What Is Happening?
Television has been in a period of consistent growth that has seen the number of scripted shows grow each year since 2010 (with the exception of one COVID-impacted year) and ever-larger dollar amounts sunk into production costs as venues compete to dominate the market. This has led to a glut of programming, scripted and unscripted, with not enough eyes to watch all these shows and not enough hours in the day to fit them in. The market has reached a saturation point (it was probably already there a year or two ago), and the networks, streaming services, and studios are starting to feel the pressure. Viewership is not meeting up to demands, the exorbitant spending is starting to take its toll, and the bursting of the Peak TV bubble appears to be getting ever closer.
It has been inevitable for some time, but that never stopped the television industry from barreling forward and constantly pushing the market beyond its limits. There is an iron economic law that dictates the numbers can’t keep going up, however, that is usually ignored by economists and business leaders who should know better while the money is rolling in. We are at the critical point if not past it, and the consequences of the rampant spending of the Peak TV era will make themselves apparent very soon.
How Did We Get Here?
The origins of Peak TV go back to the early 2000s with the growth of prestige television represented by creator-driven shows such as The Sopranos, The West Wing, The Wire, Battlestar Galactica, Breaking Bad, and more. These shows received a lot of acclaim, and they also started receiving substantial budgets while more and more venues wanted to get in on the action. But the real explosion of growth came in the 2010s, especially when streaming services entered into the scripted television arena. Netflix made the first major foray into the market and quickly decided to lead the charge. Other streaming services jumped on the bandwagon, and all of the television venues had to up their game to compete. The number of shows kept growing and the money getting pumped into these productions ballooned as well.
Budgets for television shows went from a couple of million per episode to well over ten million, and companies like Amazon sunk an absurd amount into productions such as The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. The price-tag for licensing that property and producing the first season was allegedly around one billion dollars, but there is no way that a production like that can turn a profit, even if you factor in the additional attention brought to the venue by such a high-profile production.
In addition, the streaming model is not necessarily designed to foster long-term loyalty from viewers. Seasons are typically ten episodes or less, and shows often go for a max of three-to-four seasons because of diminishing returns on new subscriptions from each new season. Some brand loyalty may follow if viewers like the type of shows that a streamer is producing, but the lack of long-running productions likely results in a more fleeting viewer base. This is exacerbated by the long delays between seasons (driven by the higher production values) and the glut of programming out there.
Is the Bubble About to Burst?
I have been predicting it for a while, and I believe that we have seen the initial signs of a market correction (or possible collapse) over the past couple of years. Many of the basic cable channels started to back away from scripted programming when they found it very difficult to compete. Both they and the broadcast networks have been shifting to more and more unscripted content, or exiting from original programming altogether. As for the premium cable channels and streaming services, they have been going through cost-cutting measures and purging of content, and the trend of write-downs (writing off a show as a tax deduction and pulling it from availability, more on that at this link) has been particularly disturbing.
The production delays due to COVID threw things into disarray for a while, and now production has shut down again due to the writers’ strike and the actors’ strike. The labor movements are particularly indicting of the top-heavy industry as the writers and actors are fighting for a living wage from productions that have millions of dollars in their budgets. The Walking Dead actor Chandler Riggs delivered some rather enlightening comments on the plight of the actors (see the first comment in the thread at this link), indicating the money spent on these productions is not distributed very evenly. (Other actors have shared information on their meager compensation as well.) Companies are spending large amounts on production budgets and licensing fees and paying high salaries to an overly large list of producers and there is ultimately not enough to go around to all of the cast and crew.
With all of these pressures and with cancellations already racking up, things could start to snowball pretty quickly. Networks and studios may take the strikes as an opportunity to reset and drop high-dollar productions that are too risky or that have not measured up to expectations. When the writers’ strike happened in 2007, we saw several casualties among television shows (more on that at this link) and the same could happen with the current labor movements. Part of that could be punitive actions from the networks and studios, but part of it is also a chance to cut costs and course correct.
How Will This Affect Sci Fi TV Shows?
Cancellations, cancellations, and more cancellations. We have already seen quite a number of shows fall this season and last, and I expect that we will see a bloodbath by the end of the year. Shows that have not received renewal announcements yet like Foundation, Shadow and Bone, and Wolf Pack could be vulnerable. And even shows that have received renewal announcements could have those reversed. We have already seen that with Star Trek: Prodigy and Moonhaven, and the current environment may cause the networks and streaming services to rethink more renewals. Disney+ backed away from a second season of its epic fantasy series Willow, which did not meet up to viewership expectations, and more could meet a similar fate.
In addition to that, we will also be seeing fewer new shows and fewer mega-budget productions like LOTR: The Rings of Power, The Sandman, and House of the Dragon. The planned Gattaca TV series and Sam Esmail’s Metropolis have both been axed as the many venues are re-thinking their output, and I expect more projects will be shelved during the production stoppage caused by the strikes. And if that labor movement carries on too long, pretty much all shows new and ongoing become fair game.
As of this writing, more sci fi and fantasy shows have been cancelled or have ended in the 2022-23 season than have been renewed (40 vs. 39), and I expect that trend to continue if not get worse. The piper had to be paid at some point, and he appears to be starting his collections rounds now. I will be keeping a close eye on the fallout as the Peak TV Crunch takes its toll, and I will be taking a look at each of the networks and streaming services in the coming months. Stay tuned to this site as we track the current situation and as we continue to report on the renewals and cancellations among sci fi TV shows.
More from CancelledSciFi.com:
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