The Death of Scripted Television

Odds are, your favorite TV show is losing money - and is soon going to be axed. Streamers like Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, HBO Max, and Peacock have plugged into the fact that TV habits are evolving away from linear TV. (Linear TV = watching on a regular TV network, as opposed to from a streaming service.) Starting with the iPhone and Netflix, viewers are slowly moving away from watching their favorite TV series on TV at a certain time. Think about it — don’t you spend more of your time bingeing Netflix shows than you do waiting for your favorite weekly TV show? Why is this? Well, across the board - scripted TV is expensive. (Scripted = not reality. So, anything with a script.) It often doesn’t matter how well a show is doing in the ratings. Even a cheap series is close to $1 million of production for a half-hour episode. If a network invests in a great show, it’s still difficult to make their money back. This is why every TV network is leaning into “Unscripted" programming. It’s cheaper to produce, and the ROI (return on investment) is higher. Unscripted looks like: reality TV, docuseries, talk shows, and game shows. What does this mean for TV fans everywhere? And what SHOULD the networks be doing? It means that all the good shows are moving to streaming. All the smart networks are shifting huge dollar amounts to developing shows that air on streaming platforms. Networks should be making big, exclusive deals for really relevant, noisy content so that people start tuning in. Networks should also start to fill the needs of every household - e.g., kids’ shows, news shows, etc. — on one streaming service. So…Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Peacock, BET+, Disney+, Paramount+, Apple TV+, ESPN+, HBO Max — it’s your move. We TV fans will be waiting here for the future of TV. Hope you make the shows great.