House of Cards

Hollywood vs. Netflix in 2011: The Studio Pressure That Set Up the Qwikster Decision

Months before the Qwikster crisis, Hollywood was already squeezing Netflix at the licensing layer. Showtime pulled Dexter. Starz instituted a 90-day delay, then exited the relationship entirely. The pre-crisis pressure context that produced the strategic decisions Qwikster would compound — and the original-content pivot it ultimately drove.