Crypto News: The age of peak TV is ending. An age of austerity is beginning.

The sudden decline in Netflix's share price and the growing fear of a recession have forced Hollywood into a new period of fiscal austerity. This manifests in ways big and small. A TV director who made $4 million a year is now getting $750,000. Mid-budget movies are being shelved. Broadcast TV budgets have dropped more than 30%.

In the latest new trend, networks are canceling shows that they already agreed to make. Peacock shelved plans for a "Field of Dreams" TV series from the co-creator of "Parks and Recreation," while HBO Max canceled "Demimonde" from "Lost" co-creator J.J. Abrams.

Each cancellation has a different story, but these are not small decisions. Networks already spent money on the projects, and decided losing a few million dollars with nothing to show for it was better than spending tens of millions of dollars on a show that might not work.

This is a significant departure from the last few years when media companies tripped over themselves to produce any halfway decent idea. The industry made 559 scripted shows last year, up more than 200 since 2013, the year "House of Cards" debuted. That doesn't include all of the unscripted programs, including competing docuseries on the same subject.

"The days of the drunken sailor spending are gone," one agent said this past week. "I've never seen so many shows canceled and returned."

Certain sanguine Hollywood executives have been predicting a market correction for years. To someone like FX chief John Landgraf, it seemed obvious that services were spending too much money on too many shows without regard for quality or profit. The golden age of TV gave way to the age of peak TV, as companies produced far more programming than anyone could ever watch.

And yet, companies kept making more — and were rewarded with new customers and a higher share price.

That was until Netflix warned it would have a slow start to the year. Optimism about streaming, hailed as the future, has dissipated ever since, and all but disappeared when then the streaming giant reported it lost customers in the first three months of the year. In the past few months, pessimism and uncertainty have proliferated in a town already prone to insecurity.

If Netflix started the fire, the macroeconomic situation has poured on some lighter fluid. Rising interest rates have made it harder to borrow, and made companies less eager to be in debt. It's also limited financing for major deals, which forces everyone to be more cautious.

The market for new projects has slowed. Netflix, once the biggest spender of them all, has broadcast that it isn't going to spend like it once did. Amazon has grown more budget-conscious since it hired Mike Hopkins, though it will spare no expense for certain series (like "Lord of the Rings").

The biggest contraction of all is underway at Warner Bros. Discovery, which is scrutinizing costs after a debt-fueled merger. HBO's buying has slowed in recent months, and the company has given up original scripted programming at TNT, TBS and in much of Europe.

Apple is just about the only place that can still spend like money grows on trees. Newer players Roku and Amazon's FreeVee are buying but have modest budgets, while stalwarts Disney, Paramount and NBCUniversal have never been known for profligacy.

This doesn't mean the flood of new shows will dry up. Talent at the top-end will still get paid. Media companies need to keep growing, and neither cable networks nor the theatrical movie business is the solution. Streaming remains a big part of the future.

But the age of peak TV is coming to a close, and that will impact almost every sector of an industry where budgets, valuations and strategic plans were predicated on a booming market for new programming.

Just a few months ago, any production company with a few credits to its name was suddenly worth hundreds of millions of dollars. (It helped if you were aligned with a celebrity like Reese Witherspoon or LeBron James.) Now many of the companies looking to raise capital or sell themselves are having a harder time.

Media companies that merged and restructured to position themselves for the streaming future now see that Netflix — the inspiration for many of these moves -- is cutting staff. Employees who've survived regime changes are bracing for more. Falling stock prices for all of these media companies could precipitate yet another wave of consolidation.

As one successful producer said this past week, the Hollywood train is still moving but the brakes are starting to squeak. — Lucas Shaw

The man who played Hollywood

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Spotify, Netflix and aggregation

When private jets ferry billionaires to small-town Idaho

Despite all the concern about the future of movie theaters and the rise of streaming, movies released in theaters generate more attention and excitement than movies released at home.

This is according to Parrot Analytics, a research firm that is about to unveil a new product that will measure audience demand for movies.

Last year movies released in theaters such as "Spider-Man: No Way Home" and "The Matrix Resurrections," generated a lot more demand than "Don't Look Up," one of the most popular Netflix movies of all time.

It was also true for comedies, a genre which has struggled in theaters. "Marry Me," a Universal Pictures comedy starring Jennifer Lopez, and "The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent," a Lions Gate film starring Nicolas Cage, were both released in theaters and saw higher demand from consumers than Netflix's "The Bubble" from Judd Apatow. Demand for movies released in theaters also remained higher for longer.

"Theatrical movies tend to have higher demand both prior to the premiere and after the premiere," said Alejandro Rojas, the vice president of applied analytics at Parrot.

Parrot already offers audience data for TV, which many talent agencies, producers and media companies use to assess the potential and performance of their projects. Streaming and globalization rendered traditional Nielsen ratings less useful, and Parrot is one of many tools people have used to supplement them.

Now it's turning its eyes to movies. Box office returns have long determined the success and failure of a movie. If a movie sells enough tickets during its theatrical run, it will make money for its studio. Its value in subsequent deals, like licensing to TV networks, is predicated on those sales.

But it's getting harder for companies –- even studios that release and own a movie -– to measure the success of individual titles. Netflix, which releases more movies than any studio, doesn't put most of its movies in theaters, nor does it report box office returns. While traditional studios continue to debut some movies the old-fashioned way -- with an extended, exclusive run in theaters -- they release other movies exclusively on streaming or in both places the same time.

Parrot doesn't measure viewership. Instead, it uses a range of data sources, including the number of IMDb reviews, level of piracy and social media appearances to assess how interested people are in a given title. This means its data on movies can't be used to predict how much money a title made.

But the movie demand score is one tool journalists can use to compare movies released in all kinds of ways — and companies can use to decide how to release a project in the first place.

The No. 1 movie in the world is…

"Minions: The Rise of Gru." The origin story of the super villain from the "Despicable Me" franchise grossed about $125 million in North America over the holiday weekend and has eclipsed $200 million worldwide.

The result should end the concerns that families won't come to theaters. They came for "Sonic". They came for "Minions." They didn't come for "Lightyear," but maybe that's because the movie wasn't very good.

The limits to Hollywood's support for abortion

The largest media, technology and telecommunications firms have all said they will pay for their employees to travel for an abortion if they live in a state where it's illegal.

But their support for abortion is limited, not unconditional. Major Hollywood studios continue to produce projects in Georgia or Louisiana, two production hotbeds that are also trying to ban abortion (or severely curtail its practice). Amazon, AT&T and Disney also continue to fund politicians who are trying to reduce access to abortion.

A college sports shocker

UCLA and USC, two of the most successful college sports programs in the US, are leaving the Pac-12 conference for the Big Ten. This is as much a media story as it is a sports story. College football conferences are realigning because there are hundreds of millions of dollars at stake in TV contracts. You can read more from Gerry Smith.

Half-year awards with The Town

Self-promotion alert: Matt Belloni and I gave out half-year awards on his podcast "The Town," to which you should subscribe. He also had producer Jason Blum on this week, which is a little more exciting than hearing me talk about Bad Bunny.

Deals, deals, deals

Disney re-upped CEO Bob Chapek despite months of reports suggesting his job was in jeopardy.
Talent agency CAA closed its deal for its smaller rival ICM Partners. The combined company has an enterprise value of $5 billion.
Malcolm Gladwell's podcast company signed a deal with A24 to turn its projects into films and TV shows.
TV station group Nexstar is going to buy 75% of The CW.
Songwriters are going to make more money from streaming services thanks to a new court ruling.

Please tell me you have heard the new Beyonce song, a house-inflected summer banger that I can't stop playing. Also, check out Usher on NPR's Tiny Desk series.

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