Below is an amazing chart that makes the programming decisions made by various streamers truly baffling:
Six of those shows are from traditional broadcast networks…
Grey’s Anatomy comes from ABC; NCIS, Criminal Minds, and The Big Bang Theory are CBS shows; Supernatural is from the CW; and Family Guy is from Fox. Spongebob and Bluey come from cable networks. Cocomelon originated on YouTube.
Only Stranger Things originated as a streaming series.
Seven of these shows are old enough to drink.
One show is old enough to graduate high school.
Only Stranger Things and Bluey remain relatively young.
Two shows now in their thirties, Friends and Seinfeld, fell just outside of the top ten, primarily due to their shorter per-episode runtime.
Certainly, a primary reason for the success of these shows has to do with the number of episodes. When you have only 30 episodes of The Mandalorian and some 400 episodes of Grey’s Anatomy, you’re comparing apples to oranges.
Still…
What I don’t get is why the streamers refuse to reproduce the success of the shows people obviously love so much that they binge them over and over again. Most of the shows on that chart are 1) self-contained procedurals and sitcoms, that 2) produce about 20 episodes a year, that 3) don’t cost a billion dollars a season, and 4) deliver new episodes year after year.
These streamers spend hundreds of millions of dollars on flashy eight-to-ten-episode seasons that, rather than being something self-contained you can dip in and out of, play like an overlong movie.
Worse still, if the streaming show even gets renewed, it can take a year or two for the next season to arrive, which can crater momentum.
Network television has been around for 70 or so years. Believe me, they have it figured out. The networks know how to do the only thing that matters in TV, and that’s to keep you watching. Network shows keep you watching through interminable ads. They keep you watching week after week. They keep you watching year after year. They keep you watching the reruns.
The streamers have not really figured this out yet. Everything with them is either an event or disposable. What the networks do so well is deliver comfort TV. You know the characters. You know the basic premise. Nothing much changes, and what does is just enough to make the story feel fresh.
Quality is also an issue. Hollywood’s storytelling abilities have really fallen off a cliff. We like the older stuff because it is reliably better.
