Most of AMC’s, and some of the premium networks’, serialized programs exist online in one form or another, typically in a form where monetary payment is required (i.e. Netflix or HBO Go). Seriality is nothing new in the televisual medium, but it is particularly important with the advent of streaming because with the demographic (my demographic) that AMC is trying to address, being “in” on these “quality” programs is often part of being accepted into certain cliques or social circles, such as the work place or school. AMC has very cleverly planted their shows on these streaming services so that the tech-savvy demographic who are not “in” on these series can catch up and fit in with the crowd. Even after 4 seasons have aired, this is allowing tons of new viewers the chance to catch up on tens of hours of programming. ABC’s Lost unfortunately (or not? Think about the DVD sales…) was not able to capitalize on the streaming services, but it is interesting to think about how much bigger of a phenomenon that could have been if it had Netflix and Hulu to support it in its earlier seasons. I would be curious to see how much the number of viewers for the AMC series increased after they were all put on Netflix.

The satellite broadcaster BSkyB significantly outbid the BBC’s high brow digital channel BBC4 after 4 seasons in a deal thought to be worth over £5million. Mad Men (and shots of Joan’s behind in the two-way mirror) was a key part of the promotion of Sky’s new Sky Atlantic channel whose brand identity was built around an exclusive deal to show HBO programming, as well as Mad Men, even though the deal for the 5th season had still not been made between Weiner and AMC. Sky Atlantic is part of Sky’s bid to court the upmarket audience – often stubborn Sky refuseniks – with Quality television.

However many felt that Sky had overbid for MM, with estimates that it outbid BBC4 by x3 (there is a long history of antagonism between the BBC and part-Newscorp-owned Sky). The show’s BBC4 broadcasts averaged only 350,000 viewers, despite massive broadsheet coverage. Running up to S5’s UK debut, there was blanket coverage in the UK broadsheets and magazines. However, its premiere got 98,000 viewers, dropping to 47,000 by its 3rd episode – in comparison, Game of Thrones got more than 500,000 viewers. There was much joking on twitter – mirroring your NYT comment – that there was a MM article for every one of its Sky viewers. Sky claim that the premiere’s ratings is commensurate with MM s4 ratings in Sky homes, but surely the aim was to _increase_ viewers and subscribers.

Sky sought to utilise the brand of Mad Men, along with HBO (I would think many Brits assume MM comes from HBO) to shift the identity of the company amongst upmarket demographics away from sports, movies and Murdoch. No doubt downloads and repeats will increase that rating point and the cache of having Mad Men is strong. But it seems that they underestimated the size of the venn diagram crossover between Mad Men fans and broadsheet Murdoch-hating Sky refuseniks. I wonder how far up the illegal streaming/download charts Mad Men will rise as a result.