Why TV theme songs got so short

Ask anyone over forty to hum a TV theme and they will probably manage one from memory. Themes used to be long, catchy and played in full before every episode. Today many shows open with a title card lasting a few seconds, and some skip the idea entirely.

What happened

The skip button did to theme songs what the remote did to adverts.

When streaming services added a button to skip the intro, viewers pressed it, a lot. Some services now report that the majority of viewers skip openings within a few episodes of a series. Producers noticed, and shortened them.

What we lost, and what we gained

• Fewer themes become part of popular culture, because nobody hears them in full.

• Composers have less space for a memorable melody.

• Episodes start faster, which viewers clearly prefer.

• Some shows now treat the opening as an art project, different every week, so people choose not to skip.

The most interesting shows are finding a middle way: short, strange openings that change as the story develops. They are too brief to hum, but good enough that people stop reaching for the skip button.

The themes people still hum

Long themes have not vanished entirely. Some of the most successful recent series use full openings, and viewers watch them because they are genuinely good: carefully animated, full of clues about the story, and set to music worth hearing.

The lesson for makers seems to be that people will not sit through an intro out of habit any more. They will sit through one out of choice. That is a higher bar, but arguably a healthier one.

In the meantime, the old long themes live on in playlists, where millions of people listen to them with no show attached at all. The skip button took them off the screen and, in an odd way, turned them into songs.