They would have to buy those rights from TV studios, who would for obviously reasons be loathe to part with them. Even producing their own shows is problematic, as the studios can blackball any actors/writers/directors/production people who work with them.

The television and film industry is a tight-knit group, and I can easily see them circling the wagons in order to protect their distribution monopoly.

Isn't that what Canada is for?

It's the same industry and same people. Also, our homebrew shows are mostly crap. Except Trailer Park Boys.

Another consideration is that Netflix uses an HBO model, not a broadcast TV model. So a show is only worth however many new subscriptions it drives. Existing subscribers who watch the show are worthless, unless it prevents them from cancelling.

You'd have to pick up shows where the fan base was extremely passionate but the show just couldn't find a mass audience. Those types of shows don't come around that often.

With all the cable companies now interested in scripted television, the ability for good shows to make it to a home that will support it through growth is much higher.

Besides the inventory issue, I see huge issues with Hulu and Netflix getting into the production business. Their core business is distribution, not programming and production.

Stargate.

And shows like Arrested Development, Firefly, and Jericho. Maybe not those shows in particular given the amount of time that's passed, but, the next time it happens.

I think Kings would be an excellent candidate for this approach, apart from the $x million per episode production costs... I watched all the episodes on Hulu, why not finish the show on Hulu?

Apart from the entire reason why Hulu wouldn't get into this business, why not? If you approach it that way, it's more of a fantasy than a reality.

I'm not seeing a compelling reason why Hulu/Netflix would be able to produce million dollar+ episodes and make money off of them.

I'm not arguing for Kings mind you, but I will say that it seems all publishers want to become content owners. And if the current content owners don't want to run the site, I find it difficult to imagine they're going to stay with it forever.

The roles of creators and broadcasters are blurring. Not because of a squeezing from CEOs either to turn more a profit, but the necessity of the Internet.

If I owned Crackle, Rev3, YT, Netflix, or Hulu? You can bet I'd be looking to pick up properties with a built-in following.

Arrested Development and Jericho agreed!

Never got into Firefly.

The other obvious issue is that if the show was cancelled by the studio, what makes you think it would be profitable to pay for and produce new shows for distribution across a smaller network (Netflix vs. sum of cable/satellite distribution, which is the case for most major studios)? I suspect FNL/DirecTV may be a counter-argument here, although I don't know the specific economics of that agreement.

TV networks often cancel profitable shows because they aren't profitable enough. There are enormous opportunity costs involved in allocating a network time slot to a show: you only get 24 hours in a day, and only a few of those are prime-time. If a prime-time show isn't making big bucks, you cancel it and try another one, and you keep doing that until you find a show that makes you say, "Hmm...if I cancel this, there's a good chance I won't be able to do better." Television networks, like big movie studios, are in the business of producing lots of shows, hoping for the occasional big hit.

If you're running a streaming service, the opportunity costs of a small-viewership show are much less. As long as you're making some money, there's no reason to stop. Because streaming services do not have to allocate broadcast time slots as a scare commodity, they can go with an entirely different model: many more shows, each targeted at a smaller but more passionate audience.

Profound. Upvote.

pretty sure Netflix is already planning to do just that