Netflix and the Re-invention of Television

295 Pages·2018·2.7 MB·English

by  Mareike Jenner

Mareike Jenner
Netflix & the
Re-invention
of Television
Netflix and the Re-invention of Television
Mareike Jenner
Netflix and the
Re-invention of
Television
Mareike Jenner
Anglia Ruskin University
Cambridge, UK
ISBN 978-3-319-94315-2 ISBN 978-3-319-94316-9 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94316-9
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018946158
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018
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A
cknowledgements
First of all, I would like to thank Lina Aboujieb, the editor of this book
and her assistant Ellie Freedman, for their support throughout the
development of this book. I am also indebted to the peer reviewers for
their insightful comments to help develop this project.
This research would not have been possible without the consistent
support of friends and colleagues, such as Matt Hills, Tanya Horeck,
Glen Creeber, Stephanie Jones, Lisa Richards and others.
I would also like to thank my family for their ongoing support as well
as Sandra, Christina, Judith and Laura, without whom none of this is
possible.
v
c
ontents
1 Introduction: Netflix and the Re-invention of Television 1
Part I Controlling Television: TV’s Ancillary Technologies
2 Introduction: Control, Power, Television 35
3 Managing Choice, Negotiating Power: Remote Controls 47
4 New Regimes of Control: Television as Convergence
Medium 69
5 Digital Television and Control 89
Part II Binge-Watching and the Re-invention of Control
6 Introduction: Binge-Watching Netflix 109
7 Scheduling the Binge 119
8 ‘Quality’, ‘Popular’ and the Netflix Brand:
Negotiating Taste 139
vii
viii CoNTENTS
9 Netflix Marketing: The Binge and Diversity 161
Part III Netflix and the Re-invention of Transnational
Broadcasting
10 Introduction: Netflix as Transnational Broadcaster 185
11 The Transnational, the National and Television 199
12 The Transnational and Domestication: Netflix Texts 219
13 The Netflix Audience 241
Part IV Conclusion
14 Conclusion 263
Bibliography 271
Index 293
CHAPTER 1
Introduction: Netflix and the Re-invention
of Television
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 dur-
ing 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 bit-
ter conflict, the sketch points to the threats online video services pose to
traditional industry structures. Even though it pokes fun at online vid-
eo’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–).
© The Author(s) 2018 1
M. Jenner, Netflix and the Re-invention of Television,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94316-9_1
2 m. JenneR
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 wide-
spread 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-dis-
tributed 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 spe-
cific 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-pro-
ducer 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 impos-
sible—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 pin-
point 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
1 INTRoDUCTIoN: NETFLIX AND THE RE-INVENTIoN oF TELEVISIoN 3
with different emphases in varying national media systems. The US tel-
evision industry was hardly as ill-prepared for the coming shifts as the
Dr. Horrible sketch at the Emmys suggests. At the time, it was work-
ing 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 com-
mercial 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 produc-
ing its own original programming, was difficult to foresee. This is not to
argue that the oTT broadcasting industry is the cause for all of televi-
sion’s troubles, as Lotz (2014) describes in some detail. But the advent
of Netflix and Amazon original programming certainly poses a chal-
lenge 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 tel-
evision 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 subscrip-
tions. 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 sea-
sons 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