Hollywood is fatigued and losing money. In 2022 alone, the world saw the release of 599 scripted TV series aimed at adults. The over-saturation in the market and spending cutbacks are finally taking their toll on the industry – which could impact the number of new series we see every year, according to John Landgraf, Disney’s chairman of FX content.
“I think that 599 is the peak,” he said. “I don’t think you’ll see that number again. It’s going to start to come down.” While 599 shows in a calendar year is the most ever seen (7% up from 2021), Disney noted a 2% drop in output from the second half of 2022 onwards.
A series of bad decisions
This could explain Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery’s reluctance to renew many of its own series past the first season. Unless a show exceeds expectations, such as Wednesday or Squid Games, Netflix would rather avoid the risk. Netflix’s Mo is the most recent exception, though we couldn’t tell you why this earned itself a second season over a show like 1899. We’ve all heard about the sunk-cost fallacy, right?
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Landgraf continued by saying that networks used to spend 90% of a series’ entire marketing spend on the first episode of a new series. Nowadays, we’re lucky if networks spend even half of that budget promoting a series, clutching money to their chests until they see how the series performs.
“Every aspect of what we do has had to be restructured.”
This is a paradox that needs solving. Without “proper” marketing, far fewer people will see a show in its first season, thus not reaching the threshold required for a second or third season to take place. It’s a vicious cycle that streamers and networks can’t escape. The cutbacks we’re facing could possibly help put networks and streamers back on the right track. Don’t count on it though – there’ll be a few more years of blindly pushing out shows before they see the light.
Source: Bloomberg