The CW Was the Only Major Network to Win a Golden Globe Last Night

With her Best Actress in a Comedy TV Series win last night, Jane the Virgin’s Gina Rodriguez gave the major broadcast networks their one and only Golden Globe award. And since the show airs on The CW, that meant ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox all left empty-handed.

The shut-out for what are ostensibly America’s biggest television channels is not unprecedented. Two years ago, during the 70th annual Golden Globes, those big four networks also failed to bring home any awards with Showtime’s Homeland and HBO’s Girls taking home the big prizes for Best Drama and Comedy shows as well as the major acting awards. In the TV movie/mini-series categories, HBO’s Game Change won three out of four awards. Like this year, when Downton Abbey’s Joanne Froggatt won Best Supporting Actress, 2013 also saw one win for PBS, in that same category for that show’s Maggie Smith.

Then, last year, broadcast made a bit of a comeback, thanks to some unexpected love for Fox’s Brooklyn 99, which won Best Comedy and Best Actor for Andy Samberg before failing to secure any nominations this year. Amy Poehler also scored her first win for Parks and Recreation, but this year was denied even a nomination, despite what you may have heard from Matt Lauer.

At least over the last three years, there has been a noticeable decline in nominations for the broadcast networks. In 2013, thanks to praise for widely-watched shows like Modern Family and The Big Bang Theory, the big networks combined got a total of 15 nominations (those two shows each had zero nominations this year). The next year, that number was up slightly to 17 and this year it was down to just eight. And two of those were for The CW’s Jane the Virgin (the other three were for CBS’ The Good Wife, which did not get any wins).

Of course, the big trend that has corresponded with this cratering of support for network shows is the rise of streaming. This year, Amazon’s utterly unique Transparent took home two awards for Best Comedy and Best Actor in a Comedy for Jeffrey Tambor while Kevin Spacey won Best Actor in a Drama for Neflix’s House of Cards. The year before had one “streaming” win for House of Cards’ Robin Wright while the year before that had zero.

The idea that cable, and now streaming services, are replacing the broadcast networks as the go-to platforms for quality content is nothing new. But after this year’s Golden Globe Awards, that trend is more apparent that ever. And if ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox are ever going to get back in the mix, they are going to have to come up with something better than what they’ve got — or at least something as decent as Jane the Virgin.

Watch Rodriguez accept her award below, via NBC:

[Photo via screengrab]

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This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.