On Friday, Netflix cancelled two of its genre entries—The Society and I Am Not Okay With This–and the specific reason given was complications and increased costs due to the new COVID production environment. The Society has a large cast which makes it difficult to film when there is a requirement for social distancing. And production costs in general are higher now due to the precautions that must be taken to minimize risks to the cast in crew while filming. (The non-genre scripted series I’m Sorry has also been cancelled due to COVID-related circumstances.) As production starts to ramp back up now that the shutdowns are lifting, will the same factors lead to more cancellations and will this be the bursting of the Peak TV Bubble?
The number of scripted originals has continued to increase over the past decade with well over five hundred shows currently available on the broadcast networks, cable channels, and streaming service. And while production has leveled off recently or even decreased for broadcast and cable, the streamers (especially Netflix) are moving full speed ahead with their originals. This has shown no sign of abating, and the television audience continues to consume the many many shows being released.
But there is an iron economic law that is quickly ignored by economists and business people who should know better when the money is rolling in: The numbers can’t keep going up.
I have been predicting that the Peak TV bubble will burst for a while, but it continues to expand. There have been some signs of at least leveling off, though, as mentioned above with the broadcast nets and cable channels. The broadcasters have been less ambitious with scripted programing of late and several of the cablers have moved away from scripted originals or cut down the number of shows they have to offer. Syfy only had four scripted shows on its schedule during the 2019-20 season (the lowest in over a decade), with not much more available for the coming year. The streaming services continue to crank out originals, though, as more and more platforms emerge to compete in the market place. But with the new COVID restrictions in place, how many shows can they reasonably keep on their active slate?
The streamers have continued to pour large dollars into their productions in order to get their shows to stand out. Some of these are at blockbuster level budgets (Amazon’s Lord of the Rings prequel will allegedly cost half a billion dollars!), and even the less expensive productions are costing $5 million per episode or more. This was not sustainable in a pre-COVID world, and now costs are rising even higher.
The cancellation of The Society and I Am Not Okay With This counts as just a blip so far as neither were high-profile series (though both developed notable fanbases). But this could also act as a leading indicator of what is to come. Other streamers, as well as linear networks, could decide to pull the plug on their lesser performing shows as they will not want to take on the higher costs currently demanded in today’s production environment. And bigger dollar productions that may have ballooned to unsustainable budget levels could also suffer if the added costs prove to be a deal-breaker.
There is no clear indication that this is the situation we are currently heading into, the cancellation of two lower-tier shows hardly points to a coming production-pocalypse. But Peak TV cannot continue to expand forever, and perhaps the current restricted production environment leads to the long-expected culling of the herd. As filming on TV shows ramps back up, we will see if other networks start pulling the plug because they believe the costs do not justify the effort. More cancellations will almost certainly follow, and it’s not impossible that this could lead to the long-overdue bursting of the Peak TV bubble.
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