‘Breaking Bad’ season 5: Vince Gillian is grateful for … Netflix?
If you’ve got quite a bit of time on your hands at the moment, there is one thing that should be rising up on your reading list right about now: An extensive new interview with Vulture featuring “Breaking Bad” creator Vince Gilligan, where he rifts on everything from the show’s controversial subject matter to his relationship with AMC to even how he may choose to view the finale episode.
One of the more interesting comments that he makes, though, come via something that really shows why cable is way more current than Broadcast. Their understanding that more so than syndication, having something addicting enough to get people hooked on binge-watching will turn viewers who watch the show via other means into people who watch live.
Just look, for example, at how much Gilligan credits Netflix for his show eventually becoming a solid performer in the ratings:
“I am grateful as hell for binge-watching. I am grateful that AMC and Sony took a gamble on us in the first place to put us on the air. But I’m just as grateful for an entirely different company that I have no stake in whatsoever: Netflix. I don’t think you’d be sitting here interviewing me if it weren’t for Netflix. In its third season, Breaking Bad got this amazing nitrous-oxide boost of energy and general public awareness because of Netflix.”
This really just goes to show that if you have a high-quality product, that you make available on a specialized network like AMC (while still making some money for yourselves of course), that you should not shy away from making it available to the masses as well. The effects of binge-watching are very pronounced, given the rise in ratings for these shows versus many broadcast counterparts, which, thanks to them being procedurals, are far more difficult to get hooked on.
In case you have not heard Aaron Paul talk about his own legacy in the context of “Breaking Bad,” you should be sure to head on over to the link here.
Photo: AMC