In the late 60’s, there was an interesting development in the world of rock music. In January of 1967, the FCC banned FM radio stations from running “simulcasts” (simultaneous broadcasts of sister AM radio stations). This created a vacuum of content in the FM space. Desperate DJ’s had to find something to fill the silence, and the one hit wonders of AM radio were too expensive for their measly budgets. With the freedom (and necessity) to play longer, more obscure sets of music, the FM DJ’s gained a thirst for new and exciting sounds. An influx of strange and wonderful music poured in—both as a product of the times, and as a response to the new market. Gone was the monopoly of the 2-minute pop song. This reinvigorated scene of FM radio led to the genesis of album rock.

We find ourselves presented with a similar opportunity today when it comes to television and film. The dynasty of the networks (NBC, Fox, CBS, and ABC) has been waning for years, as TV viewers continue to find cable to offer better content—and more of it. In film, the dichotomy between blockbusters and small budget films continues to grow, while the “middle class”(films in the 5-90 million dollar range) slowly dies out. The Internet is uprooting this outlook of visual media, however. Online entertainment will, is, and has already changed everything we know about moving images.

Despite New Media outlets like YouTube being less then 10 years old, we’ve already seen massive leaps in the production of new content formats. The web series, The Vlog, the video podcast, and most recently Internet streaming services.

When the FM stations opened the floodgates, we received the most essential rock albums of all time—Tommy, Dark Side of the Moon, and so on. I see a similar creative revolution beginning online, and it begins on Netflix.

Netflix (and services like it) that are delving into original content are, in many ways, the birthplace of visual storytelling’s “album rock”. House of Cards, Netflix’s first foray into original programming, is one of the best shows of the last decade. Kevin Spacey (who plays morally deprived Frank Underwood) gave a speech at the Edinburgh Television Festival regarding new media, and got to talking about how the show ended up with Netflix.

“[The Networks and Cable channels] wanted us to do a pilot first. And it wasn’t out of arrogance that David Fincher and Beau Willimon and I were not interested in having to audition the idea; it was that we wanted to start to tell a story that would take a long time to tell… [The show] would need space to play out,” Spacey said.

They wanted to make a show according to a singular vision, but the Television stations wanted to muddy up that process by making sure it was a financially stable investment first. They didn’t want to commit to the structure of a pilot episode because it was against the entire idea of the show. These characters had to reveal themselves over a long period of time, but a pilot requires that all the drama in the series be touched on in a single hour. They finally ended up striking a deal with Netflix. By the nature of streaming, they would also be free of the constrictions of airtimes. Spacey and company were able to launch the entire first season on the same day. Although this led to the epidemic known as “Binge Watching”, the series soared because viewers were able to experience it in massive chunks—getting to know the characters and their flaws intimately.

With the success of House of Cards, Netflix dove feet-first into the realm of original content. Shows such as Orange is the New Black, Arrested Development Season 4, and many other programs in a bevy of different mediums proved that Netflix has the ability to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the likes of HBO. They also have a ton of exciting shows coming soon. The hotly anticipated Marvel crossover The Defenders—which will act like The Avengers in that a team of heroes (Daredevil, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, and Iron Fist) will team up to fight evil together—is just the beginning of the interesting opportunities streaming offers.

I expect that soon these Netflix shows will lose the “series” pretense and just become sprawling 16-hour films. Why not? Most people wouldn’t restrict themselves to one episode per sitting anyway, so in a sense it’s a completely different experience from both TV and Film.

The idea of a movie that can exist as longer then 3 hours surely sounds like the future. And, unlike the growing blockbuster market of today, these films can exist in that “middle class” range of budgets. They could even have singular creative teams to create the unified sensibility of the movies we’re used to. HBO’s True Detective was proof that this can be done. Unlike most TV shows that have large writing staffs and rotating directors, True Detective was the 8-episode vision of director Cary Joji Fukunaga and writer Nic Pizzolatto. In many ways, it truly was an 8-hour film.

With Netflix at the forefront, the Internet has and will open a whole new universe of possibilities. It disposes of the constraints of the television and the movie theater, and offers a more pure, holistic approach to telling stories visually. Spacey said it best…

“Any differentiation between these platforms will fall away… The labels are useless… It’s just story… [The audiences] want stories. They’re dying for them… [They’ll] engage with it with a passion and intimacy that a blockbuster movie could only dream of. And all we have to do is give it to them.”