Has “Peak TV” come to an end?
It absolutely has.
Why the hassle with
… being there on time to tune in?
… not being able to control what to watch?
… sitting through advertising breaks?
… an inflexible viewing location?When I can simply use any VOD provider where I decide what I watch, when I watch, and where I watch?
The biggest effect of all of this is the decoupling of the release of content with it’s entering the public consciousness. As a kid, you watched the show that week at that time so you could talk about it and be in the loop the following day. If you went to school or your office and said “Don’t tell me, I haven’t seen it yet!” people would treat you like a social leper. In fact, many 90s and 00s sitcoms feature storylines where characters made fools of themselves trying to avoid spoilers.
Today, many viewers don’t even start watching a show until it’s fully over and hasn’t been cut short on a cliffhanger cancellation. And that’s good for viewers, because it gives us the freedom to be picky. But it’s bad for in-person social interactions, because I can’t talk to you about my favorite show because we aren’t in the same temporal condition in relation to it. You just started, and I’m like hoooboy wait until it gets going.
But that social interaction also helps draw in viewers. “Did you see that show last night? You should be watching it. Get caught up before next Thursday so we can talk about the finale in two weeks!”
We barely have water coolers anymore, and the kids are more into short-form and livestreaming content. You don’t even need to watch, you can just catch up on the latest talking points from twitter.
Online forums exist, but the anonymous keyboard warrior you’re talking with could be some psychotic misogynist who hates puppies, and you have nothing in common. Of course your tastes would be different.
Well I’d argue the decline of TV monoculture is a separate discussion.
Separate, but related. How can you even define the “golden age” without consensus on what makes a television series great? Seems like every time a cultural phenomenon ends, people want to declare the end of good TV. But I would argue there are more great shows being made right now, and that the low density of attention is actually good for creators to explore and create.
Well I don’t really view things in the same way here. Like there’s tons of high quality TV shows around that just don’t have a lot of viewers, but that doesn’t make them bad or of lower quality. I listen to a lot of high quality, and really well-done music that most people have never heard of.
My actual favourite TV show, for instance, is Babylon Berlin - an internationally relatively obscure TV series outside of Germany. But I personally believe it stands right up there. And this is the age we’re in now. A lot high quality TV shows around that have much more competition than they would have 10 or 20 years ago because of the rise of the internet, and international content leading to a content explosion.
I don’t think you’re wrong. Dark was one of my favorite shows of the last decade, and the popularity of shows like Squid Games show that international shows can have success anywhere.
Peak TV ended in 1999 when DS9 went off the air
Real
We’ve moved out of the ‘golden age’ era into an international era. People who restrict themselves purely to english-language content now will be missing out.
