Image: Veep, HBO
It’s not obvious whether or not we would expect audiences to have higher demand for scripted political content around elections. On the one hand a majority of people aren’t political junkies and only seriously tune in to national political news around election season. It is not hard to imagine people seeking out fictionalized content on the back of this as a way of processing real world events. On the flip side it is equally plausible, given the non-stop coverage and political ads during election season, that people might already have had their fill of political content and could avoid fictionalized political stories.
The last presidential election year in 2020, the share of audience demand for scripted political shows (ie. not factual news coverage) peaked in April at around 1.6% of demand for all scripted series. It then fell throughout the summer and only saw a slight uptick in the two months before the election at the beginning of November.
2021 was a year of deflating enthusiasm for scripted political content overall. Following the 2020 election, the share of demand for scripted political shows fell steadily and reached a new low in January 2022 when political shows accounted for less than 1% of demand for all scripted series. The genre has not regained this lost ground and has hovered around a 1% share of demand in the two and a half years since.
We have seen a similar pattern as 2020 play out this year - an uptick in demand in March followed by a summertime dropoff. However, Americans’ share of attention for scripted political shows has not come anywhere close to the the level it was during the last presidential election cycle.
While demand for scripted political content as a whole might not fluctuate much with the political seasons, individual shows stand out as exceptions. “The West Wing” is a notable case that has seen clear spikes in demand around the last three election cycles (even the 2022 midterms). “Veep” has seen a surge in demand over the last few months, likely driven by uncanny parallels between the plot of that show and recent political events.
“Hillbilly Elegy,” while not a political drama, reached a higher level of demand following the selection of its author, J.D. Vance, as Donald Trump’s running mate than even during its original premiere on Netflix in 2020. While individual shows may be able to ride the waves of the political news cycle, it looks like it is harder for scripted political dramas and comedies in general to compete for the public’s attention over the last few years when life has been imitating art.
