If you read the Hollywood trades, then you may have heard rattlings that prestige TV is over. How does this concern us? Well, that's a great question. Prestige TV has brought us so much nudity, so if it's dead...then what happens to TV nudity? Before you start panicking, let's peel back the layers of the statement because there are a lot of opinions and numbers out there to back that data up. But is this is just a rough patch?
Prestige TV is the term that was coined to talk about TV series that felt more cinematic. The Sopranos and The Wire both ushered in the age of prestige TV and they inspired the next 25 years of great television. Thanks to them we were able to enjoy The Leftovers, Boardwalk Empire, Westworld, Mad Men, Breaking Bad,Mr. Robot, Girls, The Handmaid's Tale, Euphoria, Fleabag,Atlanta, and so many more.
Basically, every great show in the last 25 years and every TV show with skintastic nudity. We love prestige television!
But industry insiders are saying that that is coming to an end.
David Chase, creator of The Sopranos, has been saying over the past few months that prestige television is dead. Thanks to shows like Shogun and The White Lotus, it isn't dead yet...but it may be on life support.
According to reports with Nielsen and on the BBC, there was a 14% decrease in the greenlighting of original scripts on American TV. Yikes! The reason people are freaking out is because there were fewer original pilots bought this year than usual - and a lot of original TV shows have been recently canceled thanks to mergers and the strikes.
Not only that, but the last of the most recent popular prestige shows like Succession and Barry have recently ended.
So what's going to replace them? ...Nothing? It looks like it.
What is going on here? As I mentioned, mergers and strikes have greatly affected the way that TV executives are behaving at the moment. Even TV stars like Issa Rae have noticed, saying that she has never seen TV executives acting as scared as they currently are. She was so bothered by this that she just started her own production company to help greenlight original content.
So is it fear? Are we about to see less great television because of fear? Yeah, basically. Fear and numbers. Remember these executives are looking at the bottom line. People still haven't figured out how to make as much profit off of streaming than on traditional TV where they could collect ad revenue. That is why we might see a return of commercials - even on the streaming services we all pay for.
Ratings are also down, but that is partially because the world is still coming out of Covid. During Covid, ratings were wildly high because people were at home all the time. That means that ratings are down from what they were during that time, but it's 2024. Shouldn't those ratings rise soon?
The problem may also be generational. Gen Z and Gen Alpha do not watch TV the same way as any other generation. One might say that they don't watch TV at all. That also has executives freaking out. How do they hook a generation that would rather spend two hours on TikTok than watch two great episodes of television?
My answer would be "sex", but that's another fascinatingly modern problem: the younger generations don't like seeing sex and nudity on TV. There are entire movements on social media with Gen Z 20-somethings wanting completely platonic relationships rather than romantic ones. Less romantic relationships on TV means less sex. Uh oh.
So if sex won't save TV, then what will? Now you see why the executives have been freaking out so much. Currently, production companies are looking for procedurals because those are tried-and-true. But they are not purchasing pilots that make inventive choices.
I am personally thrilled that Severance is coming back and we all love and appreciate The Bear. Those series are not very good at nudity and by "not very good" I mean that they don't show any skin. However, that could change. If these shows want to save themselves and improve their ratings, they should consider showing more skin. We all know that sex sells!
I think that this all may be temporary. People have gotten used to prestige television - we love it and we crave it. After the next year or so, I predict a triumphant return to great TV that breaks barriers and shows skin. We just have to wait it out.
