Netflix Announces Plans To Show Its Own Content

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And now the game has changed once again. We’ve all been no doubt following the constant back and forth wrangling between Netflix and the various studios over the content that Netflix can and cannot show, and how long they have to wait to be able to do so, and so on down the line. But now, Netflix has pulled a colossal end-run around the system and bought its first series, Kevin Spacey’s House of Cards, a remake of a British series of the same name.

At last report, Netflix paid $100 million (though other reports suggest that the actual payout will be substantially less) for the rights to the series for two seasons right off the bat, a move which is generally unheard of as series go.

And this is probably the best move they could have made. We all know that Netflix has lots of competitors, and each of them look to differentiate themselves in a host of ways. Amazon‘s looking to compete on price, Fandor is handling only indie films, and Zediva is offering up movies much more rapidly than Netflix thanks to an unusual strategy, just to name a few. And doubtlessly, Netflix is looking in its metaphorical rear-view mirror, seeing the column of black smoke emerging from the twisted metal that was Blockbuster, not to mention the crowd of competitors, and trying frantically to figure out a way to get ahead of the pack.

Original content–content that can only be found on Netflix–is a terrific way to do that. If Zediva’s strategy succeeds, for example, it will have a host of imitators as anyone with a stack of DVDs and a couple file servers looks to do likewise, and anyone else can drop their prices and play in Amazon’s playground, but original content? That’s not an advantage easily replicated, and one that might keep Netflix on top.