LOS ANGELES — Looking for laughs? New gut-busting comedies are getting harder to find on today’s television. After an explosion of shows in the “Peak TV” era, Hollywood studios are reducing the number of series they release. Comedy has taken a bigger hit than drama, industry data show, and producers say a range of challenges has hindered bringing new comedies to the screen.
“In comedy, the bar has never been higher to get things made,” Mike Farah, former CEO of Funny Or Die and now an independent producer, said at a recent Producers Guild of America conference. Last year’s TV offerings thinned when Hollywood writers and actors went on strike. After production ramped back up, the number of drama series premieres in 2024 rose 25% from a year earlier while comedy premieres fell by 7%, according to data from research firm Luminate.
Those numbers may change by the end of the year. Comedies have been a mainstay of TV since its inception. “The Honeymooners” and “I Love Lucy” entertained audiences in the 1950s.
Viewers in the 1980s and ’90s were glued to shows such as “Seinfeld,” “Friends” and “Cheers.” Earlier this year, “Seinfeld” creator Jerry Seinfeld lamented the state of television comedy. “It used to be, you would get home at the end of the day and most people would say, ‘oh Cheers is on.
MASH is on. Mary Tyler Moore is on. All in the Family is on,'” Seinfeld told the New Yorker magazine.
“You just expected, ‘there’ll be some.