A new study suggests that traditional seasons of television need to make a comeback. Over the past few years, the TV landscape has been increasingly shifting to a streaming model. With that has come a series of changes, including how often TV shows are released, as some series are opting for a big batch release over weekly releases. Another frequency change is the length between seasons, which has been prolonged for popular shows like Squid Game and Stranger Things. Long season gaps have been one major point of contention shared by audiences and critics alike.
Analysts break down another major TV issue as new data from Luminate suggests that the industry should switch back to more traditional TV series. According to new data, more and more series are transitioning into limited series and “planned ending” series, rather than simply seeing shows canceled. This ultimately amounts in fewer episodes being produced per season, and fewer long-running series, which the analyst describes as “not a sustainable strategy for the industry.” Check out the full quotes from Luminate below:
Speaker 1: This has been a really interesting and somewhat disturbing trend over the past few years. So, when we’re saying in our vernacular that something is ‘non-renewed,’ that’s kind of colloquially known as just something that is cancelled. You know, there are two different flavors of that. One is something, first of all, there’s one thing that doesn’t complete production, and then it’s just abruptly taken off the air. Then, there’s something where you’re all kind of on a cliffhanger after season 2, and wondering will this get renewed or not, and it is not renewed. Then we have what we call ‘planned ending,’ and that could be anything from a limited series to a streamer or network announces ahead of time that ‘hey, the fourth season of this show is going to be the last one.’ Speaker 2: And that will allow the creative team to essentially wrap up and resolve those stories for viewers. Speaker 1: Yes, but it also plays a major role in where we see a huge decline in the number of episodes being produced. Because it definitely decreases that. Because a lot of times those planned ending seasons might be like ‘okay, here’s your last eight episodes, or four episodes to wrap up the storyline.’ Speaker 2: And what we’re seeing here is really a surge of planned endings over the last six years. Versus the simply not renewed or terminated series, cancelled series. What’s contributing to that trend line in your opinion? Speaker 1: So, I mean, I happen to love a lot of the limited series that I see, so this is not a slight creatively on them. But it is not a sustainable strategy for the industry. Because the DNA of TV is having these long-running series that become assets for a studio, have evergreen appeal. I’m thinking of Friends, even things like Big Bang Theory, which is producing spinoffs. That is still the economic model that the whole industry lives on. And while having Nicole Kidman in a series is amazing because she’s an amazing actor, you know that’s good for getting new subscribers to getting new subscribers to a streamer. But because someone like that is not available for 20 episodes a season, then it just doesn’t sustain.
What This Means For The State Of TV
The Limited Series Are Still Doing Well
This perspective of television is especially notable given the watch data Luminate revealed towards the end of their webinar. The most-watched streaming original of 2024 was Fool Me Once, which was a limited series adaptation of the Harlan Coben novel of the same name. Also appearing in the top 10 were Netflix’s The Perfect Couple and Griselda, both of which were also limited series that fall within this “planned ending” category. This part of the data will make it harder for some streamers to avoid making limited-run content, because the shows are doing well.
Furthermore, streamers must now straddle the line between drawing in new subscribers in the short term and sustaining audiences in the long run. Luminate’s mention of Nicole Kidman may be in direct reference to The Perfect Couple, but the actor was also in the Prime Video series Expats as well as the Taylor Sheridan series Lioness. Both shows are examples of series with short seasons, proving Luminate’s point that big-name actors, while they may be a draw, are usually unable to do longer seasons.
Our Take On This New TV Data
Returning To Classic TV Models Would Be A Huge Industry Change
Switching back to longer-running series models would be a major paradigm shift for the industry as it stands right now. As much as audiences complain about season gaps, we are still in what is arguably a Golden Age of television, that has produced massively acclaimed shows like Succession, The Last of Us, and Severance, all of which have far fewer than 20 episodes per season. To change the season models would be to disrupt the new status quo, but from what the data looks like now, this may be a necessary shift.
Source: Luminate