LOS ANGELES — Looking for laughs? New gut-busting comedies are getting harder to find on today’s television.

After an explosion of shows in the “Peak TV” era, Hollywood studios are reducing the number of series they release. Comedy has taken a bigger hit than drama, industry data show, and producers say a range of challenges has hindered bringing new comedies to the screen.

“In comedy, the bar has never been higher to get things made,” Mike Farah, former CEO of Funny Or Die and now an independent producer, said at a recent Producers Guild of America conference.

Last year’s TV offerings thinned when Hollywood writers and actors went on strike. After production ramped back up, the number of drama series premieres in 2024 rose 25% from a year earlier while comedy premieres fell by 7%, according to data from research firm Luminate. Those numbers may change by the end of the year.

Comedies have been a mainstay of TV since its inception. The Honeymooners and I Love Lucy entertained audiences in the 1950s. Viewers in the 1980s and ’90s were glued to shows such as Seinfeld, Friends, and Cheers.

Earlier this year, Seinfeld creator Jerry Seinfeld lamented the state of television comedy.

“It used to be, you would get home at the end of the day and most people would say, ‘oh Cheers is on. MASH is on. Mary Tyler Moore is on. All in the Family is on,” Mr. Seinfeld told the New Yorker magazine. “You just expected, ‘there’ll be some funny stuff we can watch on TV tonight.’ Well, guess what? Where is it?”

Mr. Seinfeld attributed the change to “the extreme left and PC crap and people worrying so much about offending other people.”

DRAMAS SPEAK TO GLOBAL AUDIENCE
Hollywood writers, producers, agents, and analysts pointed to other factors.

Many cited the rise of social media app TikTok, where people can watch short videos for free to get their comedy fix.

Moreover, today’s streaming services cater to global audiences, and it is harder to turn a comedy into a worldwide hit.

“There’s a wider preference for dramas amongst cross-market audiences on the international level, as comedy tends to be more culturally specific to each region,” said Mark Hoebich, executive vice-president and head of film and TV at Luminate.

As Hollywood endures cutbacks in search of profits, comedy is seen as riskier than other genres, writers and producers said.

“It’s really easy to pitch a plot to somebody. It’s really easy to say ‘and then there’s a murder,’” said Guy Branum, a writer on Emmy-winning comedy Hacks. “But pitching the things that make comedy — tone and voice and character — it’s hard. You have to trust the people to know what they’re doing.”

And as cable television has lost viewers, media companies have cut investments in channels such as Comedy Central, a vital testing ground for new comedy.

Plus, the types of comedy on TV have changed. The FX series The Bear runs for 30 minutes — the traditional run time for a comedy — and has won Emmys in comedy categories. Many see the show, about family dysfunction and the stresses of operating a restaurant, as more of a drama.

“I think comedy is going through a little bit of an identity crisis,” said producer Warren Littlefield, who developed classic sitcoms such as Cheers, Seinfeld, and The Golden Girls while he worked as an executive at NBC.

“The Bear comes along, and the audience, critics, everyone celebrates it,” Mr. Littlefield said. “Is it a pure comedy? I don’t know if it’s a pure comedy, but it’s damn good television, and I think that’s what that form, a half-hour form, is searching for.”

NETFLIX EXPANDS COMEDIC LINE-UP
Despite the industry-wide contraction, there are several comedy offerings on the TV schedule for this fall and next year.

Abbott Elementary, an Emmy nominee for best comedy, returns to ABC in October. NBC is touting St. Denis Medical, coming in November. CBS is promoting four comedies with the slogan “You’re Laughing at CBS.” Fox already has renewed its new animated comedy, Universal Basic Guys, for a second season.

Netflix, meanwhile, is bringing new shows from comedy luminaries such as A Man on the Inside starring Ted Danson, No Good Deed with Lisa Kudrow, and The Four Seasons featuring Tina Fey and Steve Carell. The streaming platform also offers a wide range of stand-up comedy specials.

Jean Smart, who just won her third Emmy for playing an ambitious stand-up comic on Hacks, said she believed audiences today were seeking darker comedies rather than more light-hearted ones, a change since she starred on Designing Women three decades ago.

“I do think people are craving comedy now more than ever,” Ms. Smart said. “I think people are feeling disheartened by the world a little bit, and who doesn’t want to laugh? It feels good.” — Reuters

LONDON — The British band The Cure released their first new music in 16 years on Thursday, the single “Alone,” and confirmed their long-awaited album would come out on Nov. 1.

The melancholic song, almost seven minutes long, is the first track from Songs of a Lost World, The Cure’s 14^th studio album. Their last, 4:13 Dream, was released in 2008.

The band had previewed songs from the new album during their Shows of a Lost World tour, opening shows with “Alone.”

“It’s the track that unlocked the record; as soon as we had that piece of music recorded, I knew it was the opening song, and I felt the whole album come into focus,” frontman Robert Smith said in a statement.

“I had been struggling to find the right opening line for the right opening song for a while, working with the simple idea of ‘being alone,’ always in the back of my mind this nagging feeling that I already knew what the opening line should be.”

Mr. Smith added that he had remembered the poem “Dregs” by Ernest Dowson after finishing recording “and that was the moment that I knew the song — and the album — were real.”

“Alone” begins with an over three-minute-long instrumental before Smith starts singing: “This is the end of every song that we sing / The fire burned out to ash and the stars grown dim with tears.”

He goes on to sing about “birds falling out of our skies,” “love falling out of our lives” as well as a “broken-voiced lament to call us home.”

Britain’s NME music publication called the song “epic and emotional” while the Guardian newspaper described it as “majestically wreathed in misery and despair,” giving it four out of five stars.

The Cure, who made their debut in the late 1970s and are known for their post-punk as well as darker melancholic tracks, had long teased a new album, with Mr. Smith revealing the Songs of a Lost World record title in 2022. — Reuters

SEOUL — K-pop star Suga, a member of the boy band supergroup BTS, has been fined 15 million won ($11,500) by a court for drunk driving while on an electric scooter.

A judge at the Seoul Western District Court issued the fine in a summary judgment made last week after his case was referred to the prosecution, a court official said on Monday.

In August, the songwriter and rapper made an apology for the incident calling it “careless and wrong behavior” with police also revoking his license for riding the e-scooter while drunk.

Suga rode the scooter and tripped when parking at night, according to his label Big Hit Music, which is part of K-pop firm HYBE. The label also said he failed a breath test to measure his blood alcohol level conducted by police.

Since announcing a break from group projects in June 2022, BTS members pursued solo activities before starting military service.

The 31-year-old Suga has been engaged in social service work in order to meet his military duty commitment.

The drunk driving incident is the latest example of K-pop performers sometimes falling short of their squeaky-clean image.

The case prompted some BTS fans upset by his action to send flower wreaths near HYBE headquarters, with messages on boards asking him to leave the band.

Those notified of summary judgments can apply for a regular trial within seven days to challenge the decision.

Suga’s label did not immediately respond to a request for comment. — Reuters