At the 2009 Emmy awards, host Neil Patrick Harris reprised his role as Dr. Horrible from the three-part-musical Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along-Blog (iTunes, 2008). This had been written and directed by Joss Whedon during the 2007–2008 Hollywood writer’s strike and distributed via iTunes as a webseries, bypassing traditional broadcasting systems. In the Emmy sketch, Dr. Horrible threatens that online series will take over television, effectively replacing the industry present at the event. Dr. Horrible’s nemesis Captain Hammer (Nathan Fillion), however, states: “Don’t worry, America. I’ve mastered this internet and I’m here to tell you: it’s nothing but a fad! TV is here to stay! […] People will always need big, glossy, shiny, gloss-covered entertainment. And Hollywood will be there to provide it. Like the Ottoman empire , the music industry and Zima, we’re here to stay. Musical villains, piano-playing cats, they’re a flash in the pan!”. Much like Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog itself can be read as a deliberate protest against the television industry in times of bitter conflict, the sketch points to the threats online video services pose to traditional industry structures. Even though it pokes fun at online video’s frequent need for buffering, Captain Hammer’s short-sighted view of the internet is a jibe against the television industry ’s unpreparedness for the competition through online streaming services. Only four years later, the Emmy awards included three nominations for House of Cards (Netflix , 2013–) and one nomination for the Netflix -produced season 4 of Arrested Development (Fox, 2003–6; Netflix , 2013–).
2007, the year before Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog was released on iTunes, was the year the BBC iPlayer was launched in the UK, a major signal that television would soon move online. It is also the point Michael Curtin pinpoints as a moment when some of the enormous shifts that currently dominate television first occurred: In the United States, Nielsen introduced ratings for advertisements in light of widespread DVR use. There was also growing competition from the video game industry , culminating in the 2007–2008 Hollywood writer’s strike, which compromised US television schedules significantly:
Interestingly, intermedia rights were the key point of disagreement between the networks and the writers during the strike, with the latter arguing for a share in revenues earned via new delivery systems. (Curtin 2009, 10)
Though this kind of conflict is not unprecedented, it suggests how important the different publication platforms and formats had already become. These shifts signalled television’s move onto other screens, publication models and industry structures. Discussing online-distributed television in the United States, Amanda Lotz pinpoints the moment of change in 2010, arguing that “this year marks a significant turning point because of developments that year that made internet distribution technology more useable” (2017, location 302). The specific moment could also be located in late 2012, when Netflix started to publish ‘Netflix Originals’, acquiring exclusive international licensing rights to Lilyhammer (NRK, 2012–) which had previously only been shown in Norway, and getting involved in the production as co-producer of the series. The following year would see Netflix publish its first in-house productions, House of Cards , Hemlock Grove (Netflix , 2013–15), Orange is the New Black (Netflix , 2013–), and season 4 of Arrested Development . This set the scene for what the industry calls OTT (Over The Top) broadcasting. As with any era, it may be difficult—even impossible—to locate an exact moment of change. Yet, we can notice that the media industry , and what we define as television, has changed with the increased possibilities of online streaming . It is also impossible to pinpoint a specific organisation that drove this change: YouTube , the BBC, Hulu , iTunes, Netflix , as well as others, played a part, but none of them is more ‘responsible’ for shifts in our understanding of television than the others. Furthermore, these changes all take place at different paces with different emphases in varying national media systems . The US television industry was hardly as ill-prepared for the coming shifts as the Dr. Horrible sketch at the Emmys suggests. At the time , it was working to implement some changes itself. Particularly the American Hulu , a catch-up service which unites programmes from Fox, NBC and ABC can be viewed as trying different changes together. It later also proved well equipped to offer its own original content, from Farmed and Dangerous (Hulu , 2013), its earliest production, to the critical and commercial hit The Handmaid’s Tale (Hulu , 2017–). In the UK, the BBC iPlayer offered viewers the option to self-schedule television online, the position of the BBC as Public Service Broadcasting (PSB) allowing for ad-free programming. The BBC certainly managed to set a standard for other PSBs in Europe, which soon followed to build their own online presences.
The competition ultimately posed by Netflix , once it started producing its own original programming, was difficult to foresee. This is not to argue that the OTT broadcasting industry is the cause for all of television’s troubles, as Lotz (2014) describes in some detail. But the advent of Netflix and Amazon original programming certainly poses a challenge to existing media conglomerates that hoped to be able to dictate changes. As it is, Netflix , previously an online DVD-rental service and unconnected to the large media conglomerates that dominate media worldwide, became a powerful player in the reorganisation of what television is. Other companies quickly followed its example by providing original ‘quality’ TV as well as licensed programming without ad breaks in exchange for monthly or (in the case of Amazon) annual subscriptions. Netflix also quickly expanded globally, to some extent challenging the power of international conglomerates even more.
Netflix and the Re-invention of Television focusses on Netflix as a dominant challenger to linear television , viewing practices, nationalised media systems and established concepts of what television is. Many media companies have met the challenges posed by Netflix and formulated responses: They have produced revivals of ‘cult’ TV, such as new seasons of The X-Files (Fox, 1993–2003, 2016–) or Twin Peaks: The Return (Showtime, 2017–); they have built their own sophisticated streaming systems; or they have adjusted licensing and publication models, so that viewers outside of the United States can access new episodes quickly after they have aired. Yet, Netflix has been at the forefront of all these developments: It revived Arrested Development in 2013, it constructed a sophisticated algorithm to nudge viewers towards specific choices; and it published content online on the same date in all countries where it is available. It quickly recognised binge-watching as a way to promote itself and its original content, it understood that television content is no longer inherently tied to the television set and it established itself as transnational broadcaster. Netflix is a driving force in changing how television is organised and will be organised in the future. It has proven truly remarkable in the way it has reorganised what television is and how television viewing is structured. Still, it can be argued that many of these developments are changes that television was undergoing anyway, as signalled by technological and industrial developments as well as changes in viewer behaviour (see Lotz 2014). Yet, Netflix accelerated many developments. It also managed to pose a challenge to established media conglomerates while positioning streaming not as an alternative to television, but as television. This is not to say that it overhauled how power within this industry is organised, but that it managed to position itself alongside other powerful players.
Netflix and the Re-invention of Television
Considering its mode of delivery via broadband internet and the fact that Netflix is often received via laptops or other devices, it is worth questioning whether Netflix can be considered television at all. Netflix is clearly not broadcast television. The ‘liveness’ of television has often been argued to be a central characteristic of the medium, particularly in its early years. Network television in a pos...