Nate Marschalk and Elizabeth Valerio have two TV sets in their new home in the Shaw neighborhood, but they don’t have “television” — at least, not in the way their parents do.
The two, both 26, don’t have cable, satellite or even an antenna on the roof. They watch TV almost exclusively over the Internet, via services such as Netflix.
Marschalk and Valerio are traditional television providers’ worst nightmare.
They are also Netflix’s ideal customers.
So is Madeleine Beatrice, 18, a freshman at Webster University who lives at home in Webster Groves.
“I mainly watch TV on Netflix, which I have hooked up to the television in my room via the Wii” game console, Beatrice says. “Most of my favorites are on Netflix.”
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Billing itself as “the world’s leading Internet television network,” Netflix has more than 27 million U.S. subscribers, who pay as little as $7.99 a month to watch movies and complete seasons of TV shows.
But Friday marks the next big step for Netflix, one that CEO Reed Hastings says could be a “defining moment” not just in the future of his company but also in the future of television.
“House of Cards,” a 13-part remake of a British political drama, has its premiére exclusively on Netflix, which bought the series over competitors including HBO.
Kevin Spacey stars, and David Fincher (“The Social Network”) is executive producer of the prestige project, which will be available all at once to Netflix subscribers, and to no one else.
“I was raised in front of a TV set,” Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos told TV critics this month in Los Angeles. “It’s with a deep appreciation for the rich history of television that we are leading the next great wave of change in the media; not to destroy it, but quite the opposite, we are trying to help TV to evolve for the current generation and for generations to come.”
Instead of simply distributing others’ work, Netflix is now casting itself as a program provider, aiming for premium-cable territory. Must-see original series boost subscriptions and build loyalty, as “The Sopranos” did for HBO and “Homeland” is doing for Showtime. HBO’s 30 million subscribers and Showtime’s 22 million typically pay about $13 a month per service.
“House of Cards” is just the start for Netflix original content. Next up: beloved cult comedy “Arrested Development,” which Netflix brought back from the dead for an April debut.
Netflix rivals Amazon and Hulu are also plotting original content, and YouTube has invested $100 million in original channels. Satellite provider DirecTV will introduce its first original scripted drama, “Rogue,” on April 3.
“What we’re all about is having exclusive content that differentiates us from our competitors,” says DirecTV entertainment chief Christopher Long.
It’s all TV no matter where it comes from, Netflix’s Sarandos says. “Yes, we are delivered differently, but we are a channel accessed with a remote control and mostly watched on a TV set.”
Some 5 million U.S. homes don’t have cable or satellite service and also don’t get TV via antenna, the Nielsen company said in a September report. That figure represents roughly 4 percent of U.S. homes, up from just 1 percent three years ago.
A growing abundance of online content gives the TV-free plenty to watch. In addition to subscription services, networks stream most of their series on their own websites.
Don’t picture families gathered around an iPad or laptop. Blu-ray players, game consoles and dedicated boxes such as Roku allow streaming content to play on TV sets, not just computer screens and smartphones.
Many viewers, including Nick Syder, who grew up in Wildwood and now lives in Columbia, Mo., hook their computers into their TVs via an HDMI cable. “I don’t enjoy watching on a small screen, because it creates distractions and diminishes the impact,” he says.
But Kayley Weinberg, 20, who grew up in O’Fallon, Mo., and attends the University of Missouri-Columbia, may be the norm for college students: “I don’t hook (my laptop) up to the TV,” she says. “I normally lie in bed and watch it.”
Weinberg’s parents have multiple TV sets, and she has one in her room, “but I haven’t turned it on in years,” she says. Still, “I have watched countless TV series in record amounts of time.”
Her main source of TV? Netflix. She loves to binge on full seasons of previously aired series, saying that “the marathon viewing experience is extremely satisfying and thrilling for the week it takes me to finish a series.”
Her college friends are doing the same thing. “The running joke at Mizzou is, ‘I challenge one person to go on winter break and not become addicted to a TV series,’” Weinberg says. “Whenever my friends and I discuss our time spent at home, it almost always includes a TV series we began AND finished.”
Weinberg’s viewing patterns aren’t limited to the college set. Magen Williams, 30, who lives in the Lindenwood Park neighborhood, dropped satellite service “because I didn’t watch a lot of the channels I got — I was starting to watch more online.”
Without ever seeing them over the air, Williams discovered “Sons of Anarchy” and “Parenthood” and caught up via streaming, she says. “Marathon viewing is fun for me, but it can get annoying sometimes, because it’s so hard to stop watching.”
Lauren and Andrew Bennett of Webster Groves had cable until a month ago and now watch everything on Hulu and Netflix or streaming from network websites. Andrew, 29, “is on an ‘X-Files’ kick” and Lauren, 31, watched the first two seasons of “Downton Abbey” in two weekends.
“We’re going to check out ‘Mad Men’ too, since we never watched it in the first place,” they say.
Most in their age group, they acknowledge, have cable or satellite. They love saving more than $100 a month, but Andrew says, “Check back with me before ‘Game of Thrones’ comes back on.”
Plus, he adds, “We go to the in-laws for ‘The Walking Dead.’”
Gail Pennington is the TV critic for the Post-Dispatch. Follow her at stltoday.com/tubetalk, @GailPennington on Twitter and facebook.com/tubetalkPD.
