Data Underload  /  , ,

Television Genres Over Time

By Nathan Yau

IMDb catalogs television episodes with up to three genres. Here’s how the distribution of genres has changed since 1945, when there were only a few shows available, up to present day, when there are more shows any human could ever need.

Prints are available for a limited time in the FlowingData Shop.

Comedy and drama (and combinations including them) still set the foundation, but reality TV, news, and talk shows make up a larger share than they used to.

Below are the individual genres split up, which makes it easier to see rising and falling patterns. Again, television episodes can have more than one genre, so the sum of the values below won’t sum to 100 percent.

 

To be honest, I haven’t watched actual TV shows in years. I’m mostly a basketball and cooking videos type of a guy, but this seems about right? There sure are a lot news and talk shows. Maybe let westerns have another chance.

Chart Types Used

Area ChartStacked Area Chart

Become a member. Support an independent site. Make great charts.

See What You Get

Favorites

All the Household Types in the U.S.

No need to restrict ourselves to the most common types. There are thousands. Let’s look at all of them.

Finding the New Age, for Your Age

You’ve probably heard the lines about how “40 is the new 30” or “30 is the new 20.” What is this based on? I tried to solve the problem using life expectancy data. Your age is the new age.

The Most Gender-Switched Names in US History

We use some names mostly for boys and some mostly for girls, but then there is a small percentage that, over time, switched from one gender to another. Which names made the biggest switch?

Causes of Death

There are many ways to die. Cancer. Infection. Mental. External. This is how different groups of people died over the past 10 years, visualized by age.