View Full Version : Urban vs. rural settings for TV series: trends over time


TMC
07-12-2019, 03:25 AM
The infamous "rural purge" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_purge) of the late 1960s-early '70s was part of a shift toward programming with more appeal to urban and suburban audiences.

Is anyone aware of any discussions or analyses of this phenomenon over a longer time period? Have there been any recent large-scale trends in the settings for TV series?

For example, according to this graph (https://imgur.com/a/Jdw8Ni5), from the 2000s to the 2010s, the proportion of shows set in large cities stayed relatively constant at 60%. However, the remainder of shows (those set in suburbs and small towns) flipped from being dominated by suburban shows (approx. 2:1 over rural) in the 2000s to being dominated by small town shows (approx. 3:1) over rural ones in the 2010s.

It seems like the trend of tax incentives in certain states and stricter regulations on city filming have made TV more rural today.