The Television Will Be Revolutionized, Second Edition. Amanda D. Lotz

      By increasing asynchronous viewing, convenience technologies expanded the audience fragmentation and social polarization that preliminary choice and control technologies had already enabled during the multi-channel transition. Whether DVR owners who reschedule viewing on their own terms, viewers who wait several months to purchase full-season DVDs, or those who stream shows via VOD or Netflix, users of convenience technologies have come to select their own viewing conditions, including the crucial one of time. The resulting temporal fragmentation may seem comparably insignificant relative to other adjustments—such as the fragmentation of viewers among a multiplicity of channels—but it has had important implications in disabling the coterminous circulation of television within the culture, which significantly changed the way television operated as a conduit of cultural discussion. Beginning in 2004, feature articles in the popular press recounted the trend of audience members waiting until a full season of a series was available on DVD and then watching the full season at a self-determined pace.⁴⁵ Rachel Rebibo, a DVD owner who preferred this viewing experience, explained, “With a DVD player, I can set my schedule and turn it off anytime. It’s my choice.”⁴⁶ Another DVD viewer, Gord Lacy, offered, “I loved West Wing. I watched eight episodes in one night. I had only ever seen the pilot, and I’m Canadian watching a show about a U.S. President.”⁴⁷ Those who turned to DVDs for control began changing the television viewing experience, and many who left the linear world for prized content, aimed never to return. By 2011, the ease of streaming full seasons of programs though Netflix or by accessing increasingly robust VOD caches of programming offered further tools to those willing to wait in order to obtain greater control of their viewing.

      But until 2012, viewers made the personal choice to defer viewing until they could amass a stock that would permit favored pacing—distributors still released content in weekly intervals of individual episodes. Once it ventured into content creation, Netflix defied the model of weekly episode release and made available all of the episodes of the first “season” of its original series Lilyhammer simultaneously, a strategy it reproduced with much greater notice when releasing House of Cards in February 2013. Netflix suggested a possible future in which viewers would not have to wait for a linear, weekly delivery of content. The premiere of House of Cards generated extensive debate about the economic and cultural merits and consequences of this release strategy, and despite the voluminous commentary, reflection on the utter arbitrariness of the existing norm—given new delivery capabilities—went uncommented upon.