Jacob G. Wideman

Anthologies Are About to Take Over Your Television

    Many of the most notorious television shows in the recent decade can be sorted in to three categories: sitcoms, like Big Bang Theory or Friends, procedurals, like the CSI series or Law & Order, and serials, like Game of Thrones or Walking Dead. Though modern television has been doing incredibly well, with hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue to show for it, programming requires constant observation to ensure that programming is constantly fresh and attractive. While these three categories are far from dying out, it seems as if a new category is beginning to sneak up on the competition.

            For years, the anthology format has been something networks have avoided due to the poor reception it had in the late 20^th and early 21^st centuries. The familiar characters and settings in sitcoms, procedurals, and serials made viewers confident that coming back every week for a new episode would be worthwhile. Fans of serials, or shows that follow an episodic sequence, would find answers to questions raised in previous weeks, while fans of sitcoms and procedurals could watch their favourite characters take on a new challenge every week in the self-contained storylines.

            Anthologies, on the other hand, had brand new characters, settings, and storylines that were respective to each episode. Viewers had nothing but the genre to convince them to return every week, leading to weak viewership and low advertising revenues. In addition to this, marketing costs were quite high due to both the numerous sets and props required for the various scripts, and for the constant marketing needed to attract an audience for the production. With every new week came a brand new premise that had to be advertised, similar to a “weekly movie special”. While some series, such as Are You Afraid of the Dark? and The Outer Limits were able to succeed in this format, many other series could only hold audiences for a few seasons before being canceled.

            This was not always the case though. In the “Golden Age of Television”, which began in the early 1940s and continued until the early 1960s, the anthology was incredibly popular. Part of this was because of the pre-existing popularity of the radio anthology, which was able to prosper due to the significantly lower cost of production. Broadcast hosts with favourable voices were hired on to read stories over the air, much like the modern audiobook, and become the ‘voice’ that brought viewers back every week. There was no concern about writing, as the hundreds of years of well-known stage shows fueled these radio anthologies, with original content interspersed. A famous example of the radio anthology is the notorious 1938 broadcast of War of the Worlds on The Mercury Theatre on the Air, narrated so well by Orson Welles that listeners believed aliens had really invaded.

            The jump to television was well received and garnered a similar popularity, to the point that townships and cities would hold viewings for anyone who were not fortunate enough to own a television. Large corporations took notice of this popularity and began funding their own anthologies with the intention of advertising their products throughout production. Shows like Kraft Television Theatre and General Electric Theater were incredibly prolific, spanning entire decades before their final broadcasts. As time went on, and other formats and genres began to grow in popularity, the anthology fell in to the state mentioned earlier.

             In the last decade, though, the anthology has reclaimed its status among the other formats. Shows like FX’s American Horror Story and Fargo, as well as Netflix’s Black Mirror have found their spot in the television spotlight and show no signs of leaving. American Horror Story is currently in its eighth season (titled ‘Apocalypse’) and has already been renewed for a ninth and tenth season. This is arguably due to the impressive two million viewers per episode that it attracts on average, a trend since season 1. Netflix’s Black Mirror was unsurprisingly confirmed to have been renewed for a fifth season less than three months following the season four release, which was nominated for over 30 different awards. Though the estimated budgets remain relatively high, they’re actually relatively even out with other series of the same calibre.  Compared to other hit shows currently airing, such as HBO’s Game of Thrones at $15 million per episode and CBS’ Big Bang Theory at $9 million per episode, an anthology-based series is actually significantly cheaper to produce while still retaining viewer popularity.

            Part of this cost effectiveness has come through the popularization of streaming, and the subsequent act of “binging” TV shows. The aforementioned weight that marketing held on an anthological production has been countered through streaming companies, such as Amazon and Hulu, buying and hosting entire series on their services. By purchasing the rights to a show (which increases the revenue of a series), popularity grows as a larger audience is able to watch the show. Though American Horror Story episodes air initially on FX’s network, in less than a day it is available on Amazon Prime, Google Play, and other services. The ability to watch multiple episodes at once hooks viewers, and fans can continue to watch new episodes as they are uploaded. The restriction of needing a new cable channel for every show you want to watch has ended, and viewership is rising.

            In addition to this is the return of an ease in writing. Similar to the mass of plays available to anthologies in the 20^th century Golden Age of Television, fledgling writers serve as a means to fuel the modern anthology. The episodic anthology, or an anthology that features episodes with their own respective plotlines, potentially allows for a different writer for each episode, leading to a quicker production of the season. The cost is also lower, as exposure makes up for the difference in wages. Seasonal anthologies, or anthologies that maintain a plotline throughout a single season, can feature new or guest writers with each new season being produced.

             The internet builds on this mass of writing with the continual stream of amateur fiction being posted every day. Everything from fanfiction, or personal spins/takes on an established series, to creepypastas, or short horror stories that are frequently copied and pasted (hence the name), serve as jumping-off points for any production script. Notable examples of the internet writing finding fame are the famous Fifty Shades series and the popular “Slenderman” adaptations. The show Channel Zero, on the SyFy network, has even based each of its seasons off of a creepypasta that became famous on the internet.

            Knowing Hollywood’s love of reviving old series and movies, it is not a surprise that The Twilight Zone is making a comeback with Jordan Peele as the mind behind it all. With series like Tales from the Crypt and Are You Afraid of the Dark? offering nostalgia trips for a large portion of Netflix’s target audiences, the age of the television anthology is about to take off.