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Netflix originals (programs produced or at least financed by Netflix) such as House of Cards and the new season of Arrested Development are a very likely a peek into the future.

Edit: Also the recent success of HBO and AMC in producing high quality big budget shows such as Mad Men, Breaking Bad or Game Of Thrones.

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How do you measure success? Is it number of viewers, awards won, etc.?

My cynical side says that success is (advertising_dollars_per_episode * #_episodes) / (cost_per_episode). So the more ads they can sell for more money divided by the cost to produce.

Advertising is not the only source of revenue of cable channels and that is especially true for HBO and AMC. Channels get paid a certain rate by cable companies for each subscriber they have. Certain popular or premium channels get paid more. HBO and AMC get paid substantially more than other channels. Popular shows put channels in a position that allows them to negotiate higher rates.

AMC does not have high subscription fees. They are somewhere near $0.27:

http://m.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/07/how-watchi...

That isn't very high relative to others.

http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/sports/141097593.html

What they do do is collect lots of fees from non-viewers.

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