In case you wanted to ground your abstract TV FOMO in hard numbers, FX has data on the fact that, yes, there really is too much TV. The network, whose CEO John Landgraf coined the idea of “peak TV,â€Â has released its unofficial tally of the number of shows on TV, finding that 455 different scripted television series from broadcast, cable, and streaming sources aired in the last year. That’s an 8 percent increase from last year, when 421 shows aired on TV; a 71 percent increase from 2011, when a mere 266 shows were on TV; and a 137 percent increase from 2006, when there were 192 shows on TV. While fewer shows actually aired on broadcast, pay cable, and basic cable in 2016 than 2015, FX found that more than twice as many series appeared on online services like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, and Crackle. Don’t worry, though, you definitely have time to catch up on all of it over the holidays.
