system that allowed only linear HBO subscribers access. Then, in April, the sports giant ESPN rebranded its ESPN 360 service as ESPN3 and by October established an agreement with Time Warner Cable that allowed subscribers full access to ESPN on computers, then mobile phones in April 2011. Finally, in November 2010, Comcast offered its Xfinity TV app for the iPad, which was followed by Time Warner’s TV Anywhere application in early 2011, and the efforts of other MVPDs to allow subscribers to access the content available on their living room set through other devices and in other locations through authentication soon followed.
The fall of 2010 marks the beginning of what I categorize as the “Netflix Surge”: a period during which Netflix presented a much more disruptive—though short-lived—model for broadband-distributed, nonlinear television. In the fall of 2010, Netflix began offering a streaming-only service and, by many measures, provided top-tier content: it featured the content of the subscription network Starz and other licenses achieved at low rates before license holders realized the potential of the service. Netflix’s quick subscriber gains—reported in frenetic blog-era trade press accounts—inspired and fueled unreasonable anxiety about cord cutting, and soon the acronym OTT (over-the-top) began appearing to acknowledge concerns that cable subscribers would use Netflix and other broadband streaming and downloading distribution services as an alternative to cable subscriptions. Certainly, emerging Internet use figures, such as that nearly 25 percent of all evening Internet traffic was Netflix use, were noteworthy,41 but given that Netflix traffic and all that streaming and downloading were, for the most part, traveling through “tubes” provided by the same MVPDs who also provided cable service, the level of anxiety seemed excessive.42
Table 2.2. Key Developments in the Transition to Nonlinear Television
| 2005 June | YouTube launches. |
| 2005 October | iTunes announces $1.99 downloads. |
| 2008 January | Netflix offers unlimited streaming plan. |
| 2009 | Hulu becomes culturally relevant. It doubles its content library, adds Disney as a partner, and by October 2009, has over 855 million video views. |
| 2010 February | HBO GO launches. |
| Late 2010–early 2011 | Major strides in TV Everywhere: Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Cablevision release authenticated apps for iPad. |
| 2011–2012 | Smartphone use expands from 30 to 56 percent of the mobile phone market. |
| MVPD-provided VOD becomes increasingly robust. Begins offering most recent five episodes of original cable and many broadcast series. | |
| 2013 February | Netflix releases full season of House of Cards. |
| 2013 May | Netflix releases full season of Arrested Development. |
| 2013 October | Comcast announces package allowing viewers access to HBO with Internet and limited basic TV subscription. |
It should have been clear to anyone with a background in television economics and distribution that between the cost of renegotiating their content with the expanded subscriber base and the unlikely ability of circa 2010 Internet infrastructure to accommodate growth of Netflix beyond a niche, the Netflix Surge would flame out quickly. Netflix investors went on a wild ride in 2011, with stock prices rising to a high of $298.73 on July 13, 2011, and the service achieved a subscriber base of 24.59 million in the United States at the end of June 2011.43 By the end of September 2011, the service made missteps, announcing a splitting of the by-mail and streaming service in what was effectively a doubling of cost to consumers and lost 800,000 U.S. subscribers, which was most significant for its deviation from high quarterly subscriber gains, and sent the stock price falling to $113.27.44 But this doesn’t diminish Netflix’s contribution to inaugurating a post-network era, and by many measures the service had recovered by 2014. The Netflix Surge was crucial for offering more than a hypothetical thought experiment of how post-network television might operate. It had significant ramifications in pushing MVPDs to innovate to avoid disaggregation of content and presented viewers with a usable interface and the nonlinear tools of recommendation engines and queuing, which helped fuel viewer desire for better nonlinear alternatives.
Netflix and MVPD services’ TV Everywhere initiatives are addressed in greater detail in chapter 4’s exploration of changes in television distribution. Key to the discussion of the convenience of portable television here is the role Netflix played in enabling audiences to consider laptops and tablets “television screens.” Netflix, perhaps more than any other entity, disrupted the long acculturated sense that television content should be viewed on a television set. Similar to the rabid TiVo fandom that permeated the popular culture of those of a privileged habitus in the early 2000s, Netflix again captured pent-up demand for a different kind of television experience, and for a few months, suggested a new world of television. The realities of television economics and the fact that Netflix—at this point a quintessential middleman—owned neither content beyond a handful of shows nor the connection into the home made apparent that Netflix was unlikely to overtake those who produced content or could deliver to audiences, but it could force revolution on those who did.
Matters of Time: Breaking from the Linear Schedule
By increasing asynchronous viewing, convenience technologies expanded the audience fragmentation and social polarization that preliminary choice and control technologies had already enabled during the multi-channel transition. Whether DVR owners who reschedule viewing on their own terms, viewers who wait several months to purchase full-season DVDs, or those who stream shows via VOD or Netflix, users of convenience technologies have come to select their own viewing conditions, including the crucial one of time. The resulting temporal fragmentation may seem comparably insignificant relative to other adjustments—such as the fragmentation of viewers among a multiplicity of channels—but it has had important implications in disabling the coterminous circulation of television within the culture, which significantly changed the way television operated as a conduit of cultural discussion. Beginning in 2004, feature articles in the popular press recounted the trend of audience members waiting until a full season of a series was available on DVD and then watching the full season at a self-determined pace.45 Rachel Rebibo, a DVD owner who preferred this viewing experience, explained, “With a DVD player, I can set my schedule and turn it off anytime. It’s my choice.”46 Another DVD viewer, Gord Lacy, offered, “I loved West Wing. I watched eight episodes in one night. I had only ever seen the pilot, and I’m Canadian watching a show about a U.S. President.”47 Those who turned to DVDs for control began changing the television viewing experience, and many who left the linear world for prized content, aimed never to return. By 2011, the ease of streaming full seasons of programs though Netflix or by accessing increasingly robust VOD caches of programming offered further tools to those willing to wait in order to obtain greater control of their viewing.
But until 2012, viewers made the personal choice to defer viewing until they could amass a stock that would permit favored pacing—distributors still released content in weekly intervals of individual episodes. Once it ventured into content creation, Netflix defied the model of weekly episode release and made available all of the episodes of the first “season” of its original series Lilyhammer simultaneously, a strategy it reproduced with much greater notice when releasing House of Cards in February 2013. Netflix suggested a possible future in which viewers would not have to wait for a linear, weekly delivery of content. The premiere of House of Cards generated extensive debate about the economic and cultural merits and consequences of this release strategy, and despite the voluminous commentary, reflection on the
