Christmas is a time to gather round the TV for seasonal specials. But will Netflix, LoveFilm and iPlayer make that way of watching a thing of the past?
Vince Gilligan, creator of Breaking Bad, told me: "I certainly think we are in for a major paradigm change. Old-style network TV – and even cable TV, supported by adverts – is, if not on the way out, then in for a major sea-change."
And yet, apart from House of Cards and Breaking Bad, the two most talked-about dramas (in both traditional and social media) were classic moments of old-fashioned, scheduled TV: the final episode of ITV's Broadchurch in April, in which the killer was revealed; and, last month on BBC1, The Day of the Doctor, the 50th anniversary episode of Doctor Who.
Although both were supported by modern methods of consumption – online catch-up, box-set release, 3D cinema showings for the time lord – the majority of their audiences cancelled appointments and rushed home to watch at the same time as everyone else, in the way that viewers have done ever since TV became a mass medium. This evidence of the endurance of "appointment viewing" gives comfort to those who refuse to believe that, owing to Netflix, traditional TV drama is about to fall like a house of cards. Speaking to me, appropriately, in the John Logie Baird room at the BBC last week, Ben Stephenson, controller of drama commissioning at the corporation, said: "You only have to go into John Lewis and see the numbers of TVs on sale. TVs aren't becoming unfashionable."
