2. Return to the Old Ways: Instituting Broadcast Practices of Programme Dissemination on American Online Television Platforms

This chapter delves into the reemergence of traditional broadcast dissemination practices within contemporary online television platforms. It highlights how streaming services like Netflix, initially positioned as transformative alternatives to linear television, have increasingly integrated modes of content delivery from traditional television, including appointment viewing, commercial interruptions, linear programming, and weekly episode release schedules. The analysis focuses on SVOD (subscription video on demand) services and FAST (free ad-supported television) platforms, examining how these services are turning to conventional broadcast practices to develop and grow their services. The chapter also explores the institutional contexts of these platforms, including their ownership by giants of the American tech industry and large American legacy-media corporations. It concludes by challenging simplistic narratives about streaming’s revolutionary break from television norms, revealing a more nuanced evolution where streaming services selectively incorporate broadcast practices while maintaining their technological innovations. This integration suggests that contemporary online television might better be understood as a hybrid form that strategically adapts and reimagines broadcast television’s enduring conventions within an internet context.