Golden Age of Television (2000s–2023)
In the United States, there have been periods of time described as having such a number of high quality, internationally acclaimed television programs, that they should be regarded as the Golden Age of Television. One such period stretched roughly from 2000 to 2023, with a subset of this era also known as Peak TV or Prestige TV.
Named in reference to the original Golden Age of Television of the 1950s, more recent periods have also been referred to as the "New", "Second", or "Third Golden Age of Television". The various names reflect disagreement over whether shows of the 1980s and early-mid 1990s belong to a since-concluded golden era or to the current one. The contemporary period is generally identified as beginning in 1999 with The Sopranos, with debate as to whether the age ended in the mid-late 2010s or early 2020s, or remains ongoing. Multichannel linear television, such as cable and digital satellite, reached its peak in 2014 and has declined in viewers, reach and new content rapidly since then; overall new series creation peaked in the early 2020s, following a years-long competitive period known as the streaming wars, cresting shortly before the 2023 Hollywood labor disputes.
The recent "Golden Age" is believed to have resulted from advances in media distribution technology, digital TV technology, and a large increase in the number of hours of available television, which has prompted a major wave of content creation.
History
Origins and early era
French scholar Alexis Pichard has argued that television enjoyed a Second Golden Age starting in the 2000s which was a combination of three elements: first, an improvement in both visual aesthetics and storytelling; second, an overall homogeneity between cable series and networks series; and third, a tremendous popular success. Pichard contends that this Second Golden Age was the result of a revolution initiated by the traditional networks in the 1980s and carried on by the cable channels in the 1990s. Film director Francis Ford Coppola thinks that the second golden age of television comes from "kids" with their "little father's camcorder", who wanted to make films like he did in the 1970s but were not permitted to, so they did it for television.File:Firefly cast.jpg|thumb|Cast and crew members of Firefly reunite at a San Diego Comic-Con panel. Left to right: Alan Tudyk, Tim Minear, Sean Maher, Summer Glau, Joss Whedon, Nathan Fillion, Adam Baldwin, Jose Molina.
The new Golden Age brought creator-driven tragic anti-heroic dramas of the 2000s and 2010s, including 1998's Sex and the City, 1999's The Sopranos and The West Wing; 2001's Six Feet Under and ''24; 2002's The Wire and The Shield; 2004's Deadwood, Lost and Battlestar Galactica; 2005's Grey's Anatomy and Avatar: The Last Airbender; 2006's Friday Night Lights and Dexter; 2007's Mad Men; 2008's Breaking Bad; 2010's The Walking Dead; 2011's Game of Thrones; 2013's House of Cards and Orange Is the New Black; 2014's True Detective, 2015's Better Call Saul, 2016's The Crown, and 2018's Succession. Others appear in the Writers Guild of America 2013 vote for 101 Best-Written TV Shows. Production values got higher than ever before on shows such as Band of Brothers, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and Homeland to the point of rivaling cinema, while anti-heroic series like The Sopranos and The Wire were cited as improving television content thus earning critical praise.
Stephanie Zacharek of The Village Voice has argued that the current golden age began earlier with over-the-air broadcast shows like Babylon 5, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. TV critic Alan Sepinwall cites shows such as Buffy and Oz as ushering in the golden age. Will Gompertz of the BBC believes that Friends, which debuted in 1994, might stake a claim as the opening bookend show of the period. Matt Zoller Seitz argues that it began in the 1980s with Hill Street Blues and St. Elsewhere. Kirk Hamilton of Kotaku has said that Avatar: The Last Airbender should be considered a part of the golden age of television, and recommended "the sophisticated kids show" to others. With the rise of instant access to content on Netflix, creator-driven television shows like Breaking Bad, The Shield, Friday Night Lights and Mad Men'' gained loyal followings that grew to become widely popular. The success of instant access to television shows was presaged by the popularity of DVDs, and continues to increase with the rise of digital platforms and online companies.
The Golden Age of television is believed to have resulted from advances in media distribution technology, digital TV technology, and a large increase in the number of hours of available television, which has prompted a major wave of content creation. The increase in the number of shows is also cited as evidence of a Golden Age, or "peak TV". In the five years between 2011 and 2016, the number of scripted television shows, on broadcast, cable and digital platforms increased by 71%. In 2002, 182 television shows aired, while 2016 had 455 original scripted television shows and 495 in 2018. The number of shows are rising largely due to companies like Netflix, Amazon Video and Hulu investing heavily in original content. The number of shows aired by online service increased from only one in 2009 to over 93 in 2016.
Late era and end
An increasing reliance on rebooting and reviving existing franchises led to widespread belief that the Golden Age of Television was ending in the late 2010s, with the caveat that some of these reboots share the positive reception and mature character development of original shows of the era.To address burnout from binge watching and concerns that the practice of releasing full seasons at once makes television more disposable and forgettable, streaming providers returned to a more traditional model of releasing a new episode per week in the early 2020s. A showrunner for an unnamed series on Netflix, a platform that has been especially aggressive toward releasing full seasons at once as a company policy, commented that the volume of existing content has made it more difficult to devote the time to binge watching. By 2024, Netflix had also begun splitting its seasons of new content to limit binge-watching, fearing that it was contributing to a phenomenon where viewers would subscribe for a short period to binge-watch their favorite show only to cancel their subscription when finished. The conclusion of its tentpole series Stranger Things in 2025 marked the "end of an era" for Netflix, as one-season limited-run series and foreign imports had by then constituted the bulk of its original content.
Quantity over quality
Ed Power of the Irish Examiner opined that "the sun began to set" on the golden age between 2013 and 2015, with the finales of Breaking Bad and Mad Men, and "Since then, television has reverted to its older tradition of quantity over quality." Siobhan Lyons of The Conversation believes the 2022 finale of Better Call Saul marks the end of "the last of those defining, golden age shows," in a time increasingly oversaturated with streaming content and viewing options. NPR noted in May 2022 that although television executives had predicted a peak in television series since the mid-2010s, the number of series continued to grow into the early 2020s, from 400 original productions across broadcast, cable and major streaming outlets in 2015 to 559 in 2021. The network noted that the major streamers, with the exception of Disney+, were seeing diminishing quality and, particularly in the case of Netflix, declining popularity. A May 2023 essay in Harper's Bazaar declared the era of the time to be the "Age of Mid Television," noting that mediocre programs were gaining popularity due to the escapism they provide in an age where the real world brings greater anxiety. Vulture expressed similar views in June 2023, speaking of Peak TV in the past tense and noting that the more artistic shows that marked the Golden Age of highbrow programming were also expensive and made small or no profits, even if they drew new subscribers. The New Yorker concurred in November of the same year, declaring the Golden Age to be over after a regression toward the mean; based upon several books on the topic, the article essentially argued that the same dynamics that drove the death of earlier Golden Ages in media were also affecting the early 21st-century Golden Age of Television, namely that the technology innovations that had allowed highbrow programs to flourish were being capitalized upon by more profitable franchise products able to crowd out riskier projects for attention from financial backers.Streaming wars and aftermath
Around 2019, a period of intense competition began for market share among streaming services, a period known as the streaming wars. This competition increased during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic as more people stayed home and watched television. Many services attempted to compete on quality. The streaming wars, combined with the decline of the popularity of mainstream films, and the rise of independent films winning major film awards within the last six years, resulted in a historical first—the first film from a streaming service to win the Academy Award for Best Picture: Apple TV's CODA over Netflix's The Power of the Dog at the 94th Academy Awards.The streaming wars were largely recognized to have ended in 2022, as the major streaming services lost subscribers and shifted their focus to profit over market share by raising subscription fees, cutting production budgets, cracking down on password sharing, and introducing ad-supported tiers. HBO Max made a substantial cut to its library in August 2022, mostly to its children's television series, out of concerns that the quantity of content on the service was becoming overwhelming and difficult to find, and that the children's programming was not driving subscriptions or views on the service. By the summer of 2023, other major streaming providers had begun to remove short-lived series from their catalogues and make them unavailable afterwards, something that had previously been a rare occurrence; this was particularly true of Disney+ and Paramount+. This also coincided with an increased emphasis on business models that draw revenue from both advertising and subscriptions, prompting streaming providers to focus on productions that have mass appeal while also reducing investment in high-risk projects targeting niche audiences.
The COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath saw major reductions in the workforce and cancellations of multiple productions to save money on basic residuals and music licensing costs, which led to a worsening condition for writers and actors, setting the stage for the 2023 Hollywood labor disputes. This led to fewer shows ordered by studios and streamers as the WGA strike ended and fewer spec scripts being offered by writers to the studios, anticipating the cutbacks. In a January 2024 story titled "Peak TV Is Over", The Hollywood Reporter said that the number of ordered television series' seasons in the United States decreased from 633 in 2022 and 2021 to 481 in 2023, and that the number was not likely to increase in 2024.