The Recent Unlikely Comeback of the TV Schedule

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Binge-watching might be huge right now, but things are quickly changing. At one point, TV schedules shaped our lives. They helped determine family schedules, and premieres during the holidays were also a big deal. As time’s gone on, habits have been replaced with on-demand streaming platforms. This shattered the standard television format, but interestingly, the TV schedule appears to be making an unexpected comeback.

How Streaming Changed the Landscape of Television

Streaming has really helped to change the landscape of television as we know it. Streaming made it possible to watch television shows on-demand, as well as making whole seasons available immediately. People who were once locked into television schedules found themselves with a sudden influx of entertainment.

Streaming has made it much easier for people to get into new shows, as more episodes can be watched at once. Personalization has also played a big role. Platforms can now recommend shows based on what you have watched before, allowing more unique websites to really take off. IMDB, for example, provides a wealth of information about a particular TV show or movie, including the cast, the rating, and the synopsis. In the on-demand era, platforms like this are especially useful, as they allow people to research what they might want to watch before putting it on. With a TV schedule, this would not have been plausible, as everyone consumes content at the same time, when it’s scheduled.

Streaming has also helped to diversify content both in terms of subject and nationality, allowing for individual websites and shows to attain a far greater global reach. Not only does this mean that people can consume shows from across the world, but certain shows have become international hits when they might only have taken off in their country of origin a few years ago. Take La Casa de Papel from Spain, or even Narcos from Colombia. Shows like this aren’t just huge hits in their own country; they are hits internationally, with streaming platforms having a huge part to play.

According to sites like Netflix, 80% of people watch full seasons within a week of them being released. Ads are also often hyper-targeted, meaning platforms can reach their target audience more efficiently. With that said, even though streaming is dominating, old habits are starting to return once again. Media executives are also taking notice of how big these shifts can be as well.

Take shows like Gilmore Girls, for example, which sees a spike each fall on Netflix. On top of this, platforms are also releasing new Christmas movies all the time. A lot of this aligns with seasonal preference, but at the same time, platforms like YouTube are also seeing shifts. Mobile users once dominated the platform, but now 45% of viewership happens on televisions.

Source: Pexels

Source: Pexels

The Unlikely Return of the TV Schedule Format

As people revert to more traditional viewing habits, platforms are capitalizing on it. If you look at the viewership data from analytical websites, it’s clear that 75 out of the top 100 US TV series were released weekly. Netflix has also started hosting Christmas NFL games, and in 2024, they broke viewing records with over 24 million viewers.

Data like this shows how platforms are adapting to the reinvigorated distribution practice, and how traditional viewing experiences, with set times and showings, are becoming the norm again. What’s even more interesting is that this trend is becoming evident in other verticals as well.

In gaming, we are seeing more and more titles focused on “real time”, where you have to wait a certain number of hours before carrying out a particular action, or how double XP events are scheduled for times which match the in-game time. This again aligns with the idea of communities united by shared experience, where one of the best ways of standardizing the experience is by encouraging many players to log in simultaneously.

This trend is equally prevalent in live bingo. When logging onto a bingo site, it’s not uncommon to see schedules of what is taking place and the time it’s on. Events like Whack a Mole Bingo and The Upside Down Jackpot often happen at certain points of the day, which not only gives people the opportunity to tune in at the same time as others, but also makes sure that engagement is always at its highest.

There’s certainly a magic to this kind of communal experience which has felt absent to many in recent years. People used to gather around the television at a certain time to watch new game show episode releases, or the finale of a TV show. Now, finally, as new episodes drop, they are being put on demand as well. If anything, then, we seem to be collectively settling on a hybrid viewing model that combines weekly, scheduled episodic releases with content also available on demand after it’s shown.

With weekly episode drops becoming the norm now for TV shows, and with Amazon Prime staggering the release of their newer TV shows, it’s clear to see that over time, people have been craving these more traditional viewing habits, and platforms are not only accepting it but also actively capitalizing on it.