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Sony Pictures Television produced Breaking Bad[1], and Mad Men was produced by Lionsgate Television [2](who also produced Orange is the New Black). Netflix doe

Sony Pictures Television produced Breaking Bad[1], and Mad Men was produced by Lionsgate Television [2](who also produced Orange is the New Black). Netflix doesn't need to buy AMC, they just need to outbid other companies when buying content. Which is exactly what they did for House of Cards, they beat AMC and HBO for the rights[3]. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Pictures_Television#Shows_produced_and.2For_distributed_by_SPT http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Pictures_Television#Shows_... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lionsgate_Television#Productions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lionsgate_Television#Production... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Cards_%28U.S._TV_series%29#Conception http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Cards_%28U.S._TV_serie...

bcrescimanno 13y ago
Former Netflix employee here--left in August (not super-relevant; but, disclosure, etc.) Thanks for posting the details here. It's pretty clear that the OP doesn't really have a strong understanding of the mechanics of the TV business. There's simply no value to owning AMC. They could spend billions for AMC or millions for future shows themselves; Netflix is smart enough to see the real value is in the latter. Moreover, Netflix has absolutely no interest in getting into the "linear TV" business. It doesn't fit well at all with where they are going. EDIT: The partnership, as it exists today, is hugely beneficial for both companies. AMC gets promotion for new seasons and Netflix gets a huge rush of people watching previous seasons as they become available. There's zero value to either of them in one owning the other.
- fossuser 13y ago
  Are you able to talk a bit about what it was like to work at netflix or why you left? I've always wondered what it's like over there.
  - ecaron 13y ago
    The discussion you're probably looking for is at http://www.quora.com/Netflix/Whats-it-like-to-work-at-Netflix?share=1 http://www.quora.com/Netflix/Whats-it-like-to-work-at-Netfli...
  - ihsw 13y ago
    There[1] is a presentation about the work culture at Netflix, however it's now four years old. It's an interesting read nonetheless. [1] http://www.slideshare.net/reed2001/culture-1798664?from_search=1 http://www.slideshare.net/reed2001/culture-1798664?from_sear...
- MartinCron 13y ago
  It's pretty clear that the OP doesn't really have a strong understanding of the mechanics of the TV business. For anyone who is interested in learning more about the mechanics of the TV business, I strongly recommend the book "Difficult Men" by Brett Martin. It's nominally about shows like the Sopranos and their creators, but there is a lot about the industry that is "quality television".
  - purephase 13y ago
    Looks interesting. Thanks for the suggestion.
  - alabut 13y ago
    +1 for Difficult Men. Very in-depth and well written. A head's up though: even though it was published recently, it was written just before the ascendancy of good internet TV (House Of Cards and Seinfeld's web series were nominated for Emmy's only just this year) so it mainly chronicles the rise of HBO and then Showtime, AMC, etc from a decade ago. However the parallels between premium cable and the internet are pretty clear.
    - MartinCron 13y ago
      Yes. House of Cards is as important as anything that has happened in mainstream television in the last few years. Maybe the author will include an afterward in future editions?
officemonkey 13y ago
According to Kevin Spacey, Netflix was the only buyer that didn't want "House of Cards" to do a pilot, which, when you think of it, would have been an immense waste of time, talent and money.
- objclxt 13y ago
  Although it's more expensive to do a separate pilot, it's not always a waste of time or money. In many cases, ideas that on paper are very good don't translate well. A pilot lets you catch these problems and remedy them. If you go straight to series you may end up only finding out about these issues when it's too late to fix them. A few good examples of this: the (unaired) pilot for BBC's Sherlock is a not fantastic 60 minutes with significant pacing problems, which was subsequently reshot and turned into a well received 90 minute miniseries. The US version of Life on Mars got completed re-located and re-cast as the pilot was just bad (...most people wouldn't call what ended up as 'good', but it was a vast improvement on the pilot). Neither approach is without its problems. Take a show like Game of Thrones, which is very expensive to make. On the one hand, HBO could have saved millions of dollars by not ordering a pilot. On the other, it was pretty clear once it came back from post production that the approach the writers had originally taken wasn't going to work, and a number of changes were made to make the show more accessible to people who hadn't read the books. So HBO did 'waste' several million dollars on a pilot that never aired, but the ability for the creative team to review the pilot before embarking on a full series commitment meant many changes could be made that resulted in a better show. HBO have easily recouped the lost money. It's interesting that Amazon have taken the opposite approach to Netflix, and ordered a large number of pilots rather than going straight into series commitments.
  - bcrescimanno 13y ago
    For House of Cards, where known commodities like Kevin Spacey and David Fincher were already attached to a known story (House of Cards is a remake of a British series from the late 80s) it probably doesn't make sense to do a pilot. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out. None of the Netflix originals so far has done a traditional "pilot" approach and, while I was there at least, there was no desire to start taking that approach. The Netflix model is really completely different than traditional TV. Take Hemlock Grove as an example. Critically panned and considered by most people in HN circles to be a "bad" show--but (without going into detail) I can absolutely say it has been VERY successful for Netflix.

bcrescimanno 13y ago

Former Netflix employee here--left in August (not super-relevant; but, disclosure, etc.) Thanks for posting the details here. It's pretty clear that the OP doesn't really have a strong understanding of the mechanics of the TV business. There's simply no value to owning AMC. They could spend billions for AMC or millions for future shows themselves; Netflix is smart enough to see the real value is in the latter. Moreover, Netflix has absolutely no interest in getting into the "linear TV" business. It doesn't fit well at all with where they are going. EDIT: The partnership, as it exists today, is hugely beneficial for both companies. AMC gets promotion for new seasons and Netflix gets a huge rush of people watching previous seasons as they become available. There's zero value to either of them in one owning the other.

fossuser 13y ago
Are you able to talk a bit about what it was like to work at netflix or why you left? I've always wondered what it's like over there.
- ecaron 13y ago
  The discussion you're probably looking for is at http://www.quora.com/Netflix/Whats-it-like-to-work-at-Netflix?share=1 http://www.quora.com/Netflix/Whats-it-like-to-work-at-Netfli...
- ihsw 13y ago
  There[1] is a presentation about the work culture at Netflix, however it's now four years old. It's an interesting read nonetheless. [1] http://www.slideshare.net/reed2001/culture-1798664?from_search=1 http://www.slideshare.net/reed2001/culture-1798664?from_sear...
MartinCron 13y ago
It's pretty clear that the OP doesn't really have a strong understanding of the mechanics of the TV business. For anyone who is interested in learning more about the mechanics of the TV business, I strongly recommend the book "Difficult Men" by Brett Martin. It's nominally about shows like the Sopranos and their creators, but there is a lot about the industry that is "quality television".
- purephase 13y ago
  Looks interesting. Thanks for the suggestion.
- alabut 13y ago
  +1 for Difficult Men. Very in-depth and well written. A head's up though: even though it was published recently, it was written just before the ascendancy of good internet TV (House Of Cards and Seinfeld's web series were nominated for Emmy's only just this year) so it mainly chronicles the rise of HBO and then Showtime, AMC, etc from a decade ago. However the parallels between premium cable and the internet are pretty clear.
  - MartinCron 13y ago
    Yes. House of Cards is as important as anything that has happened in mainstream television in the last few years. Maybe the author will include an afterward in future editions?

officemonkey 13y ago

According to Kevin Spacey, Netflix was the only buyer that didn't want "House of Cards" to do a pilot, which, when you think of it, would have been an immense waste of time, talent and money.

objclxt 13y ago
Although it's more expensive to do a separate pilot, it's not always a waste of time or money. In many cases, ideas that on paper are very good don't translate well. A pilot lets you catch these problems and remedy them. If you go straight to series you may end up only finding out about these issues when it's too late to fix them. A few good examples of this: the (unaired) pilot for BBC's Sherlock is a not fantastic 60 minutes with significant pacing problems, which was subsequently reshot and turned into a well received 90 minute miniseries. The US version of Life on Mars got completed re-located and re-cast as the pilot was just bad (...most people wouldn't call what ended up as 'good', but it was a vast improvement on the pilot). Neither approach is without its problems. Take a show like Game of Thrones, which is very expensive to make. On the one hand, HBO could have saved millions of dollars by not ordering a pilot. On the other, it was pretty clear once it came back from post production that the approach the writers had originally taken wasn't going to work, and a number of changes were made to make the show more accessible to people who hadn't read the books. So HBO did 'waste' several million dollars on a pilot that never aired, but the ability for the creative team to review the pilot before embarking on a full series commitment meant many changes could be made that resulted in a better show. HBO have easily recouped the lost money. It's interesting that Amazon have taken the opposite approach to Netflix, and ordered a large number of pilots rather than going straight into series commitments.
- bcrescimanno 13y ago
  For House of Cards, where known commodities like Kevin Spacey and David Fincher were already attached to a known story (House of Cards is a remake of a British series from the late 80s) it probably doesn't make sense to do a pilot. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out. None of the Netflix originals so far has done a traditional "pilot" approach and, while I was there at least, there was no desire to start taking that approach. The Netflix model is really completely different than traditional TV. Take Hemlock Grove as an example. Critically panned and considered by most people in HN circles to be a "bad" show--but (without going into detail) I can absolutely say it has been VERY successful for Netflix.