1. More Original Programming
AMCUnless they began life as a specialty channel offering the likes of sports or music programming, most networks outside the American 'big four' and the core five British terrestrial channels spent much of the eighties, nineties and early noughties (following their establishments) airing repeats of established programmes. HBO, a network that had achieved success with boxing programming and original comedy such as the Larry Sanders Show, began a trend in 1997 with their airing of Oz, a gritty prison drama that set the bar high. It was followed by The Sopranos and The Wire, arguably the two greatest shows of all time, and many other networks soon began to follow suit and create their own original dramas, to the extent where almost every ongoing and recent American great airs on a network such as HBO, Showtime, AMC or FX. Here they are free from the constraints of 'family friendly' censorship, the constant need to achieve high ratings and the constricting requirement of having to churn out episode after episode to meet season quotas. That isn't saying that traditional networks no longer maintain a commitment to original programming, as the 'big four' still produce several hours of it per day whilst in Britain, the shows considered 'the best' have been or are still produced by the likes of the BBC and Channel 4, who have given us the likes of Life On Mars, Sherlock and Black Mirror in recent years. Reality shows are as contagious as ever, but people still flock to original stories in droves, and will continue to do so long as such stories continue to be written.