Around 2010, Dick Wolf’s vast television empire suddenly collapses.
First, NBC abruptly canceled its flagship network, “Law & Order,” which had been on the air for two decades, a move that surprised Mr. Wolf. A year later, two “Law & Order” spinoffs were unceremoniously shown the door. All that was left was “Law & Order: SVU,” a relatively thin paper for a company that was awarded multiple lines of revenue and that had made Mr. Wolf a very rich man. After all, Mr. Wolff has repeated a mantra for decades: “No show, no work.”
“It was a little tight there for a minute,” said Peter Jankowski, the longtime No. 2 of Mr. Wolf.
The television industry was moving away from a decades-old staple that had made Mr. Wolfe a dominant figure in prime-time television: the closed-circuit “procedural.” This popular genre of programming featured a conflict and an orderly resolution — generally in a courtroom, hospital or police station — all within an hour (including commercials).
Instead, streaming outlets like Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu took off, prestige TV (“It’s not TV, it’s HBO”) was on the rise, and complex, quirky, serialized programming was all the rage. Goodbye, “CSI” and “Law & Order”? hello, “The Crown” and “Big Little Lies.”
Well, that was then.
In recent years, as Hollywood studios have slashed budgets and bid farewell to the era of Peak TV, Mr. Wolf is back in fashion. The evidence is everywhere: Year after year, reruns of years-long network waits like “Criminal Minds,” “NCIS” or “Grey’s Anatomy” take over Nielsen’s most popular streaming shows, even as studios spend tens of millions on more tough, more cinematic fare. Older series like “Suits”, “Prison Break” or “Young Sheldon” became unexpected hits in the last year when they started streaming on Netflix. Vulture recently stated that Network TV is officially returning.
