Well, that didn’t take long.
In the wake of Netflix’s acquisition of their first original series (the Kevin Spacey vehicle House of Cards) there’s been a lot of speculation about how lofty the Flix’s ambitions will get. But it seems the cable networks have made up their minds: They’re already treating Netflix as a rival. Showtime has already pulled its original series, including Californication and Dexter, from Netflix Streaming, and Starz is following suit, delaying Netflix premieres for all its programming for 90 days after it airs.
Most networks already delay streaming of their series at least until they’re off the air, so Netflix’s stable of content may not take too many more big hits. Still, it’s got to be a sobering lesson for them: Turns out you can’t make money off the networks’ new content once you’ve decided you want to be a network yourself.
So what is the future for one-stop online TV viewing? Well, just as Netflix is becoming a network, other TV players are getting into the streaming business. Dish Network’s TV Everywhere, to name a totally randomly chosen example, allows for streaming live TV channels as well as on-demand shows. But this isn’t over. It’s beginning to look like the balance of power between networks, TV providers, and streaming services will never allow consumers to pay one company to get all their live and on-demand content in one place. Boo.
