any life or distinct features to them, and many a time, they are just about nonexistent with all the squeezed credits and flashing by and all that jazz; also, many a time on physical media, the original plates are scrubbed, and the distributors these days are treated as if they were the producers/packagers way back when (like Sony Pictures Television has been on quite a few CPT shows, like T.J. Hooker; fortunately, Shout! Factory's all-in-one DVD release has a form of the 80s Torch Lady of CPT on most of the episodes).
Your thesis is dead wrong. It relies on a timeline that links streaming with the rise of high quality, short run shows. It started earlier than that. This is a trend that was started with premium cable channels like HBO created incredible high quality work that largely rivaled films at the time. Shows like the Sopranos, Deadwood, or Game of Throwns from HBO; Breaking Bad or The Walking Dead from AMC; or even Vikings from the History Channel, Planet Earth from NatGeo, Walking With …from the BBC, were blockbuster successes that fueled the early drive for streaming services to offer alternatives to the premium cable TV channel. The form of these shows was as novels to the movie’s short story. They really launched the home tv premier of seasons that may have only been a few episodes long with up to multi hours episodes. The “Golden Age” that you are referring to was fueled is a continuation of that trend started years earlier with massive capital dumped in by new competitors for the premium TV content market.
@jimster1111
11 ай бұрын
the thing about these shows is they have an average episode length of nearly 3 times of that of the average tv series. so its only natural for a season to be 1/3 as long. the problem lies in the average tv show with 22 minute episodes has followed suit, back in the early 2000s you would get something like malcom in the middle with 25 episode seasons, compared to todays series like rick and morty with 10 episode seasons. in 7 years of malcolm in the middle we got the equivalent of over 15 seasons of rick and morty (which take an average of 2 years per season to produce)
@Flitalidapouet
7 ай бұрын
@@jimster1111 yep and that's sad. Will be worse with writers new contract.
@Flitalidapouet
7 ай бұрын
Why people say better quality? Babylone 5, Dexter, Battlestar, Supernatural, heck even Warehouse 13 where immensely superior. I've rewached those hundreds of times. The EXCELLENT, The Expanse was not good enough to justify a second run of my time. Even less garbage like Walking dead or Breaking bad. Puzzles me to no end how people can say with a straith face quality is better. I'm like: "Whaaaaaaattttt????"
Before it was good and now it is just unnameable of how bad tv shows have become
Great video. Just some feedback, at 4:47 you play some clips from the last episode of severence which kinda has spoilers, I would recommend using other clips, or giving a warning
@Flitalidapouet
7 ай бұрын
That thing was 2 years ago. Can't spoils something that everyone interested saw already. It's like saying Darth Vader is Luke's father. Everyone who loves the genre knows.
back in the early 2000s you would get something like malcom in the middle with 25 episode seasons, compared to todays series like rick and morty with 10 episode seasons. in 7 years of malcolm in the middle we got the equivalent of over 15 seasons of rick and morty (which take an average of 2 years per season to produce) 10 episode seasons mixed this with mid season haitus's and long breaks in between seasons is very frustrating as a viewer. in 10 years rick and morty has made 51 episodes, king of the hill made 259 in 13.
@EVIL_THOUGHTS
7 ай бұрын
*10 episodes...? you're extremly generous...wait for it, 6 EPISODES series are coming, next year 4 episodes I guess and in 2025 TV series would be shorter than the movies we didn't wanna watch for this exact reason !!!*
@bmasters1981
15 күн бұрын
And in 4 years, the original Untouchables series w/Robert Stack that was on ABC (1959-63) made 119 episodes, unlike The Tudors that made only 38.
Nice video Motion Art 👍 "Better produced, better written" 3:30 🤣🤣🤣🤣 Show from 90's to 2010's where BY FAR superior. I've rewatch Babylone 5, Battlestar, Firefly, Dexter, Supernatural, hundreds of times because they where good. Even Warehouse 13, being very campy, is rewatchable. ZERO shows past 2010 would make me rewatch them. Even the very good Expanse is not good enough to justify a second, even less third watch.
@motioninart
5 ай бұрын
Agreed
I cut the cord 4 years ago and will never pay for TV again. With the ridiculous amounts of ads, paid programming and pathetic reboots of game shows, too many never ending talent shows and reality tv in general. The industry has gotten so greedy that they just want to produce cheap programming. I don't stream either as the ads are numerous and why should you have to pay to see old shows when ads are generating revenue. The rampant capitalist greed in this country is all over TV programming today. Also Im sick of the regular networks showing sports every weekend when there are plenty of sports channels available for that. 👎💰💩📺
*6 EPISODES series are now a thing (loki and meany more), next year 4 episodes I guess and in 2025 TV series would be shorter than the movies we didn't wanna watch for this exact reason !!! They apparently really are on a mission to sale us what we didn't wanna buy !*
Bro i finished a new show in 3h now waiting for the second seson bicouse its so good some times i dont even watch the show bicouse it only has 1 or 2 sesons i bet many people do the same bicouse we dont want to get stuck on cliff hangers its a stupid practice dont tell me poeple have less time to watch shows i work 12h shifts i still get time to watch plus do other things like clocking messing around in ny workshop etc
I really hope were able to find a good Medium between shows being 30 odd years of the Simpsons that never ends till the cash cow stops milking and mini series that are just 7 hour long movies in disguise that either feel too bloated for a movie or not enough for a series So it's good these varied format types break the two party system of a concept needing either lots of episodes or a short story to justify production that gatekept a lot of productions in the pre streaming days Also Between you, friendlyjordies and dankpods I've just realised for us Aussie 90's kids more than most Simpsons is a part of our shared language and we'll put as much into our edits as we can, there's nothing better for an edit to visualise any point
There are too many screen writers and actors.
I got rid of my tv and cable
Great video. Anyone knows what TV show is that at 5:10 ?
Yeah i serched for the title
Not to me I think the writing in today’s shows suck
tv shows become bad because of bad writing
Technology is a mistake. Return to man’s origin. The Mid-90s.
@jimcatanzaro7808
Жыл бұрын
What about porn
@poetryflynn3712
Жыл бұрын
@@jimcatanzaro7808 There's a song called "Runnin in the 90s". It talks about experiencing porn on the internet for the first time.
@glenncooper6512
Жыл бұрын
@@jimcatanzaro7808we must return to newgrounds
@moroteseoinage
5 ай бұрын
@@jimcatanzaro7808I believe porn existed last century.
@light_bar_
4 ай бұрын
Disagree
one word, wokeness.
@motioninart
3 ай бұрын
Lol