How Much Is Too Much Television?

For all of the changes in television, none is more profound than the sheer volume of material available now. There were 352 original scripted series shown in 2014 on broadcast, cable and streaming services. That doesn't count news, sports, talk shows, documentaries, movies or reality shows. There were 26 original scripted series on cable in prime time and late night in 1999, and 199 in 2014 -- an increase of 665 percent. An additional 25 series were offered in 2014 on Netflix, Amazon or Hulu, services that didn't exist as original programmers 15 years ago. The pace is only accelerating: the number of original cable prime-time series alone has essentially doubled since 2010, according to the FX networks, which keeps count of the programs.