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As 30 Rock’s cheerful NBC page Kenneth Parcell says in the second episode of the show’s third season, “There are only two things I love in this world: everybody and television.”
I could not agree more.
Well, alright, there might be a few more things that I love, but television is unquestionably one of them. To me, TV makes for such a great storytelling medium because it has the advantage of time. Sure, some shows experience a drop in quality the longer they run and, yes, the wait between seasons can be excruciating when cliffhangers are involved, but, when done well, there’s nothing better. It’s exciting to watch a story unfold, episode by episode, over years of our lives.
Of course, with subscriptions to services like Netflix, Hulu, and Disney+, years worth of stories can be enjoyed in a week if you try hard enough.
It has been fascinating to watch (and partake in) the rise of streaming over the past decade. The successes and failures of these streaming services are reshaping the medium in a lot of ways. Over the next few weeks, I am going to take a look at how the media is covering television’s new frontier. With so many new streaming services being rolled out right now, there is plenty of material to work with.
Overall, I think the coverage of streaming services and the changing television landscape has been good. There is a decent amount of variety in terms of how journalists and media outlets are approaching the topic. For example, many outlets are taking on the role of the friend who’s here to help you make sense of it all. Over the past few months, I’ve seen a lot of pieces like this one from NPR that guide readers through the process of deciding which of the myriad streaming services they should be subscribing to.
I have also noticed that some journalists with a focus on the business side of things have taken a more skeptical approach when covering streaming. These stories tend to ask questions about the sustainability of the streaming model or misleading viewership metrics.
A lot of interesting discussion about the deluge of new content is also taking place on Twitter. I have been following critics like Alan Sepinwall of Rolling Stone and Emily Nussbaum of The New Yorker for years and it’s always enlightening when their thoughts on the changing role of the critic in this streaming-heavy era pop up in my timeline.
Other sources that I regularly turn to for coverage include the New York Times and NPR. Both are good for reviews of new or returning shows and coverage of newsworthy items. Outlets like Entertainment Weekly and TV Guide can be fun, but their content often feels more like PR than news. I’ve found that The Hollywood Reporter is good for stories examining the business side of things, while Vox’s Recode and The Verge take a more tech-centric approach to their coverage. The Verge even has a dedicated section for coverage of the ongoing streaming wars.
Finally, Vulture just started Buffering, a weekly newsletter that covers the transition from traditional television to streaming. I signed up and have found it interesting so far. It provides a nice round-up of the week’s biggest stories with some added commentary.
