"HBO and Showtime don’t care how many people are watching any given show"

TV Indiewire has a brief but excellent analysis of the US television networks and how the construction of their shows do differ markedly even if it all seems like a jumble from this side of the Atlantic:

"The reason premium cable changed television was because they were dependent upon subscribers, not advertisers. The implications of this are profound: unlike all the other networks, HBO and Showtime don’t care how many people are watching any given show. And they don’t care if, after "Game of Thrones," you watch "Silicon Valley." The moment you subscribed, they made their money. They are after an aggregated audience, not the largest audience in any time slot.

"HBO doesn’t care if I watch "Girls"; it was designed to get young women to subscribe. My viewing is a bonus. And they don’t care if the "Girls" audience watches "Looking." That show is designed to get the gay male audience to subscribe. Falloff from one show to the other doesn’t really matter."

The section about Netflix is interesting because the experience of Orange Is The New Black differs markedly from mine. Unlike House of Cards, I'm finding it very difficult to get through the first season of OISTNB. I've stuck at episode six I think. Each episode feels like enough in the same way the author suggests Breaking Bad is. It's not something I have been able to binge.  With the launch of the new series I am feeling a tug to get on with it, but I wonder if it's simply that we don't see eye-to-eye, if I'm just not enjoying the thing.  What could that mean?