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The common misconception is that your cable company is responsible for raising your bill. Look, I hate Comcast just as much as the next guy, however, price increases generally come from the TV networks. If Fox News raises their price, the cable provider cannot all of a sudden stop carrying it. Customers would not only complain but also immediately look to other providers for service. Instead, they eat the price increase and eventually pass it on to the consumer. This is what leads to our exploding cable bills.

When a cable company decides to carry a channel like Comedy Central, they must pay the TV network a subscription fee for every one of their customers. Subscription fees are important because they show us how expensive one channel is relative to another. The fees vary greatly based on the demand of the channel. For example, The History Channel costs roughly 22 cents/month. ESPN you might be wondering? That comes out to $5.13/month, making it by far the most expensive cable channel out there.

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– https://medium.com/editors-picks/1d7043ed024b

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But there is no valid reason why Netflix should have placed a blind, $100 million bet on a new series. Of all the distributors of television programming, Netflix is in the best position to develop more lean and nimble proofs of concept and to serve them to the right audience.

Unlike a traditional TV network, Netflix has the unique ability to put content in front of millions of targeted, interest-based viewers in incredibly short order. It has better taste profiles and matching algorithms than AMC, ABC, or big advertisers could ever dream of. Why, for instance, couldn’t Netflix buy scripts – or hell, get into the blind script business with established writers – and then test them out before fully committing to them?

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– http://priceonomics.com/the-economics-of-a-hit-tv-show/

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But you know what separates the “good” from the “significant”? Exposure. Not just initial exposure, like the hoopla surrounding the relatively unpopular Girls, but endured attention and familiarity. Viewers of broad ages and classes and tastes watching. Syndication used to do some of this work for us: that’s how I consumed M*A*S*H, My Three Sons, The Brady Bunch, I Love Lucy, classic Saturday Night Live, original Star Trek, and even MacGyver. It was MTV reruns, for example, and not ABC, that made My So-Called Life a cultural touchstone: the two words “Jordan Catalano” stand in for a host of dude-related agonies and ecstasies. Granted, you could watch Sex and the City on TBS, and The Wire on BET. But those were Frankenstein edits of the originals — and what little extended cable this generation does watch, it’s generally new content.

Netflix, and other forms of cheap streaming, thus takes up the role formerly occupied by second-run syndication. Only unlike the reruns of M*A*S*H I’d watch every night at 7:00 pm, these reruns are there whenever I want them and without commercials. With the rise of streaming services, we’ve avoided the term “rerun” and its connotations of the hot, bored days of summer. But apart from its foray into original programming, that’s what Netflix is: a distribution service of reruns. And as with second-run syndication, what’s available is what gets watched; what gets watched becomes part of the conversation. It’s not a question of quality, in other words, it’s one of availability.

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– http://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/deartv/77/