After Its Latest Cancellation, TCA Gets Caught in Hollywood’s Biggest Problems
Among TV’s annual traditions, January and February are typically defined by splashy headlines, breaking news tweets and insider jokes about not clapping in the ballroom. That’s all thanks to the Television Critics Association, a non-profit group of roughly 200 journalists from the U.S. and Canada who assemble in the winter and the summer to preview and report on new shows.
But for the second time in two years, TCA has canceled one of its tours, a decision that had nothing to do with the ongoing Los Angeles fires, but rather retrenchment within the industry that may bode poorly for the event’s future, at least in its current iteration.
The cancellation of the winter 2025 tour came about due to ongoing contraction in Hollywood. “As we talked to people, it just wasn’t enough to sustain a whole tour,” Jacqueline Cutler, president of TCA and a freelance journalist whose byline has appeared in The Daily Beast and New York Daily News, told TheWrap. Previously, the tour was cancelled in the winter of 2008 due to the WGA strike and in the summer of 2023 due to SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes.
The COVID-19 pandemic, two industry-disrupting strikes and massive changes in both the media and television landscapes have created pressure on all sides of TCA, transforming this niche organization into a microcosm for nearly every complicated problem about modern TV journalism.
The five TCA members and three TV publicity veterans of multiple press tours who spoke with TheWrap for this article all emphasized the same points: TCA should continue, but it can’t do so effectively in its current form. Although they see value in the tour — both for journalists and network publicity departments — they acknowledge that additional changes are necessary to make it worthwhile and economically efficient, including leveraging technology such as virtual presentations and a shorter event.
A longstanding TV tradition
Since its founding in 1979, TCA has been enshrined among the annual events in the television calendar, along with the upfront in New York aimed at the advertising industry. Every winter and summer, networks parade their stars and showrunners to a hotel ballroom full of journalists who are allowed to ask anything during roughly 45-minute panels. During those two weeks, the sharp lines between press, PR and celebrity soften as TCA members network with publicists (and each other) and grab free candy alongside stars, garnering key interviews it would typically take months to book.
Traditionally, it’s been a mutually beneficial relationship creating buzz for shows that may have otherwise been ignored and helping journalists develop connections. In more recent years, though, the big-city newspapers that once populated TCA have undergone major layoffs, and the nature of the press that attend is scattered more among niche-oriented websites.
“There definitely was a time when it was relevant and useful, but I unfortunately think that time has passed,” an insider who used to work in cable but has since moved to new media told TheWrap.
“I had always wanted to be in TCA since I was like 15 or 16,” Tamara Fuentes, a TCA member and entertainment editor at Cosmopolitan, told TheWrap. When she finally joined the organization, she noticed a “disconnect” between both its traditional media and new media members as well as how the organizations operated alongside networks. “[Networks] are like, ‘What truly are we… getting out of this?’”
“I know Hollywood has had a miserable couple of years, and so has the media, but it’s an important organization, and we really are moving forward,” Cutler said. “I believe in what TCA is. It’s not like it’s died and I’m reflecting on it. I’ve been at newspapers’ morgues. They’re horrible, and that happens when they’re not in existence anymore. TCA is very much in existence.”
Headaches before and after COVID
Many point to COVID-19 as a major turning point for the organization, but TCA was dealing with its own identity crisis well before then.
In the mid-2010s, as newspaper staffs dwindled, TCA started opening its membership to include more freelancers and journalists from digital publications. Last year, the Washington Post reported that, since 2000, the number of newspaper reporters and editors has dropped by 56% and 63%, respectively. TCA opening its doors was nothing new to the organization, which went through a similar process when its newspaper-focused members expanded to magazine writers decades ago. But opening the organization to bloggers came with challenges.
Many longtime members who had full-time jobs covering television wanted TCA to continue as it always had, while newer members sought greater flexibility, like virtual press options. As having full-time writing jobs became more of a rarity due to layoffs and downsizing in media, committing to an expensive multiple-week schedule of press conferences was a tall order for some freelancers.
Then there were the panels themselves. Because of the intense competition of the digital media landscape, it became common for journalists to break news in the room either through writeups or via Twitter (now called X). This intensity started to spook networks that didn’t want their executives or talent to become a social-media laughingstock, raising the PR risk of the live event.
And because networks and streaming services foot the bill for TCA, the entire premise for the gathering is on shaky ground if they don’t think the goodwill it engenders among the press is worth the investment.
That in turn frustrated older TCA members who didn’t want to lose access to top TV figures who were notoriously difficult to interview and felt as if they were losing stories from the room they would have saved to run later.
Those worries were still in the air on Jan. 19, the last day of the 2020 winter tour. Two months later, the U.S. declared a state of emergency due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The next four TCA tours were all held virtually, a necessary shift that led many in the industry to re-evaluate what exactly they were paying for.
“To be honest, you probably got around the same headlines, and your cost was a lot less,” a network PR person told TheWrap about virtual press tour.
That same insider noted a typical press tour is “really expensive.” Putting on just four or five panels often requires shutting down productions, flying in talent, paying for lodging as well as hair and makeup and spending money on an afterparty. That’s without the extras networks often throw in to keep critics excited throughout the day — distributing show swag and coffee stations are often favorites, but they can be as extravagant as massage appointments or personalized calligraphy. “You’re talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
Still, networks eager to generate free media to promote their new and returning shows could justify the cost, especially when the TV business was flush.
“I honestly was a little bit surprised that they wanted to try to go back to in-person, because I thought the virtual stuff worked,” the new-media publicist said.
The virtual press tour also revealed exactly who was participating in TCA’s panel discussions. One person who was part of the tour on the network side called the experience “really enlightening,” noting that questions came from “such random people.” The same network executive also noticed a decrease in “banked” stories, the act of not publishing a story until it’s closer to a show’s premiere date, yielding less bang for their promotional bucks.
“We didn’t really feel like, outside of that day, there was coverage that was a result of our talent participating in TCA,” the network executive said.
The current benefits of the press tour
Despite the cost issues, every member and TV professional TheWrap spoke to emphasized the event’s value from a networking perspective.
“I’m going to help you more if I can put a face to the name,” a network PR person acknowledged.
Being part of the Television Critics Association also acts as its own stamp of approval in the industry. Cutler noted it’s not uncommon for agents or network representatives to call her and ask if she’s heard of a specific journalist while they’re evaluating who to invite to certain events and press days. “They trust you. Really, I don’t think there’s a substitute for that,” Cutler said.
Another aspect of the tour, the annual presentation of the TCA Awards, has been particularly embraced by talent, in part because it possesses a more intimate tone than other industry award events, combined with the sense that critics can be a tough audience.
“The talent is really appreciative of that, because they know getting an award from a critic is not easy to do,” a network PR person said.
Participating in the tour also means there’s a possibility your show can benefit from having a group of journalists championing its success. That was the case for critical darlings like The CW’s “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,” Sundance Channel’s “Rectify” and FX’s “The Americans.” For marginal series, such support can play a pivotal role in whether a show gets renewed.
Journalists also maintain there’s a public good in forcing executives to face and address tough questions. During the summer of 2024, many members confronted “The Bachelor” producers about the show’s controversial history when it comes to race. In 2015, FX network head John Landgraf told journalist Maureen Ryan he wanted the network’s diversity to improve after FX was called out for having no directors of color during that TV season. Since then, FX has taken care to keep track of and provide its own diversity report, a network re-prioritization effort that lead to FX investing in such innovative shows as “Atlanta” and “Reservation Dogs.”
Though none of the writers TheWrap interviewed said they knew whether their membership helped them with employment, Fuentes said it matters to her as an editor, seeing TCA membership as a form of validation.
TCA’s uncertain future
Some networks have already withdrawn from the event. After being a staple of press tour for years, HBO started to host its own press days in 2024. At the moment, the network does not have any immediate plans to return to the TCA lineup, an insider familiar with the matter told TheWrap. Netflix, which participated in TCA in 2018, has also been hosting its own press events for years, the most well known of which is Geeked Week.
If more networks and services follow suit, that could turn into a death knell for TCA, at least as TV’s old-timers knew it.
For now the summer tour is continuing as planned. “Meetings are ongoing,” Cutler said. “As far as I know, everyone said they were coming back.”
Although TCA will continue, what form that may take is uncertain. Panel diversification is something the organization is discussing, meaning major shows like FX’s “Shōgun” would get main-stage treatment, while more niche offerings could be presented at smaller sessions. Such a format would allow the tour to better cater to today’s diverse TV climate and membership base, while still giving journalists access to panels about which they’re passionate.
“I’ve been talking about different ways to do it, because not everyone needs to be at every session,” Cutler said. “Not every session needs to be rows with the talent facing us and blinding lights.”
“None of us hate TCA. We all really love it,” Fuentes said. “It’s just that a lot of things are going against it right now, which is unfortunate.”
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