The Los Angeles Times counted and came up with 300!
The Times checked the calendar and noted that "the next couple of months will bring season or series premieres for nearly 300 new shows on broadcast, cable and streaming platforms."
That's mind-boggling, and Billie Gold, an audience research expert and vice president of the New York ad firm Carat, agreed.
"It's crazy," Gold told the Times. "Everyone is now using the first quarter to launch shows."
Many viewers (myself included) are old enough to remember the days when TV series debuted in the fall, took a long rerun break during the holidays, and came back to finish the season in May. Those days are gone. Long gone.
Why? Winter makes for a more captive audience. It's too cold to go outside and the couch is so inviting. With family vacations, longer days and outdoor activities, July has the fewest households watching and the fewest new series.
The winter debut feeding frenzy and frenetic grab for viewers' diminishing attention spans means TV simply hurls it all against the wall and hopes something sticks.
In the runny mess that follows, many worthy shows that would have gotten a fair sampling in bygone days simply disappear in the puddle of video goo on the floor.
Just consider a few shows on the horizon.
Fox's promising Grease: Live airs Sunday. See Sunday's TV Week insert for the particulars.
FX has the ambitious 10-episode docudrama The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story debuting Feb. 2. It comes from superstar producer Ryan Murphy (Glee, Nip/Tuck, American Horror Story, Eat Pray Love) and features an all-star cast that includes Selma Blair, Connie Britton, Bruce Greenwood, Nathan Lane, Sarah Paulson, David Schwimmer, John Travolta, Courtney B. Vance and Rob Morrow. Cuba Gooding Jr. portrays O.J. Simpson.
ABC rolls out the two-night miniseries Madoff, about the convicted investment scammer Bernard Madoff, on Feb. 3 and 4. It stars Oscar winner Richard Dreyfuss as Bernie Madoff and two-time Emmy winner Blythe Danner as his wife, Ruth.
HBO premieres the edgy drama Vinyl on Feb. 14. The series is "a ride through the sex- and drug-addled music business at the dawn of punk, disco, and hip-hop."
Vinyl comes from Boardwalk Empire creator Terence Winter and boasts executive producers Martin Scorsese, Winter and Mick Jagger. Yes, that Mick Jagger.
ABC's biblical epic Of Kings and Prophets, about Saul and David, debuts March 8 with Cape Town, South Africa, standing in for the ancient kingdom of Israel.
On March 9, WGN America unveils Underground, a sprawling antebellum drama that follows a group of slaves who escape from a Georgia plantation to trek 600 miles to freedom. The series stars Marc Blucas, Christopher Meloni, Jurnee Smollett-Bell and a dozen others.
The list goes on, and includes the return of established favorites such as ABC's Scandal (Feb. 11), AMC's The Walking Dead (Feb. 14) and Better Call Saul (Feb. 15), History Channel's Vikings (Feb. 18), ABC's Nashville (March 16) and Dancing With the Stars (March 21), Fox's Empire (March 30) and HBO's Game of Thrones (April 24).
"Television scheduling is now a year-round matter," Jeffrey McCall, a media studies professor at DePauw University, told the Times. "The old days of fall premieres and a few midseason replacements are long gone."
In addition, the time-honored network business model of a 22-episode season with a winter hiatus is also in danger. That's thanks to cable and streaming services opting to have shorter seasons of only 10 or 12 episodes.
The new normal: One-off specials, such as Grease: Live; limited series, such as NBC's You, Me and the Apocalypse (10 episodes, debuting Thursday), and miniseries such as Madoff (two nights) filling the void.
If my email asking, "What ever happened to [fill in the blank]? It seems to have disappeared," is any indication, abbreviated seasons are difficult for many older viewers to get used to.
• American Idol. Round 1 of Hollywood Week kicks off at 7 p.m. Wednesday on Fox. The Hollywood rounds are when all those bright-eyed borderline hopefuls from the city auditions have their dreams quickly and brutally crushed by cold, cruel reality as the herd is culled.
Keep your eye on Arkansans who made it through to Hollywood: Bentonville's (formerly North Little Rock's) Thomas Stringfellow and Nashville's Ethan Kuntz.
The TV Column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Email:
mstorey@arkansasonline.com
Style on 01/26/2016