How TV's golden age could come to an end

If this is truly the golden age of television, as critics have proclaimed it to be, enjoy it while it lasts. So says Salon writer Andrew Leonard, who joins Jian from California to explain how industry-shaking mergers, U.S. Federal Communications Commission rulings and millennial consumers' cord-cutting habits could hasten the end of an era of great TV programming.

"We're talking about these big dramas that have really caught the national attention," Leonard says.

A la carte viewing is becoming the trend, in which consumers no longer want to shell out for bundled packages.

"[Consumers] want what they want," Leonard says. "They might not care about ESPN. They don't see the reason why they should be paying for 200 channels if they don't care about sports. 'I just wanna be able to pay...forGame of Thrones.'

Great TV costs a lot of money to produce, however, and Leonard argues in his Salon piece that the creative types behind this programming are getting a "smaller piece of a shrinking pie."