Who is popular today?

As the streaming wars intensify, this year will bring with it a deluge of new and returning shows. Better get bingeing...
Peak TV is a phrase that has long been used to describe our current era, in which there seems to be an epochal masterpiece airing every week. But in 2020, all previous uses of the term will look quaint. It is a year full of bold statements, massive names and even bigger budgets. The strutting king and slightly awkward prince of streaming, Netflix and Amazon, face competition from Apple and Disney, whose rival services have already launched (Disney+ comes to the UK in March), with HBO Max arriving in May in the US to saturate the new streaming market still further. It turns out we were nowhere near the top of the peak, but this year maybe we will get close.
Once, a piece recommending the best dramas would essentially be a list of what we were going to be watching, like it or not: even if you didn’t fancy a new show, chances were you’d tune in anyway for the lack of alternatives. Now there is a vast selection to choose from, with big, new online shows in addition to programmes from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Sky. Those traditional broadcasters, meanwhile, are getting in on the US goldrush by not just importing shows but co-producing them: Lena Dunham’s Industry, for example, a saga about the personal lives of young bankers, has been made jointly by HBO and BBC Two, while Sky is HBO’s collaborator for The New Pope, the Jude Law-starring sequel to Paolo Sorrentino’s The Young Pope. Continue reading...