Around 2010, Dick Wolf’s vast television empire was suddenly coming undone.
First, NBC abruptly canceled his network mainstay, “Law & Order,” which had been on the air for two decades, a move that stunned Mr. Wolf’s small production company. A year later, two “Law & Order” spinoffs were unceremoniously shown the door. All that was left was “Law & Order: SVU,” a relatively slim slate for a company that prized multiple lines of revenue and that had made Mr. Wolf a very rich man. After all, Mr. Wolf has repeated a mantra for decades: “No show, no business.”
“It was a little tight there for a minute,” said Peter Jankowski, Mr. Wolf’s longtime No. 2.
The TV industry was migrating away from a decades-old staple that had made Mr. Wolf a dominant figure in prime-time viewing: the close-ended “procedural.” That popular genre of programming presented a conflict and a tidy resolution — generally in a courtroom, hospital or police precinct — all within an hour’s time (including commercials).
Instead, streaming outlets like Netflix, Amazon and Hulu were beginning to take flight, prestige TV (“It’s not TV, it’s HBO”) was ascendant, and complex, quirky, serialized programming was all the rage. Farewell, “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 adieu to the Peak TV era, Mr. Wolf’s style of programming is coming back into vogue. The evidence is everywhere: Year after year, repeats of years-old network standbys like “Criminal Minds,” “NCIS” or “Grey’s Anatomy” populate Nielsen’s most-watched streaming shows, even as the studios spend tens of millions on grittier, more cinematic fare. Older series like “Suits,” “Prison Break” or “Young Sheldon” became unexpected hits over the last year when they began streaming on Netflix. Vulture recently declared “Network TV Is Officially Back.”