Network television has been in a free fall for some time. Many people blame streaming and the ability to have almost any show from any network at your fingertips whenever you want it. Obviously, that is a contributing factor, but what many either refuse or fail to acknowledge is the quality of programming available now on the broadcast networks. It doesn’t seem like that long ago, but the days of over-the-air successes like The Office, Friends, and Modern Family are long past and likely never to return.
Instead, forced diversity, rampant virtue signaling, and wokeness have replaced real comedy and drama with something that more closely resembles a skit from an acting class at any California university. Turning on any given night on network television and the point is made. No one wants to watch woke programming and forced diversity set to canned laughter. New data from the Nielsen company proves that American viewers are done with woke, politically biased programming and instead are binging old, nostalgic shows from a better time in American television.
To be clear, the most watched shows are on streaming services; however, they aren’t original programming. In other words, while shows like “Succession” and “The Last of Us” are streaming originals and very successful, neither were watched more than the most viewed show in streaming. That show, “Suits,” is a legal drama that premiered more than a decade ago and has been done since 2019.
The show wasn’t a network program, as it was broadcast on the USA network, but it has found life in streaming, possibly thanks to Meghan Markle and the curiosity factor surrounding the Duchess of Sussex. Whatever the reason, an old show from a somewhat obscure basic cable network is blasting viewership numbers while woke programming on streamers like Disney and others suffer.
The top streaming list in terms of minutes viewed for 2023 is out, and the results are surprising. Of the top 10 shows, Suits, The Big Bang Theory, Gilmore Girls, Friends, and Supernatural are all off the air and have been for years. Two of the top 10 are children’s programs, and the rest are shows that premiered in the 2000s but are still hanging on.
Many Hollywood apologists are blaming the writer’s strike and the dearth of new programming for the surprising viewership numbers, however, there may be more at play than a lack of new content. It is a very divisive, restless time in American history, and the culture wars have been raging since roughly 2016. Older television programs often take folks back to better days. Nostalgia sells, and in 2023, television viewers were buying.
The show Friends, despite being blasted by the far-left for not being diverse enough to the point that the show creator Marta Kauffman felt compelled to apologize for the lack of diversity, remains a hot commodity despite being off the air since 2004. Likewise, Gilmore Girls also boasts a primarily straight, white cast and sits as the seventh most streamed show of 2023. The New York Times called it “an endless buffet of TV comfort food.”
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Nostalgia sells, and folks are tired of forced diversity and woke themes. Network television is on life support, and even original content on streaming services pales in comparison to the streaming numbers of shows from the “good old days.” Hollywood should take the hint, but we all know they won’t, and we still be fed bad television. Thankfully, there will always be comfortable, old programming at our fingertips.