More than 400 scripted shows top US tally
TV goes boom, now with almost twice the number of scripted US shows than the amount in 2009.
- Published by David Knox
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- Filed under News
Think it’s hard to keep up with US content? You’d be right.
There were 409 scripted TV shows on broadcast, cable, and streaming this year. That’s almost double the number in 2009.
The study by FX shows that the growth was mostly driven by cable, which has produced almost five times the number of scripted shows that were around in 2002 and two times what was around in 2009. That’s not surprising as we’ve seen more and more cable channels getting into the scripted business recently, such as Spike, Bravo, E!, and Pop (formerly the TV Guide Channel).
For their part, streaming outlets — such as Amazon Prime, Netflix, Hulu, and Crackle — provided 44 of those 409 shows. That’s 21 times more than they produced in 2009, making streaming the fastest-growing area.
Source: Business Insider
8 Responses
Well, now no one can now say that the U.S.TV drama industry is not making any money as the litigation lawyers have been saying, to my mind the recent production line of expensive shows says a lot about tax credits, commercial product placement and the diverse marketing strategies now available with the growth of pay to view streaming services. Add to that the loyal fans who still buy DVD’s and merchandise, only greed will ruin the party. Main criticism for viewers outside of America is the persisting attitude of U.S. networks to end shows due to domestic ratings, Perhaps FX and HBO as well as Netflix will be a bit more respectful to their worldwide audience.
21 times means they produced 2.1 shows in 2009. It must be 22. times. But calculating multiples from a near zero start is a silly way to look at it. Streaming services now produce 10.8% of scripted US shows. 4%, over a third, they added this year.
In 2009 most of the decent US shows ended up on FTA here, including premium cable shows like The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, The Wire. These days there are so many shows, over 5 main distribution networks, and nobody can keep track of them all, let alone watch them.
Hate to be pedantic but “21 times **more**” is the same as saying “22 times [the original number]”. David is correct.
Seems the death of scripted drama was greatly exaggerated.
So there’s more content scripted content in the USA, more f.t.a channels in Australia but less good US content making it to free to air.
The reason for less scripted US content on FTA is because of lower advertising rates, falling profits, the same legislation around % of Australian content and the fact that reality shows are both cheaper to buy and rate verty well with audiences.
If you want quality scripted shows in 2015 you need to pay either $10 a month for SVOD (if you have a decent internet quota) or $35 a month to foxtel for their entertainment + drama package.
Who’s fault is it that overseas dramas don’t rate anymore? I’d say the commercial f.t.a networks who treated drama viewers like crap for years and ensured that the value of their overseas drama diminished.
Correction: the foxtel + drama pack costs $45, Stan costs 10, Netflix starts at $9 (2 screens plus HD = 13) and presto costs $10 (+5 for movies)
The point is for free tv the economics don’t stack up and it doesn’t rate as well. I guess once oztam bring in streaming video plays ratings the picture will become clearer on how many people turn off free tv and fire up their devices or freeview to watch scripted drama that aired late at night earlier in the week.