- In the not-so-distant past, TV viewers were forced to wait a week for the next installment of their favorite shows, parceled out by networks in half-hour or hour-long increments.
Watching “Saturday Night Live” on a Sunday became normal, and viewers started to lose track of the broadcast schedule. In 2011, it struck a deal for its first original show, the political thriller “House of Cards.” It released all 13 episodes of the show’s first season on Feb. 1, 2013. That July it followed with the entire first season of “Orange is the New Black.”