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The 6 biggest things that are shaking up the TV industry right now
In every press tour, certain themes and patterns from the TV world emerge. They tell us about what the industry is wrestling with and give us a snapshot of what's to come.
Jennifer Lopez discusses her NBC show, "Shades of Blue," during the winter 2017 television critics association press tour.
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It's an exhausting (and exciting) pageant of the networks' best current programming and upcoming shows for hundreds of critics and reporters from all over the US (and even some international press) who flock to Los Angeles twice a year for the event.
Here are the biggest things the industry is facing in 2017:
Everyone wants in on the digital game.
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Streaming shows and TV everywhere was the talk of TCA. Netflix is so ahead of the curve it didn't even show up for the conference. Showtime is so thirsty (after losing its No. 2 paid cable network spot to Starz a couple years back) that its president, David Nevins, made the network's streaming service a huge part of his executive session introduction.
And in the absence of Netflix, CBS All Access, Crackle, Hulu, and Amazon stepped up their presence at the conference. TV could learn (and is learning) much from the digital companies.
The broadcast network bosses were no-shows.
There are still too many TV shows.
You don't have to be a statistician to know that the amount of TV shows exceeds any individual's ability to watch them – quality programming or not. But for those of you who like your numbers, by
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How will Trump's presidency affect TV?
One of the ongoing themes during TCA was the question of how TV shows will respond to Donald Trump's presidency, as well as the clearly unhappy voters in Middle America who voted for him.
It should be noted that the Golden Globes and Meryl Streep's speech — in which she called on Hollywood to help balance Trump's controversial policies affecting immigrants, women, and gay people — occurred early during TCA and remained an ongoing topic through the conference.
The question was mostly posed to shows that dealt with politics and law. Producers for CBS All Access's "The Good Wife" spin-off, "The Good Fight," for example, said that they would focus less on Trump's policies and more on how its liberal characters respond to them.
Conversely, ABC's "American Crime" creator, John Ridley, said that its upcoming third season will deal with the immigrant experience but not in response to Trump.
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Remakes, revivals, and reboots aren't going anywhere.
Despite the many, many recent reboots and remakes that have failed recently – "The Muppets," "Limitless," "The Exorcist," "Minority Report," and "Rush Hour," among many others – TV keeps going back to the well.
This year, you can expect ABC's remake of the film "Time After Time," a TV movie version of "Dirty Dancing," CBS's TV reboot of "Training Day," and NBC's recently announced revival of "Will & Grace."
Even the classics aren't safe, with reboots planned for "
Diversity for diversity's sake isn't enough anymore.
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Just a few years ago, critics were happy with minority representations on-screen. Period. There were so few minority leads on-air that it couldn't happen sooner. But that's been done. So what now? We want those minority representations to have some depth.
There's now a greater call for shows with minority characters to also have people behind the camera who can tell their story with some honesty. It's not enough for Fox's "24: Legacy" to have a black lead, for example. The show also needed to prove that it had writers who understood how to portray him. And it argued that it does.
Another good example of deeper storytelling for minorities can be found on CBS's legal series, "Doubt." With all the media surrounding transgender issues and Caitlyn Jenner's very public transition, there was some thought among critics that Laverne Cox's casting was a trendy choice. In reality, we found out that "Doubt" producers — the husband-and-wife team of Tony Phelan and Joan Rater — were inspired to write a transgender character from the start by their own experiences with their transgender son.
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