TV production was still down last year, albeit decreasing at a slower rate than the year prior, down 7% from 2023, as the entertainment industry continues to find its footing after a couple of rough years, according to a new report from Luminate.
Luminate’s 2024 year-end analysis is just the latest to validate the contraction in production following the dual WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, which has impacted every area of film and television. However, the report also goes deeper to explain which genres and mediums were hit the hardest.
Interestingly, Luminate points out that broadcast TV was “surprisingly resilient,” recovering from the work stoppages a bit quicker than its streaming and cable counterparts with a 25% year-over-year increase. That’s likely due to the fact that networks hustled to get broadcast episodes back on air by the beginning of the year.
Meanwhile, cable has suffered the most, Luminate says. Original series on cable reached a new low, plummeting 15% from 2023, which Luminate attributes to the “cratered” audience for those series as streaming has taken over.
Speaking of, streaming production in the U.S. is still down significantly from pre-strike levels, the report states. Netflix alone produced 22% less U.S.-based series last year than in 2022, and even still it remains far ahead of its competitors in that arena. Prime Video is the only streamer that hasn’t reduced U.S.-based production output in the last two years.
It’s not just less series being produced but also less episodes overall of TV that is contributing to this ongoing contraction, even as long-running series continue to prove most valuable, according to Luminate’s report.
According to Luminate, the drop in total episodes and total hours of programming between 2023 and 2024 has escalated from 17% to 20%. For drama series alone, there’s been a decline from nearly 3,400 episodes ordered in 2019 to just 2,492 in 2024.
Drama appears to be the least impacted genre, with comedy, animated and unscripted all suffering greatly in the last year. Between 2022 and 2024 total unscripted episodes produced are down by 33%, while over the last five years the total number of comedy episodes produced is down 47%.
As mentioned, Netflix continues to dominate, not just in the streaming world but overall in the TV landscape. The company had seven of the top 10 most-watched series in 2024, led by Fool Me Once, which had 12B minutes watched.
Unsurprisingly, Taylor Sheridan also performed quite well with Landman and Tulsa King both in the top five. This is especially interesting given Landman‘s mid-November premiere. In just about six weeks, it managed nearly 10B minutes viewed, illustrating just how popular that particular series was.
Fallout was the last series to round out the top 10 with nearly 8B minutes viewed.
Luminate also notes that streaming franchises — including Marvel, Star Wars and Rings of Power — all underperformed last year. The second season of Prime Video’s Lord of the Rings series was down 60% in total minutes watched compared to Season 1, and Disney+ didn’t fare much better with offerings like Echo and Agatha All Along, which underperformed previous Marvel streaming series.
But, juxtapose that with the fact that those big IP franchises were still the best performing series on Disney+, and the solution becomes unclear. Percy Jackson and the Olympians was top dog on Disney+ last year with over 3B minutes viewed, and The Acolyte came in second place with 2.7B.
Read the entire report here.
