Much like straight-to-video movies that were never put into theaters, but were designed to sell as VHS tapes (later DVDs), there will be content generated for the sole purpose of streaming it on Netflix. Interestingly, there is flexibility in the character of such content: originally it could look like a two hour movie, or like a 22 minute or 44 minute or 60 minute TV show, but there is room for innovation, including episodes that vary in length throughout a season in order to accommodate the story. Or it could be a mix of five minute shorts released on Tuesdays, alternating with 50 minute long-form episodes released on Thursdays. Or it could be a two hour episode, released once per month. Or quarterly.
Yeah, I've long thought it's a great idea that circumvents a lot of the weaknesses of tightly-constrained TV storytelling.
The problem is the economics. It seems people tend to respond negatively to production values below a certain standard. Cable productions run about $2M/episode, which translates to roughly $3M/hour or $50K/minute. Even if you can cut that by 20%, you still need to make a serious amount of money, and that's a lot of $2.10 iTunes purchases or $0.xy (I don't know what that number is, but it's got to be smaller than a dollar) Netflix streams that you've got to get in order to break even. And that's for the production values of "White Collar" or "Leverage", not "LOST" or "Rome"
On top of that, you have the business costs. You've got to pay the overhead costs, and you've got to pay development costs. Half the new shows that get a slot on TV fail, and getting one slot filled requires shooting 2-3 pilot episodes at a couple million a pop. In addition to expansion, you've got to replace your shows every few years, since (a) even the best shows get stale after a while and (b) costs go up every year.
"Straight to Netflix"
Much like straight-to-video movies that were never put into theaters, but were designed to sell as VHS tapes (later DVDs), there will be content generated for the sole purpose of streaming it on Netflix. Interestingly, there is flexibility in the character of such content: originally it could look like a two hour movie, or like a 22 minute or 44 minute or 60 minute TV show, but there is room for innovation, including episodes that vary in length throughout a season in order to accommodate the story. Or it could be a mix of five minute shorts released on Tuesdays, alternating with 50 minute long-form episodes released on Thursdays. Or it could be a two hour episode, released once per month. Or quarterly.