Now that the dust has settled on the 69th Primetime Emmy Awards, it's time to look at what Hulu's big win for its original series The Handmaid's Tale truly means in the grand scheme of TV and streaming.
This past Sunday night, The Handmaid’s Tale won a handful of trophies -- including Outstanding Lead Actress and Outstanding Directing in a Drama Series -- but the most significant was its win for Outstanding Drama Series. This is the first time that a streaming service has taken home the top honors in a Best Series category.
The game-changing journey that started out in the late '90s with web shows and skits (which then became way more prevalent in the 2000s) and then made huge leaps forward with Netflix's auteur-focused foray into acquired/original content back in 2012 and 2013 (Lilyhammer, House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, etc), has hit a major milestone. For the first time, the best "TV show" isn't what's traditionally considered a TV show.
Now, it's true that not all streaming services are designed alike. The ones that carry original content are built for different types of consumers. Amazon Prime members, who sign up for free yearly shipping, have access to Amazon's library of TV and movies along with their original series (or, flip that, those who sign up for the shows get the nice bonus of free shipping). For the jointly-owned-by-several-networks Hulu, folks sign up in order to watch various network and cable shows the day after they air and at a cheaper price than a cable or satellite subscription. Original shows have been a thing for a while on Hulu, but the company didn't try to get into the "prestige TV" game until 2016 with The Path.
Netflix has always been the beast to beat here though. Subscribers once signed up at the Blockbuster-killer for a home delivery DVD service, then for an "at your fingertips" movie catalogue streaming service, and now...now Netflix has spent six billion dollars on original content. Like, an overwhelming flood of original material. Netflix's library of movies and TV shows has slowly dwindled ever since its deal with Epix ended in 2015, replaced by dozens and dozens of original shows that the company doesn't even, and can't even, promote properly.
From paying Chris Rock $40 million for two standup specials, throwing obscene amounts of money at Adam Sandler for a four-picture deal (and then adding four more movies to that deal last March), rescuing canceled shows like Arrested Development and Longmire, spending $100 million on the Will Smith movie Bright, and countless other expensive initiatives that, in many cases, feels like overpaying for the sake of drawing top-line talent away from elsewhere (like luring mega-creator Shonda Rhimes away from ABC, ending her 15 years of collaboration there), Netflix's model has become one of being "everything to everyone."
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Netflix started this movement and has, to their credit, earned dozens of nominations and awards for their shows over the past five years. From House of Cards and Orange is the New Black to more recent shows like Master of None, The Crown, and Stranger Things, Netflix has done it all - except cross that final finish line and have one of their shows named Best Series. No, surprisingly, that honor went to Hulu, who has a fraction of original offerings compared to Netflix. This may have been a race that no one was officially running, and if you look at the numbers, Netflix has won way more Emmys than Hulu, but we can only assume here that the win for Handmaid's Tale is probably a sore spot for Netflix given all the money spent.
What this win does for Hulu though is instantly place it in the conversation when it comes to quality streaming shows. Previously, it was Netflix and (to a lesser extent) Amazon dominating the debate. Now the Hulu brand is able to carry some weight. There was once a time, just a few years back, when many of us wondered if streaming shows could even be considered for regular Emmy nominations or if they'd require their own separate category and now one has become an industry-voted Best Series.
How is it that The Handmaid's Tale managed to ultimately succeed where many Netflix shows didn't? Aside from the fact that the show was acclaimed by both viewers and critics? One thing to consider is this: Hulu releases their episodes a week at a time. They don't give us the entire season to binge in one sitting. Not only does this help their shows feel more like traditional TV, but it allows the conversation and the buzz to continue all season. Netflix and Amazon's window for conversation and coverage is usually limited to one weekend. There's very little time for people, or the media, to discuss what they've seen in just a few days. Hulu shows are built for the conventional TV journalism recap/review/revisit model. If an episode ends with a cliffhanger, people can write about it, tweet about it, and fret about it for seven days. The pacing allows for deeper dives and fuller exploration among fans and critics.
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Handmaid Tale's win is also a landmark for cord-cutters. More and more people are opting for a la carte subscription services over regular cable TV. With this in mind, networks are now offering their shows via alternate platforms knowing that the consumer trend -- which shows 22 million people cutting the cable cord this year alone (33% more than originally predicted) -- is currently terrifying cable companies.
That being said, the current TV landscape is more splintered and fractured than ever. With too many shows being made, and too many ways to watch shows available, the amount of shows we all "share" is shrinking. This could be one of the reasons that this past weekend's Emmys telecast was one of the lowest-rated Emmy award shows in history. There's less name recognition in the TV realm now because the sheer amount of content is overwhelming. Each year, fewer people are watching TV in the traditional manner and those who do choose streaming services don't all choose the same one.
Hulu's Outstanding Drama win signals a huge sea change in the industry and proof that streaming shows are, indeed, the future. It also might indicate that generations from here on out won't share in the same collective TV experience as previous ones. At least after Game of Thrones ends.
Matt Fowler is a writer for IGN and a member of the Television Critics Association (TCA). Follow him on Twitter at @TheMattFowler and Facebook at http://ift.tt/2aJ67FB.
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