Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Anecdote-rich tale of how Netflix came to dominate the streaming-video market.Underestimating Netflix was an industry default, write entertainment business reporters Hayes and Chmielewski in their aptly titled study of the streaming giant and the many tech- and film-industry competitors that rose to challenge it. The authors begin their account with the Covid-19 pandemic, which sent the world indoors. America, already accustomed to spending hours a day in a screen-filled cocoon, would respond to the crisis by serving itself more and bigger portions of comfort food, they write. This comfort food came in the form of bingeworthy series, freshly made or in the vault, and Netflix delivered a substantial portion of it, having essentially had a decade head start in delivering streaming videothough predecessors had paved the way. These included Mark Cubans Broadcast.com, which, in the 1990s, pioneered the delivery of sports via the early internet, and Jonathan Taplins early amalgamation of the libraries of several film studiosa holdout being Paramount, whose corporate parent owned Blockbuster, the now-defunct video-rental chain. Netflix arose from its ashes with a business model that once relied on mail-order rentals but then captured the market for streaming that resulted from ever faster internet speeds. It took years for rivals such as Disney, HBO, Amazon Prime, and other providers to catch up, and all but Disney still trail. Consumers are the beneficiaries, with an embarrassment of riches to watch. The binge model was a great hook, even if some insiders didnt quite understand it. When Lilyhammer star Steven Van Zandt complained that hed spent months making the series in Norway only to have it dumped all at once, Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos chuckled, Yeah, just like an album. And the biggest hit of 2021? Squid Game, the Korean show that, the authors convincingly argue, could really have been launched by only one company: Netflix.A revealing, highly readable look at the making of the modern home-entertainment environment. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Anecdote-rich tale of how Netflix came to dominate the streaming-video market. “Underestimating Netflix was an industry default,” write entertainment business reporters Hayes and Chmielewski in their aptly titled study of the streaming giant and the many tech- and film-industry competitors that rose to challenge it. The authors begin their account with the Covid-19 pandemic, which sent the world indoors. “America, already accustomed to spending hours a day in a screen-filled cocoon, would respond to the crisis by serving itself more and bigger portions of comfort food,” they write. This comfort food came in the form of bingeworthy series, freshly made or in the vault, and Netflix delivered a substantial portion of it, having essentially had a decade head start in delivering streaming video—though predecessors had paved the way. These included Mark Cuban’s Broadcast.com, which, in the 1990s, pioneered the delivery of sports via the early internet, and Jonathan Taplin’s early amalgamation of the libraries of several film studios—a holdout being Paramount, whose corporate parent owned Blockbuster, the now-defunct video-rental chain. Netflix arose from its ashes with a business model that once relied on mail-order rentals but then captured the market for streaming that resulted from ever faster internet speeds. It took years for rivals such as Disney, HBO, Amazon Prime, and other providers to catch up, and all but Disney still trail. Consumers are the beneficiaries, with an embarrassment of riches to watch. The “binge” model was a great hook, even if some insiders didn’t quite understand it. When Lilyhammer star Steven Van Zandt complained that he’d spent months making the series in Norway only to have it dumped all at once, Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos chuckled, “Yeah, just like an album.” And the biggest hit of 2021? Squid Game, the Korean show that, the authors convincingly argue, “could really have been launched by only one company: Netflix.” A revealing, highly readable look at the making of the modern home-entertainment environment. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Publishers Weekly
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Deadline editor Hayes (Open Wide) and Forbes writer Chmielewski chronicle the rise of Netflix and the influx of streaming services in this smart, comprehensive take on how “a single monolithic company unsettled... Hollywood.” The authors recount how Netflix was the brainchild of Reed Hastings, who saw a flaw in video rental chain Blockbuster’s model and wondered, “What if there were no late fees?” Beginning in 1998 as a mail-order DVD rental business, the company transitioned to streaming in 2007 and picked up the rights to Disney and Sony movies. Then came original content in 2013 with the release of House of Cards, and the 2019 release of Oscar contender The Irishman, both of which further shook up the entertainment industry. The authors spend plenty of time on the “forces of Hollywood” that “allied against Netflix, seeking to knock it off its streaming throne” with competing services, including Disney’s launch of Disney+ in 2019 and cable channel HBO’s addition of streaming service HBO Max in 2020. Things get bogged down a bit with the long-winded and fawning appreciation of Netflix, but the copious research and astute analysis are worth the price of admission. This fascinating study will enthrall those interested in the business side of entertainment. (Apr.)

Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

It began as a DVDs-by-mail service and, later, was an early adopter of streaming technology, which made it possible to beam movies directly into people’s homes. By any measure, Netflix was a spectacular success story, and it caught most of its potential rivals flatfooted. In recent years, however, companies like Disney, Apple, Comcast, and NBCUniversal have mounted expensive attacks on Netflix’s supremacy in the streaming market. (Not to mention a whole string of startups that sounded good but didn’t last.) This excellent book takes readers deep behind the scenes at Netflix and its challengers, showing us the people who had the ideas, made the decisions, and, in some cases, took the blame. In their writing, in their perceptive analyses, and in their vivid portrayal of a large cast of characters, Hayes and Chmielewski's book easily rivals such business-book staples as Barbarians at the Gate, The Informant, and Too Big to Fail. The authors, respectively a business media editor at Deadline Hollywood and an entertainment correspondent for Reuters, take a complex subject and make it not only understandable but riveting.