The HBO/BBC series Gentleman Jack (streams on Crave) is not coming back for a third season. Photographer: MATT SQUIRE/Courtesy of HBO / Crave
Gaffer tape. We never think about the price of gaffer tape when we watch TV, unless we’re watching some home-improvement show and wondering if the equipment and tools needed could be bought entirely at Dollarama. Hey, we’ve all been there.
But, you know, the cost of gaffer tape has gone up and they use a lot of it making TV shows. In fact, the cost of everything has increased. Inflation hits the TV industry just as it does your budget for cable and streaming services. As if we didn’t have enough to worry about, we are on the cusp of a period of turmoil in television and cost is a major factor.
Note that some cancellations have been announced recently. The HBO/BBC series Gentleman Jack (streams on Crave) is not coming back for a third season. Set in the first half of the 19th century, the adorable and acclaimed series was based on the real diaries of landowner and entrepreneur Anne Lister, documenting her secret lesbian relationships. Why is it cancelled? Cost, probably. Making any period drama costs more than a contemporary drama. Night Sky (Amazon Prime Video), reviewed here recently, was also cancelled. In part that might be owing to a number of puzzled reviews, but you could tell it was expensive to make, with all that visual splendour.
The dark and funny Why Women Kill is also cancelled (it aired on W Network here, streams on Amazon Prime Video), even though it was renewed for a third season several months ago. Why? Well, probably because it has a large cast.
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We’ve been through a unique period in the past few years, with the launch of multiple streaming services. It seemed that there was an insatiable appetite for content, and every streamer needed more and more shows. Now we’re seeing a reconfiguration. The TV industry is not sealed off from inflation or supply chain issues. The cost of everything involved in TV production has increased, from gas to a sheet of plywood to, yes, gaffer tape.
In a recent summary in The Hollywood Reporter, Herb Gains, an executive at Legendary Entertainment, is quoted as saying, “The accessibility of steel and lumber due to supply chain issues have driven up the cost of materials by at least 25 to 30 per cent.” He also says that the cost of building a set for a TV series has doubled in four years.
Time was, the entertainment industry was recession-proof. When times are hard, consumers want distraction and are willing to pay for it. That assertion doesn’t have the same strength these days. In a fractured landscape, consumers are weighing the multiple costs of streaming and cable services. With almost everything in life costing more, people will decide to abandon at least one streaming service if they are currently paying for three. Netflix has, by the way, had two rounds of staff layoffs in the past six months.
Another twist is the shifting status of live sports on TV in North America. For a decade, it has been taken as gospel that a major reason for consumers to stick with cable packages, even as streaming services abound, has been the allure of live sports events. Cable and network TV have relied on the revenue from ad-supported sports to fund comedy and drama, but that is changing too.
On Monday of this week, UEFA, the governing body of soccer in Europe, opened the bidding war for rights to UEFA matches, including the UEFA Champions League, for the United States. (The Champions League Final is the most-watched sports event in the world, far exceeding the reach of the Super Bowl.) UEFA is reportedly looking for a six-year deal starting with the 2024-25 season.
Amazon and Apple TV are expected to be highly interested, with live sports being the key to a complete menu of TV content. Amazon will become the exclusive carrier of NFL Thursday Night Football later this year, and Apple just signed a deal to have exclusive rights to all Major League Soccer games, starting next year. It’s a 10-year deal.
Soccer fans in Canada are already familiar with the current chaos and the costs of competing streaming services. For several years, streamer DAZN held rights to the English Premier League, but starting next month, those rights belong to Fubo TV while UEFA Champions League matches remain with DAZN. Following soccer in Canada is now an expensive, complicated game.
There is one winner in all this turmoil and that is the Canadian film and TV industry. Thanks to a cheaper dollar, resulting in cheaper production costs, and tax incentives offered in various provinces, the boom in production here will continue. There won’t be a ton of Canadian stories told, but like Dollarama, it’s all about bulk sales, cheap goods and thrift.
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