While Foxtel says it will still have to wait another week or so to get the final data on whether the House of Cards experiment was a success, the pay TV provider will "absolutely" be repeating the model.
Foxtel director of programming and channels Ross Crowley indicated that "binge viewing" was something the network would increasingly cater for, with shows to be offered up to viewers to consume as they wish.
"Ultimately what we'll end up doing is providing multiple options. We'd love to be able to provide shows, depending on a whole stack of factors, maybe in batches [of episodes]," he told AdNews. "We're looking at all of the ways we can provide content to viewers."
House of Cards, the Netflix-produced political thriller starring Kevin Spacey, was Foxtel's first foray into upfront download for a first-run show (already-aired seasons of previous shows, such as Game of Thrones, are offered up for on-demand viewing), emulated from Netflix's own strategy.
The show went live on Tuesday, airing on both Showcase and with all 13 episodes simultaneously made available on Foxtel On Demand. In terms of his expectations on the show's success, Crowley said he would be hoping for total usage at least as strong as any other premium drama on the network.
"The interesting thing for us is to see how many people want to do the binge viewing, and how many people go for the week-long or longer binge, maybe three or four episodes at a time. There are different patterns of usage – I don't think we could say there's one definitive pattern."
But Crowley acknowledged that this kind of bingeing was the new reality of TV viewing. "There are these shows which are hot and immersive. Immersive is the new way of TV, which is for three or four months of a year, you'll immerse yourself in your favourite brand, and then you'll leave it for six months."
What this new reality of on-demand, all-at-once content delivery means for Foxtel's advertisers and the sales teams at MCN – who after all need bums in seats at allocated times against which to sell ads – is still up in the air, but Crowley stressed commercial partnerships would always be "top of mind".
"Our partners provide a huge support for getting as much original premium production as we do, so they are absolutely top of mind – but we also want to balance that with the user experience.
"It's absolutely negotiable. We've got some really savvy people on it. We love the partnerships we have with the commercial industry and what that helps us do, so we treat that very seriously and want to make it work for everybody."
Pay TV, streaming services, the NBN, illegal downloads, legal downloads, Netflix, Quickflix... the industry is going through turbulent times. Wherever it all lands, the bottom line will be that consumers want access to great content following the path of least resistance. Foxtel appears to be listening. Next up, pay-per-view?
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