Television wants series with 350 episodes and no longer six

There is a popular belief that since Netflix arrived, the series are not as long. This statement is partly true, but, at the same time, the Anglo-Saxon market has never had so many long-running weekly series. He prime time American currently has eight series on broadcast that exceed 350 episodes. An even more surprising fact if we take into account that only 10 in history have surpassed this mark. Channels and platforms seek to maintain the loyalty of their audience, and the best strategy for this is to engage them for hours and hours, following the way television has always been done. And in the face of so many infinite productions, there is an indirect victim: miniseries no longer want to be so mini.

The data is clear. In 2009, The Simpson It became the longest-running nighttime fiction series in the United States. It surpassed the original Western with 21 seasons. Gunsmoke, something that no one had achieved in the previous three decades. Today, and after 36 years on the air, Matt Groening’s series will surely last in that position for as long as we live. But the mark previously seen as impossible is no longer so. In the last 15 years, seven other series have exceeded 20 seasons: the irreverent 26 of South Parkpolice cases of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (which totals 551 chapters), its mother series, Law (broadcast since 1990, with interruptions), Family Guy, NCIS, Father made in America and Grey’s Anatomy. All will continue in the new course. Also The Simpson, which already reaches 768 episodes. They are all divided into two genres: animation or case of the week. In Spain, after the end of Tell me (and the daily Love is forever), the throne is inherited The one that is comingwhich has been broadcast for 17 years and almost 200 episodes.

There are several factors that explain the phenomenon of extra-long series. On the one hand, the inertia that pushes traditional television channels and their audience. The average age of a spectator prime time in the US is 64.6 years, according to a study made this season by The Hollywood Reporter. A figure that Spanish television is dangerously close to, whose average audience is over 58 years old. This leads to the content increasingly tending to be more conservative. The channels fight to maintain a veteran audience that opts to watch what is already known, and that maintains their routines.

The audience of both the yellow family of Springfield and the Griffins of Family Guy on Fox he is 51 and a half years old, although the police take the cake Blue Bloods, whose average viewer is 73 years old. In streamingAs expected, age drops considerably. The spectators of Law & Order: SVU, who have been watching Mariska Hargitay solve crimes for a quarter of a century, have 64.8 years on traditional television, and 20 fewer on platforms. The free-to-air series with a younger audience is another veteran, the animated Bob’s Burgers, in its fourteenth season. Its viewers are 49.5 years old. They may be the youngest, but they are still closer to retirement than to university. In the kingdom of the blind…

Another relevant factor for this maintenance is precisely the new windows. Although they don’t sell as much, the longest-running series perform better on streaming platforms. streaming than many premieres. In 2023, Netflix’s summer surprise was Suits, a classic legal procedural series with more than 130 episodes and ended in 2019. That has changed the tables on what the platforms are now demanding and has even led NBC to produce a series derived from it. But she is not the only one who has emerged stronger. So far in 2024, according to weekly Nielsen data, children’s Bluey It is the undisputed leader in minutes watched, but they follow it, in this order: Grey’s Anatomy (with 427 episodes), young sheldon and NCIS. This latest franchise has just surpassed 1,000 chapters. In Spain, The one that is coming It also usually appears in the few audience data that is made public. Now that the number of subscribers is a factor that companies do not focus on as much to boost their business, platforms are looking for a new grail: the loyalty of their audience. The more hours spent hooked on your platform, without going to another service or escaping to TikTok, the more trust you have in your service.

The not so limited series

Precisely that fidelity is what prestige miniseries do not seek, one of the formats that multiplied the most during the hard years of the war. streaming. They were the ones that managed to attract a new audience that came to snack. “I wouldn’t say that we are going to stop making limited series, but we are going to make less,” warned John Landgraf, head of Disney’s FX networks. to the magazine TheWrap. “Today the audience is looking for series that return, and characters and stories that they can live with for years,” said the most veteran of the television executives before announcing that the scriptwriters of Shogunstar miniseries of the year, are already working on continue the story more seasons.

Why this change of tables? The news of TheWrap He came to the conclusion that producing short series is, in the long run, too expensive. When a project receives a second season, costs are reduced: the actors are already signed, the studios built, the equipment assembled… And, if it is a success, why will companies waste a consolidated brand? Whether as a continuation or an anthology, you have to squeeze it out. “There are no benefits if you spend all this money, time and energy on a project of only eight episodes that is consumed in two days,” Olivia Charmaine Bernardez, CEO of the production company Black Monarch Entertainment, pointed out in the report. Renewing even if the original idea was of no use is today the umpteenth savings strategy in a cost-reducing Hollywood.

Shogun, for example, ended where the book it adapts ends. But you have to keep the audience captive, and not practice the subscription and unsubscription so common in the times of the streaming. Because, although the miniseries served to build the name of each platform, they do not serve to maintain the audience. That is the logic with which Row (Netflix), Mr. and Mrs. Smith (Amazon Prime Video), The last thing he said and God’s drops (AppleTV+) have just certified their success with new seasons. New deliveries of The Night Manager and Wolf Hall, a decade after its limited release. Although it was a strategy already seen in classic series such as Estate and North and souththe practice has multiplied since The White Lotus and Big Little Lies, winners of the Emmy for miniseries, renewed after taking home the award. In the next ceremony they already competed in drama, and now they are both going for the third.

At the other extreme, Netflix only has one English-language series that has reached eight seasons, the animated Big Mouthin addition to the Spanish Elite, but he knows that he can always rely on other people’s purchases to hook his audience, and that the audience will see it as their own. In recent times she has acquired Sex in New York to HBO, Dexter to Showtime, Yellowstone to Paramount and Lost to Disney, announcing the revival of its 121 episodes with great fanfare for this summer. Because, after years of emphasizing that quality was what was important; In 2024, series size does matter.

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