Baltimore Sun television critic David Zurawik delivers commentary on the takeaways from 2013: “The most important TV moment of 2013 didn’t even happen on television.”
It came on Feb. 1 when Netflix made all 13 episodes of season one of “House of Cards” available online for its subscribers.
Social media and the Internet lit up the next two weeks with personal accounts of subscribers “binge-viewing” the Baltimore-made political thriller starring Kevin Spacey — fans streaming one episode after another until they had their fill.
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Zurawik cautions that it might be an overstatement to say 2013 saw the death of appointment television, but it certainly was the year appointment TV was diagnosed “terminal.”
He also talks about the online media revolution, citing Amazon.com’s upcoming original series “Alpha House” featuring John Goodman and Clark Johnson.
Zurawik’s point is one that has been debated within social TV cirlces throughout 2013, with many seeing appointment TV as a thing of the past thanks to DVR and more notably Netflix’s original series binge-release strategy (House of Cards returns on February 14.)
The fight between traditional TV and the new online revolution will be a key storyline in 2014.