Repeats are a TV staple, with Captain Mainwaring and Del Boy often on standby if the viewer wants to take a nostalgia trip. But an explosion in the number of scripted TV shows, fuelled by the arrival of deep-pocketed upstarts Amazon and Netflix, has given viewers an unprecedented choice of quality original drama and comedy. With the age-old problem of the barren TV schedule now a thing of the past, the tradition of dredging up reruns of classic shows in times of need could be over.
Last month, Sky added to the scripted TV boom with a $250m (£193m) production joint-venture with HBO, maker of shows including Game of Thrones and Billions, to create a “global drama series powerhouse” to compete with Netflix and Amazon.
Sky spends more than £3bn a year on non-sport programming – including buying in shows such as the new Twin Peaks and making its own series such as Fortitude and Guerrilla – but its budget is still dwarfed by Netflix and Amazon’s combined investment of almost $10bn this year.
“Working with the best producers and making bigger productions ... is increasingly important to reach viewers, especially with high-quality drama,” says Jeremy Darroch, chief executive of Sky, acknowledging that providing viewers with new dramas is a key part of staying competitive in the multichannel world.
In the US the number of scripted shows being made annually has more than doubled since 2010 to more than 500 this year. Many of these productions find their way to British TV screens or on-demand services. Netflix recently revealed it has 90 original productions on the go in Europe alone – Sky has 80 – and most other UK broadcasters have upped their game in the must-watch TV stakes.
“There is a real passion and energy behind creating more and more scripted shows, especially drama, where there are a lot of [producers] pitching, and viewers are loving it,” says Kate Little, joint managing director of Lime Pictures, the producer of shows including the long-running drama Hollyoaks.
“Look at Broadchurch or Line of Duty getting 10 million viewers with catch-up TV included. If you turn the dial back five years that was pretty much unheard of for a drama. What is lovely for viewers is the range: The Replacement, Doctor Foster, The Durrells and Night Manager to House of Cards, Transparent and Game of Thrones. There is a smorgasbord of options catering to every taste.”
With an almost nonstop release schedule of new shows to choose from, there is less time for new audiences to discover repeats of older programmes.
Little says that with so much choice viewers have little patience for the traditional trawl through the channel guide to find something to watch.
“Is the repeat dead? Well quality older shows like Last of the Summer Wine and Vicar of Dibley will still draw an audience for while yet,” she says. “If you happen to get down the programme guide you might end up turning on Dad’s Army. Equally, you might just flick on a subscription on-demand service instead.”
The experience of the owner of the Gold TV channel, home to an endless cycle of repeats of BBC classics such as Only Fools and Horses and Dad’s Army, indicates that audiences may be loyal but they aren’t growing – or getting any younger.
“Look at Gold’s ratings over last 10 years and they have been reasonably flat,” says Darren Childs, chief executive of parent company UKTV, which owns 10 channels in total. “Those types of shows used to run across the whole portfolio of channels, but now they are contained in one single environment, on Gold. It is an important and valuable audience for us but the majority of our growth in viewership is coming from new and original content being commissioned.”
UKTV is embracing a Netflix-style approach and ploughing £150m annually into new shows, with about a third of that on original commissions. Childs says the policy is paying dividends as eight out of 10 of the top shows on Dave are now original content, a big change from the channel’s historical lineup. “Having access to 50 years of the BBC archive is fantastic for us, but you can’t bet the farm on one single genre,” says Childs.
In the vein of out with the old and in with the new, Netflix has commissioned Lime Pictures to make the youth-focused Free Rein, an American teenager’s coming-of-age adventures during a stay at a British riding stables.
Little says that the death of the repeat could well boil down to the next generation of viewers and their TV habits. Ofcom research has found that 16- to 24-year-olds in particular have embraced on-demand services, watching about a quarter less traditional broadcast TV than in 2010, and are likely to be on the constant lookout for the new, not the old.
“It is about viewing habits apart from anything else,” she says. “Channels without brand-defining offerings [those built on repeats and old shows] will eventually start to feel the pain more. It could end up being the end of the ‘repeat’ but not immediately. I’d give it three to five years before [channels showing repeats] start to feel the pinch.”
