When I Stop Cable Service Will I Be Able To Access Cable Shows That Are Available As Podcasts?

Silhouette of boy in front of a television screen.

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Maybe you've heard this phrase: "peak TV."

Information technology was coined by John Landgraf, the boss of FX, during an address he gave at the Television receiver Critics Clan printing tour in the summer of 2015. It was a very buzzy talk, as these things go, and since then, the phrase "superlative TV" has gained traction as a shorthand for the massive expansion of television receiver through cable and now streaming.

What got the most attention were Landgraf's musings on sheer quantity: He pointed out that he (and critics) not only could barely go along up with all the shows; we could barely go along upward with all the outlets that were making shows. (And this was earlier Disney+, or Apple TV+, or HBO Max.) He told united states that FX estimated that during 2015, more than 400 scripted series would air. That doesn't even count the too-exploding genres of reality and documentary, or sports, or news. He said, in a style that seemed both obvious and darkly funny, "This is merely too much television."

In some ways, the Elevation TV speech was prescient: It put a proper noun to a phenomenon journalists have been talking about ever since. But he'd admit, I call up, that the speech missed the marking when it comes to the arc of growth. The very reason he used the give-and-take "peak" was that things had to contract at some point; he predicted 2015 or 2016 would be the top, and and so the number of scripted series would kickoff to drib.

That didn't happen. Instead, in 2021, FX estimates that the number was 559. That's something similar a forty pct increase over what he idea, and what we all hoped, was approaching the summit.

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The implications for jobs

The discussion of numbers, though, is non what sticks out most about that 2015 address now. What sticks out about is what Landgraf argued this onslaught was doing to television. I concern was how many people it took to make this many shows and make them well: "For programmers," he said, "this bubble has created a huge challenge in finding compelling original stories and the level of talent needed to sustain those stories."

To be clear, there are plenty of stories and plenty of people, many of whom are underserved and underappreciated and rarely heard. But he's right that the finding of them (and the hiring and the choosing and the training and especially the nurturing and supporting and protecting of talent for a practiced outlet that wants to do those things) does have time and commitment. And while everybody making more stuff should lead to more than chances for underrepresented voices to be heard, information technology can hands lead to the opposite: going back to the same people over and again considering information technology's easier and faster and it feels safer, and y'all don't accept all solar day to go across your existing Rolodex.

Here's another thing Landgraf said that day: "Brands [meaning networks and streamers] will become increasingly important as mediating filters for the overwhelmed viewing public." His thesis was that a brand a viewer trusts (like, say, FX or HBO) acts as a kind of Good Housekeeping seal that tells them that this show is worth their time. It'south peradventure ironic how complicated streaming has been for the FX brand itself (just try to effigy out what is on FX on cable versus FX on Hulu versus both versus FXX versus having FX beamed to the fillings in your molars).

But there's some reason to believe he was correct about this in the broader sense. For one matter, the one streamer that seems to have perhaps overachieved compared to what was expected of it is Disney+ — and that's the one that comes from the most aggressively brand-y megabrand that has a rigidly divers sense of self, and the ane that puts out show afterward prove from other bottom included megabrands like Marvel and Star Wars. The Disney make might not be strictly nigh quality, but it does tell people what they're going to get in a way that Apple (in the realm of content) doesn't.

Could Netflix'south recent troubles be the first sign of alter?

If you really desire to ponder the meaning of brands, think near Netflix, and in particular the reporting that Kim Masters did recently for The Hollywood Reporter. For a while, when information technology was launching Orange is the New Black and Stranger Things and Bojack Horseman, Netflix seemed like it had a brand hope for viewers just like the ane Landgraf was talking virtually — not about the specific type of prove, but virtually quality command.

Merely every bit Masters writes, once Netflix started blowing up the quantity of stuff they were making, that's when the people in her story propose the streamer began to struggle in means that would eventually hurt the business. Netflix is however a powerful brand, obviously, and it still makes terrific work. But that terrific work sits alongside a lot of undifferentiated stuff, and that makes the promise to viewers most original programming quite different.

What resonates the near, though, from that talk in 2015, is the manner Landgraf talked almost the good and the great. A lot of people who heard those "peak Telly" numbers from critics — 400 shows! — groused dorsum that it didn't really thing, because most of information technology was terrible. Landgraf, on the other mitt, was careful to indicate out that this was non the point he was making. He didn't think the trouble was too much bad Tv set; he thought the problem was largely too much skilful TV. Or, perchance, besides much good enough TV. The head of FX, later all, doesn't care well-nigh total garbage shows or about how many of them there are; that's not the competition, either for viewers or awards, or for disquisitional attention. (There was a lot of speculation at the fourth dimension that this part of the speech communication reflected in role FX's frustration at a lack of awards recognition for The Americans.)

Here's what he said about too much good TV: "There'southward just also much contest, so much then that I think the good shows oft arrive the way of the audience finding the great ones."

Maybe cocky-serving? Certain, of course. Landgraf is not an academic or a neutral czar; he'southward a network executive who had (and has) his ain business to worry about. Just I think this phenomenon does exist, and non just for audiences. As a critic, I do feel overwhelmed by the amount of goggle box — just not past the corporeality that's terrible, most of which I become to ignore. I feel overwhelmed by the amount that'due south okay. Perfectly fine. Watchable, only unremarkable. The ten-episode serial that should be four; the iv-episode series that should be a moving picture. The A-for-attempt project that just doesn't quite get where information technology's trying to go. The adaptation of true events that's well-fabricated but has fiddling to add to the podcast it'south based on. The show that stars very famous people doing solid work and nevertheless doesn't make so much every bit a ripple.

It's not that nothing is bang-up. There are still exciting new shows out at that place; Apple'due south Severance, for case, is wonderful and innovative, weird and special and provocative. But at times, I do feel similar I am kept very busy looking at B-plus shows that look a lot like other B-plus shows, that are nicely fabricated and earnestly executed past talented people and that are perfectly okay if you like the kind of thing that they are.

Merely with the Netflix news last week, information technology does seem like perhaps we really have reached Peak Television receiver. Maybe things really are going to contract, just a few years behind schedule. If that happens, it may come every bit a relief to viewers (both amateur and professional person), but it will mean shake-ups with implications for jobs and creativity that are still very difficult to predict. And of class, when money is difficult to come by, it's ofttimes the new voices that are sacrificed beginning.

Or, I suppose, this will all be wrong, and the number of shows volition abound for the next seven years like they've grown for the last seven years, and in 2029, we'll be back here talking well-nigh SuperPeak TV and the fact that our greatest motion picture stars are at present making shows that exclusively air on those little screens at gas pumps. Nobody ever said information technology was like shooting fish in a barrel to run across the future.

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