With New Amazon Prime Show ‘On Call,’ Dick Wolf Enters Streaming

[ad_1] Round 2010, Dick Wolf’s huge tv empire was abruptly coming undone.

First, NBC abruptly canceled his community mainstay, “Legislation & Order,” which had been on the air for twenty years, a transfer that surprised Mr. Wolf’s small manufacturing firm. A yr later, two “Legislation & Order” spinoffs have been unceremoniously proven the door. All that was left was “Legislation & Order: SVU,” a comparatively slim slate for a corporation that prized a number of traces of income and that had made Mr. Wolf a really wealthy man. In spite of everything, Mr. Wolf has repeated a mantra for many years: “No present, no enterprise.”

“It was a bit tight there for a minute,” mentioned Peter Jankowski, Mr. Wolf’s longtime No. 2.

The TV trade was migrating away from a decades-old staple that had made Mr. Wolf a dominant determine in prime-time viewing: the close-ended “procedural.” That widespread style of programming offered a battle and a tidy decision — typically in a courtroom, hospital or police precinct — all inside an hour’s time (together with commercials).

As a substitute, streaming shops like Netflix, Amazon and Hulu have been starting to take flight, status TV (“It’s not TV, it’s HBO”) was ascendant, and complicated, quirky, serialized programming was all the craze. Farewell, “CSI” and “Legislation & Order”; good day, “The Crown” and “Large Little Lies.”

Properly, that was then.

In recent times, as Hollywood studios have slashed budgets and bid adieu to the Peak TV period, Mr. Wolf’s fashion of programming is coming again into vogue. The proof is in every single place: 12 months after yr, repeats of years-old community standbys like “Felony Minds,” “NCIS” or “Gray’s Anatomy” populate Nielsen’s most-watched streaming exhibits, even because the studios spend tens of tens of millions on grittier, extra cinematic fare. Older collection like “Fits,” “Jail Break” or “Younger Sheldon” turned sudden hits over the past yr once they started streaming on Netflix. Vulture lately declared “Community TV Is Formally Again.”