Here’s Where TV Is Going This Year, According To A Top Executive

PASADENA, Calif. — After years of warning signs about the deluge of television shows on the air, the era of “peak TV” is truly over, the head of FX Networks told reporters Friday.

In his annual “peak TV” update at the Television Critics Association winter press tour, John Landgraf said the number of new scripted series in the U.S. dropped from a record high of 600 in 2022 , to 516 in 2023.

Part of that decline was due to the writers’ and actors’ strikes last summer and fall. But Landgraf said the slowdown in production was likely already underway, given the unsustainability of producing a seemingly endless amount of television.

“I believe at one point there were more than 60 networks and brands making adult scripted original programming, which was just as unsustainable and overwhelming to the audience as making 600 adult scripted shows,” Landgraf said. “And as most companies have now come to realize, quantity does not always lend itself to quality.”

The FX Networks chairman attributed the decline to “the realignment of industry priorities from streaming scale at any cost to profitability,” and he predicted that shift will “continue after the strikes, leading to the cancellation of numerous projects and series.”

“While I understand this is a very small sample of time, and some of the decline may still be related to delays in production from the strikes, I do believe these numbers are directionally accurate,” Landgraf said. “I’ve not had a good sense of where this will level out. So I’m not making any predictions except to forecast that in 2024 we’re going to see more year-on-year declines.”

A related trend in television has been networks and streaming platforms rolling back diversity efforts and canceling a