Netflix, AMC, Sony Execs Talk ‘New Era of Television': ‘The Way We Keep Score Has Changed’

Television’s evolution is only getting started, said Netflix’s Ted Sarandos, Sony Pictures Television president Steve Mosko and AMC Chief Operating Officer Ed Carroll at a Chapman University panel. Carroll noted that the evolution of Netflix and the commonality of binge watching “has really challenged all of the linear networks to up their game.”

The panelists discussed the industry’s past habit of sticking to the syndication model and how procedural and episodic stories like “Law & Order” allowed viewers to jump in and out of series without missing anything. “The detectives left the office and no one cared,” said Carroll. But now audiences are hungry for deeper, more personal stories, partially thanks to Netflix and the now-commonplace ability to call up entire seasons of series with a click. “People found that they had a much wider landscape that they could tell on television because you didn’t have to worry that if the audience missed the show they would be gone,” he said.

“I think the consumer control, the on-demand is the thing that there’s no turning back from,” added Sarandos, focusing on audiences’ desire to control their own time, whether that means consuming all of “House of Cards” in a weekend, or starting a broadcast series 15 minutes later on the night it airs.