But BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield thinks that if House Of Cards is a success, Netflix could also start demanding a fee from the broadband suppliers that plug their fat pipes into our homes and let us stream House Of Cards in the first place.
You can read Greenfield’s full report here (subscription required) but his basic idea is that the cable companies are taking about $40 bucks a month from you for your Internet service and not sharing any of that with the content side because for the most part, they are paying networks like AMC and Discovery a per subscriber fee on the cable side.
If Netflix’s exclusive programming takes off and viewers demand it, Netflix could be in a position to start taking a per subscriber fee from the cable guys on the Internet side. It’s not a completely unprecedented idea. According to Greenfield, ESPN gets a per sub fee for ESPN 3 from broadband.
It would be a bold move on Hastings’ part and one that he’s not yet in a position to make. But if shows like House Of Cards help Netflix become the next HBO, the service could be looking at a whole new stream of revenue. [Reply]
Amazon and Hulu are starting to create original series now as well. Amazon put like 8 pilots up at once a few months ago and asked viewers to vote on which ones they wanted to bring to series. Pretty cool idea. [Reply]
Also what I like about this format of TV show is that you can watch it all in 4 days, and that means that by the time the next season rolls around it's been a whole year since you watched it and you're more likely to want to watch the whole season over again. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Buck:
Also what I like about this format of TV show is that you can watch it all in 4 days, and that means that by the time the next season rolls around it's been a whole year since you watched it and you're more likely to want to watch the whole season over again.
This is true.
I'll probably go on a binge for a couple weekends before the next season drops so I can refresh my mind. [Reply]
So, in the end it seemed to me like they were trying to make it out that the goal all along was to get Francis to be VP. However, it appeared that he was doing everything he could to get Russo elected as governor until Russo made his ultimatum. Am I the only one that thought there at the end that they planned it all out like this to get him to be VP, or am I just crazy?
Spoiler!
From the keyboard of showrunner Beau Willimon:
One of the big turning points for the show was when Claire derailed Russo's water bill, something that Frank never intended. This led to Frank being forced to de-rail Russo's bid for governorship and his final gambit of the season — to become the VP. We are led to believe that this was always his plan, to force a last minute implosion by Russo so that VP Matthews could be the only possible candidate in his home state and would step down from the VP role. But this plan doesn't match up at all with Frank's initial (seemingly genuine) efforts to win Russo the governorship, which was only derailed because of Claire's backstabbing. After all, if the water bill had been successful, it would have made it much more difficult for Frank to force Russo to withdraw his candidacy later in the campaign. So, what I want to know is, what was Frank's original plan with Russo before the Water Bill was lost? —KCHA237
Francis approaches politics like a jazz artist, not like a mathematician. He doesn’t always have every part of the equation mapped out. He seeks potential opportunities, not always sure where they’re headed. And he responds to the unexpected, transforming chaos into order. That said, he always had the intention of derailing Peter’s campaign. By doing that he could convince Matthews to run for governor, thereby opening the VP slot. But he hoped to derail it at the last minute — to give Walker the least amount of time to find a replacement. Matthews would have to step in. That’s why he wanted the Watershed Bill to pass — in order to keep Russo viable until it was time to pull the rug out from under him. What Claire did was accelerate the process, endangering Russo’s campaign earlier than Francis would have liked, and potentially leaving Walker too much time to replace Matthews once he got into the race. Francis had to adapt, to stall Walker. And he never planned on killing Russo. He hoped Russo would quietly go away. But Russo became unmanageable — a legitimate threat — so he seized an opportunity in the garage.