The success of Netflix’s original series House of Cards and Orange is the New Black has been terrific for TV viewers. Not only has it given us more quality shows to watch but it’s also given studios more of an incentive to develop high-quality shows that they think might become hits on Netflix. Forbes’ Dorothy Pomerantz, however, thinks that this boom in high-quality Netflix content might be too good to last because Netflix’s economic model might not deliver the same long-term revenues that syndication typically delivers.
“The typical model for broadcast shows works like this,” she explains. “Studios invest a lot of money upfront in producing a show. Once the show has been on the air long enough, it gets sold into syndication and reruns on networks like TBS. That’s where the real money comes in. With quality shows debuting on cable networks and subscription services like Netflix, it’s less clear how the later syndication money will roll in.”
Or put another way, it looks as though the Netflix TV boom could be short-lived if studios aren’t getting enough in return for the massive investments they’re putting into high-quality programming.
