The long-awaited end to the TV business' endless expansion of shows, otherwise known as "Peak TV," finally appears at hand.
According to Ampere Analysis, scripted series orders for shows aimed at U.S. audiences are down year over year in the second half of 2022 -- a stark reversal from their continued record pace in the first six months of the year.
Orders are off around 40% when compared to the last half of 2019.
The research company projects that the U.S. video business will end 2022 with just 467 scripted series orders, which was one short of the 468 ordered in 2020, a time when production studios were largely shut down amid the pandemic.
In 2021, 488 scripted series were ordered. The total was 551 in 2019.
"The second half of the year has really gone off a bit of a cliff," said Fred Black, a research manager at Ampere, told The New York Times.
Also read: Why ‘Peak TV’ Was a Flawed Theory (and John Landgraf Didn’t Invent It)
Industry watchers, led by FX President John Landgraf, have been saying since around 2015 that there are simply too many scripted shows relative to available subscription and ad dollars.
Operators of subscription streaming services, however, have kept the needle pegged, sacrificing economics for growth of scale. But with Disney incurring an EBITDA loss of $1.38 billion on direct-to-consumer services in Q3, a new austerity seems to be at hand.
Noted producer Robert Greenblatt, the former chairman of NBC Entertainment and WarnerMedia, told the Times: “It’s part cost-cutting and stock price chaos, and part correction for the buying frenzy over the past five years where series were literally ordered over the phone without any proof of concept.”
Broadcasters had already begun cutting back in the first half of 2022, as did HBO Max, which trimmed new series orders from 44 in the first six months of 2021 to just 28. But with Disney and Amazon increasing scripted series commissions by 28% and 33% respectively, the U.S. television market continued to expand, Ampere said. ■
