Section:GDN 12 PaGe:8 Edition Date:190821 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 20/8/2019 17:23 cYanmaGentaYellowbla

• The Guardian
  8 Wednesday 21 August 2019

politics notwithstanding), is the

second-most-streamed show on

the platfor m – this week, a former

employee of Robert De Niro’s

production company was alleged in

its court claim to have watched 55

episodes of it in one four-day period.

No wonder Netfl ix is believed to

have paid WarnerMedia $100m

($85m) to license the show for  2019.

Gilmore Girls, Parks and

Recreation, Arrested Development

and Frasier also appear high on the

list, more prominent than heralded

Netfl ix Originals, such as Stranger

Things, House of Cards or The Crown

(reportedly the most expensive TV

show ever made).

It seems that, in this time of

unprecedented choice and quality,

the so-called golden age of prestige

television, most of us still want

to watch half-hour shows about

vaguely likable people in which

everything turns out OK. Ideally

from the 90s, but maybe the 00s.

And preferably something that we

have seen many, many times before.

Welcome to the age of non-event TV.

“Over the past month or so, I have

been watching as much Modern

Family as possible,” says Ciaran,

29, who works as a policy analyst in

London. “I’ve seen them all loads

of times, but I just don’t feel like

watching anything else because

I love the warmth and comfort

that comes from the show. I think

I started watching it again when

I was going through a particularly

bad time at work. I got addicted to

the warmth, and then I got addicted

to just feeling good about myself.”

Lucy, 28, from London, feels the

same about Gilmore Girls. The kooky

comedy-drama never drew sky-high

ratings when it aired on US cable TV

between 2000 and 2007, but it has

become a huge hit in the streaming

era. “I rewatch it when I’m stressed

as low-level distraction, but also to

return to reassuring worlds with low

jeopardy and known outcomes,”

says Lucy.

Sometimes, she has it on in

the background while she does

housework or lets Netfl ix autoplay

her to sleep. Lucy says she still

likes to watch the prestige shows

that everyone is talking abou t – but

they’re a bit like haute cuisine to

Gilmore Girls’ pasta. “I fi nd it more

relaxing to rewatch, as I don’t have

to join in on the hot takes and social

threads that surround the ‘big new

series’ or worry about spoilers,” she

says. “I can create a little bubble and

totally tune out.”

It has often been observed that

the emergence of Netfl ix, Amazon

Prime, Now TV, Hulu, Facebook TV

and the rest has opened up frontiers

for T V  – makers don’t have to worry

so much about averting fl agging

ratings when viewers start losing

interest. Now that we can consume

series at our own pace, our tolerance

for convoluted narrative arcs,

enormous casts and season-long

digressions has increased hugely.

There’s lots of Silicon Valley cash to

bankroll the programmes, too. But

while dinner party chat still centres

on Russian Doll and Big Little Lies,

platforms are increasingly thinking

about the other stuff : the chewing-

This is an age of

‘prestige television’,

with unprecedented

choice and quality.

So why are we all

streaming endless

reruns of Friends

and The Offi ce? By

Richard Godwin

They’re familiar,

and that’s

a source of

comfort ... and

you know what’s

going to happen

I n the opening episode of

Netfl ix’s animated Hollywood satire

BoJack Horseman, the eponymous

steed gives a drunken speech about

Horsin’ Around, the (fi ctional)

feelgood sitcom that made him a  star

in the 90s. “ For a lot of people, life

is just one long, hard kick in the

urethra,” he says. “And sometimes,

when you get home from a long day

of getting kicked in the urethra, you

just want to watch a show about

good, likable people who love

each othe r  – where no matter what

happens, at the end of 30 minutes,

everything’s gonna turn out OK.”

BoJack Horseman is a rare thing

on Netfl ix in that it is a) original, b)

critically adored and c) extremely

popular. It is the 15th-most-viewed

Netfl ix show in the US, according to

the analytics fi rm Jumpshot (one of

the best guides to what is popular

on the platform, as Netfl ix doesn’t

release  stats).

But cast your eyes up that list and

there are far more Horsin’ Arounds

than there are BoJack Horsemans.

The most popular show is the US

version of The Offi ce, which ran for

nine series on the US channel NBC

in the 00s. Friends, the archetypal

feelgood 90s sitcom (iff y sexual

Welcome to

non-event TV

gum TV, the long-tail TV, the shows

that vaguely brighten up the room.

That could be a random episode

of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air that

turns into a  weekend-long binge , or

it may be mid-00 s cookery fl otsam,

middlebrow property porn or

makeover TV detritus.

Matthew Ball, a US venture

capitalist and sharp commentator

on the streaming platforms, calls

it “tonnage”. For him, the idea

that it is “quality” driving the shift

to streaming is a misconception.

“Netfl ix’s biggest shows drove

subscriber growth and branding,

but most of its success comes from

enabling audiences to easily watch

large volumes of all types of content

wherever they are, without fail, and

at a low cost,” he says. “Netfl ix isn’t

‘hired’ for Stranger Things, but for

entertainment at large.”

Tonnage is increasingly where

Netfl ix paid

$100m to stream

Friends in 2019

The Fresh Prince

of Bel-Air ...

binge-worthy

Parks and

Recreation ...

bigg er than

The Crown

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