Giving the prison drama its due.
July 2013. Television tastemaking was set by cable shows. Game of Thrones was water cooler conversation, Sunday nights on HBO ruled the roost, and TV was a competitive playground adapting to an ever-changing entertainment industry. And the former DVD rental service Netflix was six years into its plan to create a seismic shift in how we watch small-screen stories.
Months earlier, in February 2013, Netflix made its opening gambit – one that changed Hollywood forever, for better or for worse. The service released House of Cards, a big-budget political thriller starring respected (at the time) actor Kevin Spacey. Episodes ran long and without ad breaks, production value was high, and Netflix committed to a 13-episode first season. The platform had come out swinging, targeting the same audiences attracted to Emmy-winning prestige. Six years on from adding its ‘watch now’ online offerings, Netflix was now the new kid in town, and the only streaming platform-turned-studio making real impact. We now know what happened in the decade following House of Cards’ release: a trend toward subscription content, studios creating their own competing services, and a generation of cord-cutters ready to move away from traditional satellite boxes.
Netflix’s reported $100 million investment in House of Cards was a success. Critical reception was positive, and analysts believe season 1 drew in a substantial audience considering Netflix’s smaller subscriber pool at the time. The binge-watching phenomenon caught fire, with all 13 episodes available to watch immediately upon release. A novelty at the time, reports suggest viewers overwhelmingly took the opportunity to test-drive this new viewing model. Additionally, it became the first Primetime Emmy Award nominated series for original online only web television in July of the same year — a month that would prove to be a critical moment in Netflix’s future aspirations.
House of Cards laid the foundation for the service’s dominance, but the prison drama Orange Is the New Black secured it. Bursting onto the platform in July 2013 with tenacious, dynamic storytelling, and an ensemble cast that captivated audiences, this was Netflix’s first mainstream hit. If you signed up just to watch it, you weren’t the only one (source: my buddies and I). The series, led by the relatively unknown Taylor Schilling and based on Piper Kerman’s memoir, was a bona fide win. Netflix didn’t release viewing figures in 2013, but we hardly need them — if memory serves, everyone and their mother was tuned into protagonist Piper’s first year in a women’s prison. And Orange Is the New Black had an inviting pitch: sign up to try out the future of television.
Following the binge-model trend set by House of Cards and committing to 13 hour-long episodes, it felt like the product of a cowboy company. It was audacious, explicit, and diverse in ways its competition couldn’t match. Lacking the star power — Natasha Lyonne was the biggest draw — and money behind House of Cards, it carried the air of a company trying to prove itself with something truly fresh and different. “We were definitely in the shadow of House of Cards,” creator Jenji Kohan told The Los Angeles Times in 2019. “We were the little engine that could. But I like that. There’s less pressure. It’s better to be a surprise than a disappointment.”
Despite gritty subject matter, dedication to LGBTQ+ storylines, and the narrative following the kinds of characters society often paid little attention to, Orange was the most-watched original series in 2013. It beat out Netflix’s Arrested Development revival and the more highbrow House of Cards. It wasn’t lacking in Emmys either, earning 12 nominations and winning three of them thanks to a powerhouse premiere season.
“There’s a real bond that comes from taking a leap into the unknown, and that’s what Netflix original programming was in the fall of 2012 when Orange started production. The actors didn’t quite know what they were getting into. What is streaming? Are we making webisodes? How can it be delivered?” said Cindy Holland, vice president of original content in 2019. Putting it all on Black worked.
The diversification of Netflix content came at a pivotal moment. Netflix struggled with backlash and falling subscriber counts following a price hike in 2011 and a plan to split its services; customers would pay up to 60% more if they wanted to continue subscribing to both the DVD rental service and the streaming platform. Netflix lost around 800,000 subscribers in the US as a result of the price increase. The next two years were make or break.
After House of Cards’ release, Netflix added 24 million subscribers in two years, reaching 57 million by 2015 according to a 2015 Associated Press report. Meanwhile, Orange Is the New Black was the service’s most watched series in 2014 in every territory it operated in, according to internal viewing data.
While the endless supply of streaming shows feels more a bane than boon in today’s deeply screwed up space, Orange released before Netflix favored quantity over quality. There was no established in-house pipeline or style yet, so Orange looked and felt different from anything else being cooked up. There was also little data to tell executives what would be a streaming hit and what wouldn’t, so creative decisions weren’t made based on hooking viewers in the opening few seconds of episode 1 — lest they scroll to the next preview in the user interface.
Netflix studied the viewing habits of its subscribers across 16 countries in 2015, revealing the point at which the average user became fixed on a first series and binge-watched through to its end. Orange Is the New Black became addictive for most people when they reached episode 3, beating out Mad Men (6) and Pretty Little Liars (4). “We found that no one was ever hooked on the pilot,” said Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos. “This gives us confidence that giving our members all episodes at once is more aligned with how fans are made.”
It’s challenging to take our minds back to a time before streaming was as saturated as it is now, but at the time, HBO, Amazon, and any other competitors were scrambling in the wake of Netflix’s opening play. Despite today’s spiralling frustrations with streaming, Netflix was the company that meaningfully reinvented television and how we watch it, and Orange is inextricably woven into that success.
Glory days always end, though. Orange Is the New Black ran for seven seasons, potentially overstaying its welcome and slowly becoming less of a brand focal point with every passing season. Year-on-year, Netflix’s volume targets increased in order to keep growing its new subscribers and keep shareholders happy. Despite some drop off in quality, you could argue the business drowned out its own crown jewel. The show struggled to maintain the same relevance it had at launch, foreshadowing difficulties to come in the industry’s future, but it still ran longer than the majority of new series do now. A seven-season run in today’s market, when Netflix prefers to pump and dump new content instead of invest in it long term, sounds very long indeed.
*Carrie Bradshaw voice* I couldn’t help but wonder, would today’s version of the behemoth gamble on a seven season run of lesbian drama, unfaltering empathy for women who made questionable choices, and abrasive commentary in today’s socio-political sandbox? I wouldn’t put my money on it. But for one shining moment, Orange is the New Black was ubiquitous. We embarked on a new journey together, where TV was bold and risky, and Netflix was rewarded handsomely for it. Regardless of whether you’re a professional binger or long for the days of syndicated entertainment with 24-episode seasons, it’s time we give Orange Is the New Black the credit it’s due. It didn’t just catapult Netflix to new heights; it was part of a formula that permanently disrupted tinsel town.
