Could that fit with Netflix's current culture? They're big on content that's curated, high-quality, high-definition (with graceful degredation). Live news' editorial agility and responsiveness would require a department with a substantially different attitude and expertise.

They're capable of expanding and pivoting though, more than most companies, so if they decide it's a priority, it's possible. It seems like a pretty big commitment though.

Before doing a cable news type thing they would probably be better off starting with a PBS / 60 minutes type program. Long form journalism that still has value the next day.

Making a Murderer is already in this direction.

I could certainly imagine them doing a much better job of news coverage where all the "Stories" would be available independently and when things changed you got an indication of new data so you could, if you wanted to, watch from the change forward, or the whole piece. Sort of like the NY Times pushing and re-pushing an article as the available information gathers texture.

Since most of the news channels consist of rehashing things with the assumption that this is the "first" version you are seeing, they could provide a much better viewing experience that would certainly feel more curated and much more efficiently inform.

Like their current original content, they would just sub it out to another organization, which would provide them the content. I could see them going to an existing organization that may not be entirely linked to a network (at least not in as competitive a way) and using their new. The BBC for example, or NPR if they had a video cast equivalent to their audio one.

I like that. I could see them having NPR and BBC news report 'channels' with each article being a different program. That would be a serious hit agains cable and satellite TV. Sure, it's wouldn't be live streaming, but I imagine that live streaming is just another evolutionary step they could approach after they master the short new reports.

They should just start picking up the conventional news channels; an custom one would instantly make them enemies who thought it was either too conservative or too liberal.

At some point the channels will realize that cable carriers are a dead end and start selling to online companies like Netflix. Why should Netflix replace cable when it could become cable (less the exorbitant pricing and punch-a-hole-in-the-wall customer service)?