The collision of new technologies, changing business strategies, and
innovative storytelling that produced a new golden age of TV.
Cable television channels were once the backwater of American
television, programming recent and not-so-recent movies and reruns of
network shows. Then came La Femme Nikita, OZ, The Sopranos, Mad
Men, Game of Thrones, and The Walking Dead. And then, just as
"prestige cable" became a category, came House of Cards and Netflix,
Hulu, Amazon Video, and other Internet distributors of television
content. What happened? In We Now Disrupt This Broadcast, Amanda Lotz
chronicles the collision of new technologies, changing business
strategies, and innovative storytelling that produced an era termed
"peak TV."
Lotz explains that changes in the business of television expanded the
creative possibilities of television. She describes the costly
infrastructure rebuilding undertaken by cable service providers in the
late 1990s and the struggles of cable channels to produce (and pay for)
original, scripted programming in order to stand out from the
competition. These new programs defied television conventions and made
viewers adjust their expectations of what television could be. Le Femme
Nikita offered cable's first antihero, Mad Men cost more than
advertisers paid, The Walking Dead became the first mass cable hit,
and Game of Thrones was the first global television blockbuster.
Internet streaming didn't kill cable, Lotz tells us. Rather, it
revolutionized how we watch television. Cable and network television
quickly established their own streaming portals. Meanwhile, cable
service providers had quietly transformed themselves into Internet
providers, able to profit from both prestige cable and streaming
services. Far from being dead, television continues to transform.
