Zeitguide to Peak TV

If you caught the Emmy Awards broadcast last Sunday—and the ratings suggest you didn’t—you were witness to a bit of history making by Hulu. It became the first streaming service to win for Best Drama Series, one of eight awards taken home by “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
Netflix had three Best Drama nominees. And even if it didn’t win, it has a hefty subscriber lead over Hulu, with 51 million U.S. subscribers to Hulu’s 12 million.
Otherwise, it was a great night for premium TV, particularly HBO. The network won Outstanding Comedy, Limited Series and Variety Talk Series. Indeed, “Handmaid’s Tale” may have won only because of the late season premiere of “Game of Thrones.”
Winning an Emmy used to be about attracting more viewers. Today, though, it’s about attracting TV creators to streaming platforms.“Creators are going to places where they can have the freedom to make great content, but another piece of that is winning awards,” says Michael Smith, a professor of information technology and marketing at Carnegie Mellon. “I think we’ve seen that with Netflix and Amazon, and we should all be excited to see that with Hulu.”
That’s one reason these platforms spend $1 million on an Emmy campaign. And Emmys still play some role in generating viewer interest. That “people are talking about it” buzz helped “The Handmaid’s Tale” bring new subscribers to Hulu. “Every week there are new people joining and starting from episode one,” says Hulu CEO Mike Hopkins. “It’s something that’s actually growing week to week, [rather than] that normal decay that you see in Nielsen ratings from the vast majority of shows.”
This suggest TV has not yet hit “peak content.” There were a 455 scripted shows in 2016, a record that will probably be shattered again in 2017. There’s no slowdown in sight: There are 98 new and returning shows this fall. Apple is rumored to be committing $1 billion to acquiring original TV shows. Disney has announced plans to create more original shows for its own stand-alone streaming service.
All of which just adds to the difficulty we all have deciding what to watch—especially if your coworkers are dropping spoilers. From Vox, a breakdown of what you can’t miss, and what’s worth skipping.