NEW YORK – A Beth Hoppe loves dramatic television series. But even with a digital video recorder and demand services that allow them whenever you want, not enough to see everything you have on your list time.
As head of PBS programming, Hoppe has grounds for work to keep up. So if she feels overwhelmed, how can we keep up with the others?
But of all the changes on television, none is as deep as the sheer volume of material available. From the NBC “About a Boy” to “Z Nation” SyFy, in 2014 352 original series were broadcast on television script open, cable and internet services. Not to mention news, sports, talk shows, documentaries, films and reality shows.
In 1999, cable television offered 26 original series in prime time. The figure last year was 199, an increase of 665 percent. Moreover, in 2014 there were other 24 series on Netflix, Amazon or Hulu, services that did not exist as original programming 15 years ago.
The pace does nothing to climb. The amount of original, just in prime time cable channels, series has almost doubled since 2010, according to FX Networks, which tracks the programs.
“The volume of competition is literally crazy, “said John Landgraf, CEO of FX.
Before, cable networks could do business offering mainly movies and reruns of old series. “Not anymore,” Hoppe said.
Now, viewers can select an old movie whenever they want through an internet service without waiting for a chain put it, Alan Wurtzel said chief researcher NBC Universal. Despite occasional hits such as “The Big Bang Theory”, interest in old episodes of seasons is also declining, due in part to the large amount of new material available. And the internet can also be rented past seasons to see a marathon of many chapters.
Differentiate is now crucial. The chains need programs that establish their identity. What was before AMC “Mad Men”? Or IFC before “Portlandia”? ¿FX before “Rescue Me”?
“People do not want to be a follower of Lifetime because for a while I put ‘Golden Girls’” said Tim Brooks, author of “The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows “. “But when you produce original programs, especially those that emphasize returns the string looking for the next release”.
Brooks and Earle Marsh co-author of the text updated ninth edition in 2007. But since no more. There are too many programs.
Perhaps the market reaches a saturation point, but for now is not in sight. The market does not punish failure, Landgraf said. The series unsuccessfully disappear, but chains are rarely happens the same.
For viewers is as if he had never break. It seems that every week there is a premiere or an early season. That pace makes the real successes, such as the Fox got with “Empire” in recent weeks, increasingly rare.
A decade ago, a director of television could announce a program and be confident that the audience would be motivated to see knowing that they may lose a part of the cultural conversation, Landgraf said.
“Now, why would anyone pay attention to the marketing of television?” he said. “There are too many series. Most are not very good. The good will survive and know them at some point. To know when you can easily go back and catch up. You can save time being Darwinian. Saying `I’m not going to pay attention to television, I just wait for them to survive the fittest. ‘”
If the crowded market offers an advantage for producers is that makes the more likely managers to give an opportunity for the series. Often, they can not be sure immediately if the public has rejected a program or simply have not already found.
The competition forces the creators to work their ideas, increasing the pressure to create something unique .
“We are in a country ruled by passion world where social conversation is so important and where people can see what you see when you want to see,” said the president of entertainment for ABC, Paul Lee . “So they will see the series really like, they are passionate about.”
The directors have an expression for that. They say that the era of “least objectionable television” has died.
_For David Bauer
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