This month, Netflix introduced what they hope will become a game changer in the way we watch television.

With House of Cards — the political drama starring Kevin Spacey and produced by The Social Network director David Fincher — the company has placed a $100 million bet that audiences would be willing to change their viewing habits in exchange for undisturbed access.

Released in one 13-episode block, House of Cards offers audiences the chance to view the complete first season (a second season has already been ordered) in one sitting — if they so choose. It’s a pond Netflix has been dipping their toes into ever since they rejigged their focus from DVD mail-out to streaming service, and one which has landed the company a reputation as being an essential companion to most contemporary serialized television series like Breaking Bad and Mad Men.

However, with the introduction of a slew of original programming — Toronto-shot series Hemlock Grove, dark comedy Orange is the New Black and the resurrection of cult comedy Arrested Development will arrive later this year — Netflix is starting to undermine the viewing and, perhaps more importantly, revenue models of traditional television.

Of course, these warnings are nothing new in a media landscape strewn with the corpses of near-sighted giants. But what differentiates the television industry from, say, the music business – with its similar hydra of majors – is that the end user never felt cheated. Unlike the days of $30 CDs and force-fed popularity, television watchers actually found comfort in the higher production value the networks provided. And when cable produced better quality, those who desired such sophisticated endeavors were able to access them with relative ease and, more importantly, without excessive financial grief.

As a result, audiences and the established industry have, until now, viewed Netflix as a convenient companion rather than a giant killer — not to mention it is often faster and more easily browsed than torrents, the free-but-illegal alternative. If done correctly, the company’s original programming shift should be a smart strategic move, even if it lacks the cool factor of an iTunes revolution.

Like The Shield for FX and The Sopranos for HBO before it, House of Cards is a tent pole series for Netflix. But, unlike its predecessors, in a rather cunning move that echoes the company’s philosophy, Netflix is not releasing the “ratings” for the series.

It’s a double-edged sword which may end up undermining the public discourse which has heralded the so-called “second Golden Age of Television,” but – if initial numbers are anything to go by — the company’s youthful fan-base have managed to find a way around it.

House of Cards Season 1 was released Super Bowl weekend, a noted dead zone for traditional television which traditionally aims to avoid the football ratings supernova. The only marquee program with the intestinal fortitude to go up against America Day in America was PBS’ soapy Downton Abbey. According to analytics site Topsy, at its high point House of Cards garnered about 22,000 Twitter mentions, 5,000 more than Abbey at its peak.

So what does this tell us about the future of television? Well, nothing we didn’t already know. If anything, it’s only speeding up the evolution of the medium; Widening the chasm between those who still prefer to keep their television easy to digest (generally older fans who value their Blue Bloods and Big Bang Theory) and those who like to be challenged and impressed by their entertainment (younger fans who rarely actually watch a show in its regularly scheduled time-slot).

The real winners in the great Netflix wars of 2013 will be cult series such as Community – who’s much maligned fourth season began this week on NBC and Citytv. As the half-joke #sixseasonsandamovie hashtag proved, while the series may die for lack of ratings, there is a devoted audience which would be just as happy (if not more so) to watch the series online as they would on the traditional networks.

It’s a story echoed by another big cast cult series back in 2006. In May of this year, Arrested Development will return for a fourth season, which creator Mitch Horowitz has stated will likely be a set-up for an eventual motion picture.

Assuming Community gets picked up for one final run, it wouldn’t be a stretch to see that hashtag prediction find its final legs on Netflix, where perhaps it was meant to be all along.

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Listen to Jonathan Dekel and National Post television columnist Scott Stinson discuss the future of television in this week’s Post Pop Podcast below: