Here’s how streaming and #MeToo shaped TV decade of change
Game of Thrones was both an unprecedented achievement and old-school role model in the TV decade that’s rolling its final credits. Instalments of the elaborately produced hit were doled out one at a time by an established outlet, premium cable channel HBO. That was standard TV operating procedure until, suddenly, it wasn’t. The new era arrived in 2013 when a full season’s worth of House of Cards popped up amid Netflix’s on-demand movies and old TV shows.
The drama’s unexpected home appeared simply to be an option to the 500-channel universe born in the 1990s. But House of Cards foreshadowed a streaming gold rush and volume of programming dubbed Peak TV in 2015 — and with no drop in altitude in sight.
The result — nothing is the same, whether it’s how much television we consume; how and where we do it; who gets to make it, and the level of respect given the creatively emboldened small screen. We don’t just watch TV, we binge it until we’re bleary-eyed if not sated. We still change channels with a remote control, but more often we’re logging in to watch shows on our phones or other devices and on our schedules, not network-dictated appointment TV.
A comic strip, Zits, recently summed up the current reality in three panels. “What’s on?” a father asks his teenage son, who’s sitting cross-legged in front of a TV set and is bracketted by a smart phone on one side and a laptop on the other. “Everything ever videotaped, filmed, recorded, photographed or otherwise documented whenever I want to watch it,” the teen answers, nonchalantly tossing popcorn into his mouth. “I miss television,” the downcast dad tells his wife.
All hail streaming
Generational nostalgia aside, consumers have embraced the change in their media world, said Robert Thompson, director of Syracuse University’s Bleier Center for Television & Popular Culture. “This was the decade that streaming became for many, many people the dominant way in which they watch television,” said Thompson. It’s a rapid shift that bears little relation to the previous entertainment industry revolution, cable TV.
Only about a quarter of the US homes had cable in 1980 despite its availability since the mid-20th century. While growth finally exploded in the 80s, it wasn’t untill the tail end of the 1990s and the arrival of HBO’s The Sopranos and Sex and the City that premium cable received critical praise and honours, Thompson said.
In contrast, it took less than a decade for leader Netflix to skyrocket from about 12 million US subscribers at the decade’s start to 60 million this year and 158 million worldwide. The streamer reportedly lavished $15 billion on programming for 2019 alone, and earned buzz with series including The Crown, Stranger Things, and Orange is the New Black. Even major films, among them Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman, are making themselves at home on Netflix while still in theatres.
Others in the fray include Amazon Prime Video, although “streaming wars” became the aggressive phrase applied to the increasingly competitive marketplace. With newly emboldened (and sometimes mega-expanded) media companies intent on getting a piece of the streaming action, there was a growth surge that won’t abate in the new decade.
Apple TV Plus launched on November 1 with Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg among its first wave of producers, and was quickly followed by Disney Plus. The latter has a storehouse of Disney movies and TV shows to draw on, along with acquired properties from Marvel Entertainment and Lucasfilm and its Star Wars franchise.
While cord-cutting became a quest for viewers seeking to shed hefty cable bills, there is still a price tag for the gusher of riches, as much as $14.99 monthly for HBO Max alone. A bonus for viewers as they sort through the competing options — more programming doesn’t just mean more of the same.
Variety store
If retailers can provide every type of yogurt known to humanity, why can’t TV take the same eclectic approach? It has in the past 10 years, as the increasing demand for content and the growth of niche programming created opportunities for diverse and candid voices. Ongoing efforts by advocacy groups also contributed to the gradual but unmistakable shift.
Ryan Murphy, already established as a successful producer with Nip/Tuck and Glee, exercised his clout to make FX’s Pose, set in the LGBTQ ballroom culture scene of the 1980s and 90s. Its star, Billy Porter , became the first openly gay man to win the best actor Emmy.
Even mainstream broadcasting expanded its field of vision, with ABC the first network in 20 years to air an Asian American family sitcom, Fresh Off the Boat, ending this season. Nahnatchka Khan was its executive producer, one of the women who gained prominence behind the camera in a sector long dominated by men.
African American women took the spotlight in creator-star Issa Rae’s Insecure, while Jenji Kohan’s Orange is the New Black featured characters notable for their ethnic, sexual and class diversity. Some established female producers further cemented their success. Shonda Rhimes added Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder to her body of work, with the latter’s star, Viola Davis, becoming the first African American to win a best drama actress Emmy. Ava DuVernay, already a filmmaking force, spearheaded When They See Us and Queen Sugar.
Reese Witherspoon, adding producing to her portfolio, made good on her vow to bring strong female characters to the screen with the hit series Big Little Lies and The Morning Show.
Statistics confirm the anecdotal evidence. Across all TV platforms in 2017-18, women accounted for a historic high of 31 per cent of those working in key behind-the-scenes jobs including directors, writers and editors, according to research by San Diego State University’s Center for the Study of Women in Television & Film.
While television moved toward better reflecting the world at large, it was forced to look inward as well.
#MeToo fallout
Revelations of sexual misconduct hit the TV industry hard and with more lasting effect than any other sector of Hollywood, even compared to producer Harvey Weinstein’s fall from filmmaking heights. Two of media’s top powerbrokers were brought down in the #MeToo era — Les Moonves and Roger Ailes.
Top-tier actors also lost their jobs, including Jeffrey Tambor of Transparent and Kevin Spacey of House of Cards and Louis CK, whose TV projects included Louie, which he starred in and produced.