Just over 10 years ago, a TV series debuted that would help set in train a revolution in the industry. Although, even now, to call House of Cards a “TV” series feels a little off. Yes, the Kevin Spacey-starring political drama did appear on people’s TV screens, and yes it was serialised, but in other ways it was something entirely new. It wouldn’t be scheduled to air in weekly chunks on an existing channel, but instead would be available to be streamed in one go, without commercial breaks and over high-speed internet to the subscribers of the online video platform of a mail-order DVD subscription company called Netflix.
The novelty didn’t just end with that delivery method. Netflix, in bidding for House of Cards, committed to funding two full seasons of the show, an unprecedented move at a time where sitcoms and dramas would routinely be cancelled after a handful of episodes. And there was the $100m price tag, a hefty figure by the standards of established networks, let alone a newcomer dipping its toes into programme-making. Netflix had managed to coax Spacey and a Hollywood auteur – in the show’s director and executive producer David Fincher – on to its nascent platform, and it had given them creative freedom to make what they wanted, with none of the meddling notes usually provided by most TV executives.
