I think it's probably more related to the move to HDR content. Modern movies/tv are shot and edited with HDR in mind. HDR usually has much more granular control

I think it's probably more related to the move to HDR content. Modern movies/tv are shot and edited with HDR in mind. HDR usually has much more granular control over the brightness within a scene, not just that one part can get super bright. That's great for people with TV's capable of that type of playback, but for everyone else, tough luck unless you have a blacked-out home theatre room to watch all you casual TV in. I saw a great example of this in a recent LTT video[0] of a cheap "HDR" TV. The shadows all blended together and the highlights just looked like a flat white instead of a very lightly shadowed sparkle. 0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGHwYMwXX88 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGHwYMwXX88