Chelsea Handler for Netflix is Much, Much Bigger Than You Think.
Late night is irrelevant
E! late night talk show host Chelsea Handler has announced she is leaving the major cable broadcaster for online network Netflix. This is an exciting move for both parties and also marks a momentous shift in the innovation at hand disrupting the most traditional of TV time slots. Despite the swift moves made in TV over the last five years, no one has thought late night stand up would move into the online space purely because the content centered on current news. Netflix has already proved that online streaming is a grandslam for traditional TV series, (House of Cards, Orange is the New Black) but no one anticipated that a talk show, which is highly topical and requires a production time lag longer than cable, would make the move into on-demand and have relevance past 24hours. The production time required to have a show ready to host and stream, is best left to scripted tv shows.
Netflix is breaking barriers
When Netflix released their viewership statistics, the prevalence of binge-watching was shocking but gave insight into the new generation. By providing series on-demand and released in full, Netflix has become a rising star disrupting the television industry. In a discussion about Chelsea Handler’s late night spot, Netflix executive Friedland said the goal is to develop a talk show that can resonate with Netflix's global audience and "break free from what is one of the most rigid and sort of old-style forms of television.” Many thought that late night was stuck in a competitive time slot, but in reality, the real recent prize of the late night darlings is to have interviews and clips buzzed about and shared the next day.
Live streaming capabilities
The Handler show is not set to begin for another 18 months, generating suspicions that Netflix is on the brink of bringing live- streaming capability over its Internet pipeline. If the rumors are true, and Netflix can achieve live- streaming, this capability expands far beyond late night talk shows and into things such as live sporting events, award events, news. Cable killer. The last stake in the online war that cable held was live television streaming. While we don’t know the full format of Chelsea Handler’s new show, we can be sure it will be raw and uncensored, unlike cable, and might just prove to be a light reprieve in between binge watching.