There have been two revolutions in television during my lifetime. The first happened in 1975 when Sony launched its Betamax video system — which allowed viewers to record shows and see them when they wanted. Of course, Betamax was found to be clunky and unreliable and it was soon replaced by VHS but, without realising it, the networks had lost control of their audience. No longer would we watch the films they wanted us to watch when they wanted us to watch them. Never again, as the technology spread, would the whole nation come together as one to find out what the newscasters had been up to on Morecambe and Wise.
The second revolution has been even more profound — and it’s happening right now. It can be defined in one word: Netflix. Founded in 1997, Netflix is the world’s number one television and film subscription service, even if there are other companies — Hulu, Vimeo, Amazon — snapping at its heels. It has 75 million users worldwide and an annual revenue of between $7 billion and $8 billion. Think of the most talked-about programmes of the past year: Narcos, House of Cards, Stranger Things and, most recently, The Crown. All of them premiered on Netflix. As a result of a Netflix documentary, Making a Murderer, half a million people signed a petition to free its main subject, Steven Avery.
Watching The Crown is instructive. It is, as every critic has agreed, glorious, unlike any television we have seen before. Brilliantly written by Peter Morgan and shot by Stephen Daldry channelling his inner David Lean, the first season is more like a ten-hour feature film than a TV series. And that’s the point. As latex-clad superheroes jump from one exploding city to the next, cinema has become a largely empty, dispiriting experience.
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