“House of Cards”, an adaptation of a BBC mini-series, has big-name actors and a big budget (the first 26 episodes are thought to have cost more than $100m). But when the show premieres on February 1st, it will do so exclusively on Netflix, not cable or broadcast television.
Online video used to be amateur and short-form. But it is starting to follow the path of broadcast television, and then cable, by offering high-quality content. People are watching more video online, and will be consuming even more of it as quality improves. During the third quarter of last year, Americans on average clocked up seven hours of online video a month, 37% more than they had watched a year before, according to Nielsen—although this is still much less than the 148 hours a month (yes, really) that they spent in front of their television sets.
