(This is a re-written version of the latest chapter of a book-in-progress, “Television, and How It Got That Way.” For the full book, so far, click “The Book,” under “categories.)
People thought television would kill the movies. It didn’t.
They thought cable would kill television. It didn’t.
Then streaming came along and killed (or seriously wounded) all of them.
That started in 2013, when Netflix suddenly had “House of Cards” and a Marvel surge. It broadened two years later, with “The Crown” (shown here) and more.
Or you could say it started in 1997. Under the shadow of Blockbuster, Reed Hastings — a computer scientist and math guy — had the quaint idea of rent-by-mail DVD’s.
Even back then, it seems, Hastings thought Netflix would eventually have original shows. He may not have realized how many there would be and how dominant they would become. Ted Sarandos, the company’s chief content officer, discussed that with the Television Critics Association in 2015.
“Less than 30 months ago,” he said, “we only had two shows — just 21 episodes of (original) content.” Now they were making 475 hours in a year.
In that 30-month span, Netflix had gone from 40 million subscribers to 70 million. A decade after that, it topped 300 million worldwide; more than half of its library involved original productions.
That came as Netflix made the right moves early:
— “House of Cards,” a British series about political intrigue, was being remade with Kevin Spacey as an American manipulator. Netflix outbid cable networks and had its first hit. The show drew 56 Emmy nominations, including five straight as best drama series. It won seven Emmys, a Peabody and an American Film Institute award.
— “Orange is the New Black” was a richly diverse show set in a women’s prison. It drew 21 Emmy nominations — including, on consecutive years, ones for best comedy and best drama — plus a Peabody and two AFI’s.
— “Arrested Development” was a much-praised series that Fox had canceled eight years earlier. Netflix got two more seasons and three Emmy nominations.
You could credit this to sheer luck … or smart decisions … or the way Netflix did business. Sarandos talked about that in three TCA sessions in 2015 and ’16.
Like two NBC regimes (Pat Weaver and Grant Tinker), Netflix gave its creative people full rein. “To coach the creatives wasn’t our wheelhouse,” Sarandos said. “It was going to be our role to pick the right projects, pick the right talent to run those and (let) them do the best work of their lives.”
Like HBO and others, it didn’t have to worry about quantity. It simply needed shows to supplement all the movies that were already there. There was no reason, Sarandos said, to have pleasantly adequate shows. “Our members come to us looking for something great.”
And more than any of the others, Netflix didn’t have to worry about shocking or offending. CBS might fret about someone’s fragile grandparents seeing the wrong thing; with the streamer, a viewer has to specifically choose a show.
“There’s not a passive way you are going to stumble on something that offends you on Netflix,” Sarandos said. “So that gives us a lot of license to push the envelope.”
Early on, “Orange is the New Black” was doing that. In 2014, Laverne Cox was the first trans actor to receive an Emmy nomination; she got three more on the show.
But the key advantage may have been the fact that viewers can watch episodes — even an entire season — whenever they want.
“The ultimate benefit of all-at-once is consumer control,” Sarandos said. People use it in different ways. “It could be a couple hours, or it could be the whole show in one sitting
But who were those viewers?
“Netflix was born on the internet,” he said. “So our demographic was younger and more male when we were beginning.”
At first, he played heavily to that. A 2015 deal with Marvel brought four separate series — “Daredevil,” “Jessica Jones,” “The Punisher,” “The Iron Fist” – that could interweave with each other.
That same year, Netflix added “Bloodline,” “Sense8,” “Narcos” and more. The next year brought “The Get Down” (Baz Luhrman’s look at the birth of hip hop) and “Stranger Things.” Those young males were signing up.
But there were also steps to broaden the audience. “‘Orange is the New Black’ really served a big, underserved audience of female-centric programming that … features people of color,” Sarandos said.
Other shows would do the same, including “Dear White People” in 2017 and the elegant “Bridgerton” in 2020. But for female appeal, the big change came with “The Crown.”
English monarchs tend to come and go quite briskly. There have been more than 60 of them; one (Lady Jane Grey) lasted nine days.
But Elizabeth II was different from most, writer-producer Peter Morgan told the TCA. His “The Crown” series “starts with her assuming, quite reasonably, that she has a long time before her father will die.”
The previous monarchs in her family had died at 70, 69 and 81. Elizabeth could “have expected 20, maybe 30 years as a young woman married to a young naval officer.”
Then her dad died at 56. At 25, she was suddenly in the spotlight. “It’s a very difficult thing to have to deal with, while also grieving for the loss of your father,” said Claire Foy, who portrayed her (shown here).
This was someone, Morgan said, “who wanted to live in the countryside with her husband and have horses and dogs and childern and who was a shy, retiring sort. (She was) very close to her lovely sister, who was sort of the opposite and vivacious and full of energy.”
Morgan has already captured Elizabeth at 70, with his Oscar-nominated script for “The Queen” (2006). Now he found the drama of a young queen.
“The Crown” debuted in 2016 and ran for six seasons, with three Elizabeths. It won 24 Emmys, including two for best drama series.
Once a home for young males, Netflix was quickly adding women.
Tina Fey co-created “The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” (2015) … Natasha Lyonne co-created and starred in “Russian Doll” (2019) … Darren Starr — the “90210,” “Melrose Place,” “Sex and the City” guy — made “Emily in Paris” (2020).
And Shonda Rhimes — producer of “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Scandal” and more — signed an overall deal. Most of her Netflix shows had major Black characters; all had strong female appeal. There was “Inventing Anna” (2022), “The Residence” (2025) and even a documentary about the making of “Hot Chocolate Nutcracker” (2020).
Most importantly, Rhimes had the “Bridgerton” series and all its offshoots.
Both “Bridgerton” and “The Crown” proved that older viewers could find Netflix. So did “Grace and Frankie” (with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin), “The Kominsky Method” (with Michael Douglas and Alan Arkin) and “Longmire,” a droll cowboy-cop show that had been dropped by the A&E network.
Netflix had gone far from its teen-guy roots … and very far from its DVD-by-mail days.
But then — as the pandemic took hold — it got fresh waves of competition.