As the era of ‘peak TV’ tapers and new shows have been delayed by Hollywood strikes, the impact on audience choice is becoming clearer, according to Hub Entertainment Research. Even with a reduction of programmes, consumers still enjoy an abundance of content choices. This year’s edition of Hub’s annual Conquering Content report confirms viewers are still positive about what’s available to them, even if managing all their choices is a challenge.

Viewers love the abundance of choice created by ‘peak TV’. Appreciation for having “so many TV shows to watch” has increased significantly this year and is up by nearly half since 2020.

With so much to choose from, platforms that make discovery easy have a big advantage. The volume of content on streaming platforms, coupled with an increase of cross-licensing popular shows across services, make all of this content more difficult to use. More than 60 per cent of consumers said they’re more likely to choose platforms with better search, discovery and recommendation tools – up from 56 per cent in 2022.

“New to me” shows are just as appealing to viewers as new releases: Nearly two thirds of viewers say their current favourite show is an older show that’s been on for several seasons – up from 54 per cent in 2021. In fact, one of the most mentioned favourites was Suits, a show which was cancelled in 2019 and hasn’t had a new episode in four years.

“While the pipeline for new shows has slowed due to this year’s historic Hollywood strikes, consumers’ loyalties to streaming services can remain stable, provided those services match them with the right content,” said Jason Platt Zolov, one of the report’s authors. “As studios return to licensing quality shows outside of their owned services, consumers are responding positively to the abundance of things to watch, whether ‘new’ or just ‘new to them.’”

“Peak TV has created a huge number of quality shows that many people just didn’t have time to watch when they were new,” said Jon Giegengack, founder and principal at Hub. “But they’re happy to watch them, and this backlog will maintain engagement while production gets back under way. It also bodes well for licensing of exclusive shows to new services with audiences that haven’t seen them yet.”