![]() When Netflix announced it would be making its own content, it was poised as the heir to the prestige-TV boom. Networks like FX and AMC began to gamble on shows with the hallmarks of prestige television too.Īs a digital streamer, Netflix used the prestige-TV boom to drive cord-cutting consumers toward the platform, courting shows like Breaking Bad and Mad Men as a promotional tool. HBO was the leader of this development, freeing creators from content restrictions and ratings and encouraging them to follow longer arcs that could allow for more complicated character-driven storytelling that more closely resembles the cinematic look and feel of films.Īs the appetite grew for programming like HBO’s, networks began to invest heavily in shows like Lost, which at the time was the most expensive pilot ever made. Wider aspect ratios once relegated to movie theaters could be applied to episodic television, giving the appearance of a more sophisticated and cinematic program.Īll of this seemed the next logical step after the proliferation of “prestige television” in the late ’90s and early 2000s, mostly on cable where more risks could be taken. Season lengths and numbers of episodes needn’t adhere to conventions. ![]() Netflix knew that in order to keep subscriptions up, it needed to attract talented showrunners - whom, the company reasoned, might be lured with textual and aesthetic freedoms that conventional channels couldn’t offer. When Netflix first began making its own movies and series, its business model seemed to guarantee more creative freedom, which many saw as a promising positive influence on film and television. ![]() This model of perpetual growth will eventually yield diminishing financial returns, but by that point its effect on the aesthetic and storytelling of film and television may be impossible to reverse. In 2022, Netflix will release over 120 seasons of television. While Netflix and the other streamers it inspired can still release the occasional show with unconventional aesthetic and storytelling sensibilities, in general what they’ve done is created an assembly line of television shows of the same low quality that prestige television was intended to stand in contrast with - only now a single streamer will release far more shows than all the major networks combined. Unfortunately, the gold rush for each media conglomerate, inspired by Netflix, to create streaming services that produce their own content has not only recreated a more Byzantine system of streaming choices more expensive than a cable package, but it has largely abandoned the hassle of high-quality cinematic programming. At first the streamer-studio model was advertised as a new frontier for filmmakers who were otherwise left out of conventional television. The trouble became apparent when Netflix moved from merely distributing to actually producing its own original content. What they’ve done is created an assembly line of television shows of the same low quality that prestige television was intended to stand in contrast with. The freedom to customize one’s viewing experience was immediately embraced. People could consume more content, and content producers could reach more viewers. Then it became a digital streaming service that leveraged major syndicated television titles and films to be discovered and rewatched at one’s leisure. It was a convenient film-rental delivery service with no late fees for $5 a month, oftentimes offering more options than brick-and-mortar stores. But while this temperament has been good for the company’s bottom line, it hasn’t benefited film and television.įor consumers, Netflix’s initial innovations were an easy sell. Now as a studio in and of itself, the ethos of disruption remains. In the two decades since, Netflix has evolved from a distribution innovator to a digital streaming innovator. Blockbuster was unable to pivot away from brick and mortar, while Netflix exemplified the disruptive spirit of Web 2.0. As a result of the failed merger, the two became competitors - and Netflix’s victory was a foregone conclusion. There are few contemporary business blunders as notorious as Blockbuster’s parochial decision to pass on the opportunity to purchase Netflix in 2000.
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