Why are we so obsessed (lately) with TV shows about dying media?
On Peacock, a new sitcom about a flatlining local paper is attempting to draw eyeballs back to the newsroom. (Of all places!)
And last Monday, The Studio, an inside Hollywood baseball game, swept the comedic Emmy categories. While Hacks, its cool older sister, walked off with the major acting awards—just days before the real live late night host Jimmy Kimmel was ousted from the airwaves for pointing a finger at Charlie Kirk fans.
To differing extents, all of these shows are love letters to forms pundits spy on the chopping block—the late night show, the local rag, and the good old fashioned art-house film. But given how cold the wind is blowing for American media these days, I find the resurgence of behind-the-scenes sitcoms curious. In this moment of extreme political and economic contraction for media makers, why is inside baseball selling tickets?
*
It’s not like this is a new phenomenon. Hollywood is as famous for self-love as it is for liberal hectoring. What strikes me about this latest spate of media about media is the sharp contrast with organizing conditions.
To begin with late night, where the past few months—days—have seen open battle, we can state the obvious. The (mostly) boys behind the desks are in bad trouble. Nielsen ratings have shown that late night viewership has been trending down for years. And Kimmel’s unprecedented defenestration joins a wave of cultural clampdown that crested earlier this year, when Colbert got the shady can from his parent company, likely for mocking the President.
Much ink has already been spilled about the death of late night in general, with critics citing the model’s flagging cultural relevance, its dodgy financial model, and now the open threat of state-sponsored censorship. Yet a show about making it has got the whole town talking. Why?
Short answer: Hacks is charming. Its central relationship compels, its side characters are rizz-y, and the writing is fire. But I’d argue that the sitcom’s topical appeal rests on some prescience about the late night format itself.
Perhaps because the writers saw the writing on the wall, Hacks has managed to stay one step ahead of the conversation currently playing out in meatspace. Last season on Deborah Vance’s set, we watched two women get their dream jobs only to discover that there was no there in there-town. And this arc, truthful and troubling as it was for the real life corollary, allowed the characters to grow. (Always good TV!)
On Hacks, the end of Deborah’s and Ava’s late night dreams made for dramatic reckoning, but our heroes eschewed hand-wringing. They simply mourned the medium they’d loved so well, then dusted themselves off to ask, what’s next?
I know I’m wondering, in the real world. It’s why I’m also desperate for season five.
*
To scoot it over to Seth Rogen’s Hollywood, the film industry’s organizing conditions are a little more complex. Though production is down in Los Angeles, in 2024 the United States was still responsible for the most expensive movies. (Though, lots of Marvel to thank for that.) And despite a decline from 2023 box office figures, people are still buying movie tickets to the tune of 8.56 billion dollars per annum, which is about where we were in 2005.
The Studio knows this. And perhaps because the straits aren’t as dire in Tinsel Town, the show’s first season isn’t a full out swan song so much as it is a study in team-building. Less than critiquing or celebrating the actual state of the industry, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg are more interested in an evergreen theme: the compromises that the marriage of art and commerce historically require.
On his lot, Rogen’s bumbling exec Matt Remick typically fails to compromise, as a creature of and a victim to the system he’s been charged with minding. Both hero and villain, he geeks out for Goodfellas and Chinatown while failing to support the auteurs of his own timeline, and creates the most chaos when he tries to have it all—art, commerce—at the same time.
I suspect this inability to pick a lane is crucial both to the show’s wide appeal and its relatively neutral stance on the imperiled industry. As satire, it’s not especially biting. But it does accurately reflect a culture that loves the movies in theory but struggles to support them in practice.
I watch The Studio shock-less, and treat it like escapism. A pretty Paper Moon. The aesthetic nostalgia is pleasant, sure. But I also find it pleasurable because I always know the next tango with the bigwigs won’t land any punches that bruise.
*
The Paper is the new kid on the block here, and seemingly still finding its voice. But its future looks promising. Peacock “says the show is its No. 2 comedy debut ever.” And the new mockumentary from The Office team has just made the leap from streamer to network. This is notable at a moment when the sitcom’s setting and subject—local news rooms—stay in economic free fall.
Early episodes strike a wry tone. Characters can be pathetic, and frank about their Toledo Truth Teller’s bleak prospects. Comedy comes from acknowledging these. As with The Studio, the winking could speak to a culture that cares more for the lost art in theory than in practice. For even as we claim to value it on questionnaires, people are paying less money and attention to the local news.
Time will have to tell. But if The Office sets any precedent, the fake news room will have plenty of that.
*
Again, it makes sense that we’ve got imperiled formats top the mind. Government support for the culture has maybe never been lower. We’ve got Elon Musk’s internet to slay, AI ghouls to fight, and private equity takeovers to avoid in our newsrooms and boardrooms. This neo-McCarthy political moment is only going to get worse, which will undoubtedly keep effecting what gets green-lit for (or allowed to stay on…) the mainstream airwaves.
Maybe it’s just nice to get these glimpses behind the curtain while we still can.
But I also like to think this fresh slate of media media is uniquely appealing for providing counterpoint. Whether through canny critique or open wist, shows about making out-of-fashion things can offer us space to predict, resist, and elegize our way through a dark and muddy cultural moment.
The old modes are shifting. No one’s doubting that. But if we understand what made them so appealing in the first place, maybe they’ll never quite die.
