Streaming is starting to look a lot like broadcast TV
Streaming is starting to look a lot like broadcast TV
Streamers are turning to the kinds of shows that were popular 20 years ago to reach audiences.
The days of Peak TV may be well and truly over. Streaming services aren’t climbing over each other to roll out new seasons of effects-driven event series or prestigious productions that are designed to outshine the competition.
In fact, these days, new streaming shows have much more in common with broadcast TV shows from the 1990s and 2000s than those that helped launch the streaming era earlier this decade. Older formats are making a comeback among TV producers, as streamers try to turn back the clock to remind audiences why they fell in love with television in the first place.
New data from research firm Luminate shows that serialized dramas — like “House of Cards,” the first prestige streaming hit — which build story arcs over the course of a season and were the flavor du jour of the Peak TV boom, have been declining in recent years. More than 250 serialized dramas premiered in 2022, but the number has declined ever since; in 2025, fewer than 200 such shows were released.
Meanwhile, the release of more traditional procedural dramas has been on the rise. Fewer than 30 such shows hit the market in 2023, but in 2025, more than 50 new procedurals were released, per Luminate’s data. This format has been the backbone of broadcast TV for decades, with franchises like “Law & Order” and “NCIS” building multiple series primarily around a “case of the week” format, but its use fell off as streamers tried to outdo each other with star-studded prestige dramas in a scramble to prove that the traditional TV was outmoded.
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Audiences are clearly responding to the shift in production habits from streamers, as well. Luminate’s numbers show that the second season of hospital procedural “The Pitt” has been the most-streamed original TV season in 2026 so far, with 10.3 billion minutes viewed.
“The Pitt” is the most acclaimed and decorated procedural currently airing, but it is far from the only one. Season 4 of Netflix’s legal drama “The Lincoln Lawyer” has accrued almost 10 billion streaming minutes in 2026.
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Other classic TV formats show up all over the list of top shows, including a murder mystery series, unscripted reality titles, and even a Western. Almost all of them — with a couple of notable exceptions like “Bridgerton” — would fit in perfectly on a broadcast TV network, despite the fact that it was created by procedural TV icon Shonda Rhimes.
The data from Luminate is proof that for some time, streaming executives have been misreading what audiences wanted. The Streaming Revolution delivered what it thought viewers craved: a high volume of prestigious, serialized TV seasons. Disney+ churned out Marvel and Star Wars titles ad nauseam, and Paramount hammered its franchise titles, hoping each whack at the piñata would lead to a shower of streaming subscribers and cash. Instead, customers are proving to be more responsive to the tried-and-true meat-and-potatoes approach that platforms are finally turning back toward. Going back in time, at least from a programming perspective, is clearly working for streaming services.
The return of TV formats that were once ubiquitous on broadcast TV channels is another piece of evidence that entertainment companies are realizing that they might have screwed up when they blew up the cable bundle. Streamers are increasingly bundling together to offer customers a package of content, including entertainment, news, and sports, at a discounted price to increase engagement with their platforms.
Streaming services have mostly succeeded in supplanting linear TV as the most-watched source of entertainment in the home. But Luminate’s numbers show that streamers are continuing to borrow the tactics that made pay-TV so popular, including mimicking broadcast TV with the increased release of procedural TV and other, older formats, and the decline in serialized dramas.
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