'The Business of Too Much TV'

Adalian, J. and Maria Elena Fernandez (2016). The Business of Too Much TV. [online] Vulture. Available at: https://www.vulture.com/2016/05/peak-tv-business-c-v-r.html [Accessed 12 Oct. 2019].

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(Adalian and Maria Elena Fernandez, 2016)


MY NOTES:

- For creators; there are so many programs on Netflix, and Netflix is decreasing its advertising of each new show; they feel their show becomes lost‌ (Adalian and Maria Elena Fernandez, 2016). 

- There has been an exaggerated increase this decade in the production of televisions; Tv has become ever more 'Peak'. However in cable, despite rapid growth in the last decade, it's now beginning to decrease ‌ (Adalian and Maria Elena Fernandez, 2016).

-Streaming sites allows for much more creative ideas, with much higher budgets for each episode ‌
(Adalian and Maria Elena Fernandez, 2016).

- Broadcasted channels such as cable can not keep up with the extreme spending per episode that Streaming sites do ‌(Adalian and Maria Elena Fernandez, 2016)

- There are fewer episodes per season on streaming sites; which means less money to talents.

- Arguably, there are now too many streaming sites, that it's over expanding itself; not making a promising future as it becomes a trend that then is this discarded after its popularity has faded. 

-It's much more accessible for people to produce their own films or series.

- Money used to be made and focused around re-runs; but now the focus is having originals. Which, spends more money and earns less, as you can not get money from giving series to other channels or streaming sites; they would no longer be original and draw audiences in. 

-More shows, fewer episodes

- Broadcasted tv shows could earn so much more money from letting other channels distribute their shows; which was more possible from the ratings they got from the original airing, but with on-demand content, this has been taken that away.

-Streaming networks earn their money by getting people to keep paying monthly to access their on-demand content; hence the need to keep their originals on their platform only, but this earns less money for producers. 

'Netflix alone has exploded from one show to nearly three dozen in about five years.'

Streaming sites offer up-front profits and shows do not hold risks of losing out on money; which could be a great opportunity for less known creative individuals. 
- Wherewith broadcasting, if a show isn't popular then it loses out on much potential profit and could end up looking money. 
- Streaming makes it harder to get higher profit, with quality over quantity, and no syndication.

- Show creators who go with streaming sites lose most of their rights to the content; its kinda like safeguarding, good for beginners but perhaps not good for very well established creators who get earn a lot more from their content themselves then Netflix provides. Netflix is a safe bet, you won't lose money but you won't have a chance to win the prize. 

-TV Shows can be a hybrid between streaming and broadcasting.

- There is a worry in the TV industry that in the next five years the medium will die out.

-There is uncertainty if the industry is going to continue to survice or die out. 

-What is syndication?
-Syndication model
- Network fare
-Single-camera comedies v.s multi-camera?

QUOTES:


'great leap forward in storytelling and production values
-shows less likely to draw big ratings on Nick at Nite, TNT, or local TV stations.
-Single-camera comedies and serialized dramas simply don’t draw the big rerun ratings more traditional network fare does. '


This is Peak TV. Not since the early 1980s — when cable became a serious challenger to the decades-old hegemony of Big Three broadcasters ABC, CBS, and NBC — has the television industry experienced such rapid growth: Between 2009 and 2015, the number of scripted shows nearly doubled, from just over 200 to an estimated 409 last year. Netflix alone says it will produce 600 hours of original television and spend $5 billion on programming, including acquisitions. 

But streaming networks generally operate in a much different way. Netflix, which has made much of the fact that it doesn’t care if viewers watch a show one day or one year after it premieres, isn’t interested in leasing a series for a short time. It wants House of Cards or Orange Is the New Black to live on Netflix, and only Netflix, for years to come. 

As so many networks and producers scramble again and again to make television that’s great, finding standout ideas and then turning them into actual shows has perhaps never been more difficult. The effort that goes into securing top writers, actors, crew members, and soundstages these days is almost as challenging as coming up with the idea for the next Mr. Robot. Overall spending is way up, but like the broader national economy, the wealth isn’t being distributed equally.

“Pop was the Netflix of the day, the job that everybody [in Hollywood] wanted. And there were a million other offshoots of that same kind of idea, and everybody was going over there to get out of the grind of mid-level Hollywood. Then they all lost their jobs.”

On balance, the people who work in television seem genuinely excited about where the medium is right now. “There are tremendous opportunities to do really good, creative work,” says Cuse. And quality has never been at such a premium: Whatever the difficulties of Peak TV, those in the industry realize there’s no going back to the days when even the crappiest of comedies could follow Friends and end up making millions of dollars for everyone involved.

“There’s no room for mediocrity,” says Patrick Moran, head of ABC Studios. “It’s the end of ‘Who gives a shit?’ television. It all has to be great.”

In general, stars making the jump from film careers into TV — think Drew Barrymore or Naomi Watts, who both recently attached themselves to separate Netflix projects — command the biggest salaries, somewhere between $350,000 to $500,000 per episode. That’s about two to three times what a broadcast or basic-cable network usually pays to cast a more traditional TV (read: not movie) star as the lead of a new show. 

Networks, particularly established cable outlets without access to the magical ATM from which Netflix always seems to be making withdrawals, would go broke if they paid these sorts of sums for every project, or even most of them.

One of the hallmarks of the TV boom has been the shift toward shorter seasons: Instead of the once-standard 22- and 13-episode cycles for broadcast and cable, respectively, it’s now common for networks to green-light as few as 8 or 10 episodes of a show per year. Actors get paid per episode, so shorter runs can often mean smaller checks.

but like those who choose the creative freedom of a Netflix or HBO over the (possible) huge payday from a broadcast network, she’s okay with such a trade-off. “I didn’t fritter away all my money on a divorce or drugs, so I’m okay making less money,” Kaling quips. “If you have any artistic interests outside of episodic television, the shorter order is the way to go.”

Everyone wants to be on TV, just like ten years ago everyone was trying to make an indie movie,” he says. “It’s cheaper and easier to film and write things, easier to make a movie or a show or a pilot now than it’s ever been. People are making YouTube videos or Vines and getting TV shows. The pool of people getting into entertainment is astronomical.” 

Historically, showrunners have gotten rich from their creations in much the same way as their studio production partners: syndication. While someone like Shonda Rhimes gets a healthy fee simply for producing an episode of TV, the real money has usually come over the long term, when a hit on a broadcast network finds an afterlife in reruns. In theory, that model still exists: Lee Daniels is not going to walk away from Empire a poor man. But the odds of grabbing those riches — always long — are rapidly shrinking. For one, the TV boom means basic-cable networks like TNT, USA, A&E, WGN, Spike, and Lifetime have shifted most of the billions of dollars they once spent buying reruns of network comedies and dramas into creating their own original series (both scripted and unscripted), depressing the aftermarket value of network fare.

And while there’s still limited demand for reruns (especially comedies) on both cable networks and local TV stations, the fact that audiences now have the ability to catch old episodes of shows on-demand via streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon, or Hulu has pushed down the ratings — and, thus, the value — of those rebroadcasts. Netflix and Hulu have made up some of the difference with their deals grabbing the rights to a handful of hot shows, but they’re not nearly the same reliable source of backend cash that old-school syndication once was. “The residual value of shows, except for the very cream of the crop, has been completely minimized,” explains a longtime TV agent who represents some of the TV industry’s most successful writer-producers. “Tribune just took a 70-something-million-dollar write-down on Person of Interest and Elementary [reruns on the company’s WGN America] because they don’t perform. It used to be that you could have a middling network show … and the USA would snap them up, or TNT, and you could find backend value because there was a robust syndication market. That market has been shifted out in favor of original programming.”

The kinds of shows networks are churning out now has also had an impact on what creators can hope to make. Easily digestible procedural dramas with self-contained storylines — think any show from the Law & Order, NCIS, or CSI universes — haven’t disappeared, but in the era of Peak TV, they’ve taken a backseat to serialized concepts far less friendly to the traditional syndication model. 

And on the comedy side, networks now prefer sophisticated single-camera fare (New Girl or Modern Family) over syndication-friendly multi-camera comedies such as Friends or Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Critics and audiences may appreciate this great leap forward in storytelling and production values, but those same stylistic shifts make for shows less likely to draw big ratings on Nick at Nite, TNT, or local TV stations. 
Single-camera comedies and serialized dramas simply don’t draw the big rerun ratings more traditional network fare does. 
Plus, while there are more shows than ever, networks are generally making fewer episodes of those series. The big syndication checks of past eras were at least partially driven by churning out hundreds of episodes of TV.
To be sure, having a certain kind of success can still result in a series of creator banking serious cash. “If you do it right and you have that one show a year that works — that Empire, that How to Get Away With Murder, or that Blacklist — you’re [still] looking at a multi-million-dollar [payday],”

The Empire deal for Hulu domestic was $2 million an episode. If you get foreign [streaming] and foreign terrestrial on top of that … [and] maybe you can throw a cable deal on top for $1 million or $1.5 million, you can add that up pretty quickly to some pretty good numbers.” But “pretty good” pales next to the massive paychecks showrunners were once guaranteed. “It’s not the same thing as taking Friends and syndicating it for four cycles or five cycles,” the agent admits.

Writers who come up with buzz-worthy shows with decent, but not spectacular, ratings are going to end up far less wealthy than their peers just a generation ago.

Still, at least the old broadcast model offers a shot at a big long-term payoff. Not so with streaming services, which have been a huge driver in TV’s scripted surge.


Creators love the freedom afforded by a business model where ratings not only don’t matter in the way they do with linear TV but where such metrics aren’t even a part of the conversation about a show (since streaming services simply don’t release audience data). 

And yet, there’s an important trade-off: It’s almost impossible for a creator to get really rich off a streaming “hit.” That’s because streaming outlets generally operate on a very different business model than linear networks, one that all but eliminates the chance of a big backend payoff.

Under the broadcast model, TV networks basically lease their shows from studios. You might think of Friends as an NBC series, but, in fact, it’s a production of Warner Bros. TV. Every syndication dollar the show has made since the gang from Central Perk signed off in 2004 has gone to the studio, which in turn has sent some of that cash to the Friends creators (and anyone else who may have negotiated an ownership stake in the show).
They’re in the business of selling subscriptions every month. They’re in the business of making Netflix the asset value. All of the value from the shows, all of that backend value, is driven into the asset value of the overall network, which is different from how the rest of the business works.”

Netflix concedes this distinction, and compensates for it by making deals that offer studios — and, thus, showrunners — generous up-front compensation.


Rather than holding out the promise of syndication gold, the company instead pays its studio and showrunner talent a guaranteed up-front profit — typically 20 or 30 percent above what it takes to make a show. In exchange, it owns all or most of the rights to distribute the show, domestically and internationally. There’s no financial risk for the studios, who under the broadcast/basic-cable model generally deficit finance the early years of a show’s production (and thus risk losing millions if a show never makes it to syndication). 

“cost-plus,” studios and showrunners don’t face any financial risk and end up making “some” money, as one TV agent says. “But you’re not in the home-run or grand-slam business,” he adds.

“cost-plus,” studios and showrunners don’t face any financial risk and end up making “some” money, as one TV agent says. “But you’re not in the home-run or grand-slam business,” he adds.

The difference between the two models has sometimes led to friction between showrunners and the studios to whom they’re under contract, network insiders say. “The talent wants to go to the fancy-schmancy new kids on the block,” says one TV executive. Because of the creative freedom offered by streaming, as well as their perceived “coolness” factor — remember, Hollywood is just high school with (lots more money) — Netflix and its streaming peers are often the first choice for many creators, particularly those newer to the business.

“The studios would prefer they go to the traditional networks, because, at the end of the day, the backend of a big network-television show is still worth more than [streaming shows]. If you woke up and said, ‘I really want to be rich, and that’s all I care about,’ you would go and create a multi-camera [comedy] for CBS. And if you woke up and said, ‘All I want to do is win an Emmy Award. I don’t care about money. I’ll live in a shack,’ then you would get a job at Hulu or Netflix or HBO.” 
(This agent was speaking metaphorically, of course: One rep says an established showrunner on a streaming or premium-cable network can easily make $60,000 to $70,000 per episode, compared to the $45,000 to $55,000 a broadcast show pays.)
TNT exists as hybrids; They offer a significant amount of creative freedom and prestige, but because they’re ad-supported and still in the business of creating long-term programming assets, they promise at least some financial upside for writers who create a hit. 
Netflix’s approach. “Their model right now is to overpay upfront because they don’t really have a backend structure,” he says. “That’s only gonna fly for so long, because at a certain point, if I go create a valuable asset for Netflix or Amazon and the thing blows up, I want to participate in that.” 

Netflix’s lack of transparency over how many people are watching its shows makes it difficult for reps to figure out the value of their clients’ creations. “Their refusal to open the books … is a problem for me, and I think it’s gonna be a problem for a lot of people down the road,” he says.

Okay, wait. This cost-plus model’s kinda good, but is it good enough?’”

With more than 50 TV shows and movies filming in metropolitan Atlanta, producers are working harder than ever to hang on to their crews.

most in-demand job in TV production right now is the line producer, the key manager of operations who handles everything on set from staffing crews and purchasing and leasing equipment to overseeing the building of sets and keeping the schedule on track. In other words, the right hand of the showrunner.
 Plus, the streaming space is getting more competitive: CBS All Access and 

YouTube Red is ramping up production, while some in the industry expect that either AT&T or Verizon (if not both) will launch their own video services by decade’s end.


Between Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon, you’re talking about $10 billion being introduced into the ecosystem of Hollywood, between buying library content and funding original content. That’s a huge number. Everybody would suffer if any of that went away.” 

“The historic growth that has happened over the last decade in cable, whether it’s basic or premium, has been pretty fantastic. [But] we all know that has slowed, plateaued, and, in some cases, declined.” FX programming chief Eric Schrier
Even Netflix may not be immune: There are already some signs — at least on a micro-level — that it’s starting to tighten its purse strings after a half-decade of expansion. 
For a couple of years, every show Netflix or Amazon launched as an event, met by a ton of free publicity from entertainment websites. That still happens, but lately, some streaming shows have come and gone with nary a blip on the pop-culture radar. One TV showrunner notes that already Netflix is “not buying billboards for everything and not putting [every show] up in the front of their ‘Recommend’ page.” For creators, this is one of the biggest fears of the TV boom, one that applies across networks and platforms: “You know your show exists out there in the ether — but can anybody find it?” the producer says.

Technology keeps opening up new revenue streams to save the day when old models fail: Five years from now, we might all be giving $10 a month to AMC in order to fight zombies in a virtual-reality re-creation of The Walking Dead. But the residents of TV land, busy as they are, can’t help but wonder sometimes if the last five years will ultimately be remembered not as the dawn of a glorious new era but the last gasp of a dying medium called television.

“It’s like a sleight-of-hand trick. It either makes complete sense and there’s plenty of money to go around — or it’s a total house of cards, where a good sneeze could tear it down.”