The End Of The Streaming Wars?

Why the flood of new TV shows may be over

- James O'Malley

HAVE YOU SEEN SUCCESSION YET? What about The Mandalorian? Perhaps you haven’t had the time as you’re still watching Ted Lasso, The Last of Us, Poker Face, Beef or The Diplomat?

Don’t worry, you’re not imagining it: there really is too much TV these days. According to Variety, in 2022 there were 599 scripted, adult-oriented shows being made for American TV (and by extension, British TV). This is a huge increase from a mere 182 twenty years earlier, when the so-called “Peak TV” era began with the likes of The Sopranos, Sex and the City and Mad Men.

So it’s perhaps understandable that even the most square-eyed of television viewers can’t possibly hope to catch everything, especially when it comes to those prestigious, bigbudget American dramas that your friends keep talking about.

So what happened? Why has TV got so out of control? The answer is, of course, at its heart a technology story.

The streaming wars