Shorter Hiatuses, Fewer Price Hikes & More New Year’s Resolutions for the TV Industry
January 1 brings us the chance to make New Year’s resolutions that we will have abandoned and forgotten by January 10. But we hope the TV networks will make many resolutions for 2025 and actually stick to them because we have quite a few gripes about the state of television in 2024. Take some notes, TV execs!
Stop moving network favorites to streaming
Those who like to watch TV at a nice list price are spurned when network series move to paid streaming platforms — à la Dancing With the Stars going from ABC to Disney+ in a short-lived experiment and Law & Order: Organized Crime going from NBC to Peacock in a move that will make any SVU crossovers considerably harder. Such transfers are better than outright cancellations, but they still alienate fans.
Stop hiking subscription prices
Since we’re practically spending triple-digit totals on streaming services every month, we’d so appreciate streamers hitting pause on price hikes before we have to hit pause on our subscriptions. As “streamflation” has taken hold these past few years, viewers have had to make hard choices about which platforms are worth the price tag.
Stop splitting seasons
Maybe we’re splitting hairs, but what is the narrative purpose of splitting seasons like those of Netflix’s Outer Banks? It’s hard not to be cynical and think that streaming services are only releasing seasons in batches to keep viewers subscribed for longer, to juice the “new”-ness of their content libraries, and to maximize their awards-cycle exposure.
Shorten hiatuses
Because of writing delays, production issues, scheduling shenanigans, or some other reason, shows like Severance, Stranger Things, and Bridgerton have all made fans wait two or three years between seasons… and who knows if or when we’ll see the next season of Euphoria. Nowadays, we need full rewatches before season premieres just to remember what all happened all that time ago.
Decide whether series finales are actually series finales
Ted Lasso’s producers seem to be kicking around ideas for a fourth season, even after we shed tears over what we thought was the Apple TV+ series’ grand finale. (One director even said the show’s Season 3 finale “was the end, but it’s also the end for now.”) More recently, Paramount Network seemed to temporarily hedge on whether Yellowstone would actually be ending with Season 5. All we’re asking is to know whether goodbye is actually goodbye!
Prioritize original ideas
A Suits spinoff (pictured here) is coming to TV? Another Rookie offshoot is in the works? A Friday Night Lights reboot is in the offing? For years now, Hollywood has been coasting on familiar IP. We appreciate fan service as much as the next TV buff, but we’d love to see more original ideas on the programming slate — before we start rebooting spinoff revivals and reviving reboot spinoffs.
Bring prestige TV back to broadcast
Broadcast TV hasn’t had an Outstanding Drama Series Emmy winner since 2006, and it hasn’t only had one nominee in the category in the 2020s. With the proliferation of streaming, there are certainly more horses in the race now than there were in the days of, say, The West Wing and ER. But why can’t media corporations save some of their most ambitious series for their broadcast channels? Where’s the next Lost?
Stop calling dramas comedies
Fix audio and video issues
And finally, an audiovisual format like television doesn’t do us much good when the picture is too muddy and the dialogue is too muddled. (Here’s a screengrab from the upcoming Disney+ show Star Wars: Skeleton Crew, if you can even make it out.) It’s as if TV cinematographers and sound editors assume we’re all watching our shows on cineplex-size screens in silent, darkened home theaters. But that’s not reality for most viewers, and accessibility features like closed captions and audio descriptions are becoming must-haves for us all.
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