2013: TV a streaming success

Winner: "Breaking Bad" - Former chemistry teacher Walter White went out on his own terms -- and so did "Breaking Bad" creator Vince Gilligan, who proved that endings can be both sad, gratifying and timely.

Winner: Netflix - That little service with the red DVD envelopes is all grown up. After emphasizing the streaming portion of its business, Netflix got into the original programming market and hit on all cylinders, topped by "House of Cards" and its nine Emmy nominations. Get ready for more.

Winner: "The Voice" - That OTHER singing talent show now has more buzz than the "Idol" whatchamacallit. "The Voice's" audience numbers have been consistently strong and its judging group of Blake Shelton, Christina Aguilera, Adam Levine and Cee-Lo Green have an easy camaraderie. What's not to like?

Winner: "The Walking Dead" - The hit AMC series had more than 16 million viewers for its season 4 premiere in mid-October and averaged 13 million for season 4's first half overall. That's cemented its status as the top-rated scripted series on television, period. (Only "Sunday Night Football" does better.) The second half of season 4 starts February 9.

Winner: Shonda Rhimes - The creator of "Grey's Anatomy" and "Private Practice" is really riding a rocket with "Scandal," now in its third season. By shrewdly using social media, the show has become water cooler fare for its rabid audience and is one of the highest-rated dramas on TV.

Winner: James Spader - More than a quarter century after "Pretty in Pink," James Spader still give his projects a jolt. The latest is "The Blacklist," an NBC show that's gotten mixed reviews -- too violent or too predictable, say some critics -- but the opinion on Spader's Red Reddington is full of praise. He'll be back in the multiplex soon as well, joining the cast of the next Avengers movie as the villainous Ultron.

Winner: James Wolk - "Mad Men" had an uneven year, but that Bob Benson character had everybody talking. And "The Crazy Ones" is still finding its footing, but art director Zach Cropper knows how to mix it up with Robin Williams' Simon Roberts. Wolk plays both Benson and Cropper. Expect to see a lot more of him.

Loser: "American Idol" - There was a time when "American Idol" was can't-miss TV. Now it's frequently missed, with ratings for the season 12 finale down 40% from the previous year. And who does watch? Folks over 50. "It's become your grandparents' 'American Idol,'" one analyst told the Hollywood Reporter.

Loser: AMC - On the surface, the former American Movie Classics is doing well -- just look at "The Walking Dead." But with the demise of "Breaking Bad" and the slow fade out of "Mad Men," which should have ended next year but is now being extended to 2015, the network is at a turning point. "Low Winter Sun" failed, and "The Killing" couldn't come back. Can it have both ratings and high quality? "Better Call Saul," right?

Loser: Thursday nights on NBC - Remember when Thursday nights on NBC meant "Must See TV?" Well with this season's lineup of the disappointingly performing "Sean Saves the World," "The Michael J. Fox Show," "Parenthood" and "Parks & Recreation" those days are long gone.

Loser: Marvel's "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." - Commercially, ABC's "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." started out well. But it hasn't broken out despite the fanboy buzz, and critics are hoping for improvement. It better hope there aren't more Victoria's Secret fashion shows in the future.

Loser: Network television - Let's be honest, who is paying much attention to network TV when there is so much richness now available on demand? Sure there are some good shows, but the networks probably wish that you were watching them live along with the commercials. But you aren't, are you?

Loser: "Dads" -- If you're Fox, you want to keep Seth MacFarlane happy. But does that mean airing "a cynical cash-grab" of "poorly executed hatefulness" in the words of the Onion A.V. Club? Perhaps it depends on how much cash you're grabbing. "Dads" didn't quite get a full-season pickup, but it did survive so someone must be happy. Seth Green, right, and Giovanni Ribisi star.

Loser: Patience - Binge-watching. Live tweeting. Instant reviews. Hair-trigger cancellations. Whether it's the broadcasters or the viewers, almost nobody lets TV simmer anymore. What would Paddy Chayefsky say?

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

"Television is becoming ever less about the box in the corner of the room, and ever more about the content it gives you access to," according to 33 Digital & Hotwire's Digital Trends Report 2013.

Such indulgence meant 2013 was also the year that Netflix became a source for major networks to contend with.

Don't believe that? Check the awards shows.

Netflix has garnered six Golden Globe nominations, placing them ahead of broadcast television networks CBS, NBC (which each had five nominations) and ABC (which had four). Netflix's "House of Cards" starring Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright snagged the most with four nominations, while their other hit series "Orange is the New Black" and the revived "Arrested Development" each received one nomination. Netflix also made history in September by winning three Emmys.

Not bad for a company that only a few years ago was competing with the now defunct Blockbuster in getting DVDs into the hands of customers.

While streaming and DVRing shows is not new, the take off of the original content really came into its own in 2013. Charlotte Koh, head of content development for Hulu Originals, said she sees it as a natural progression as consumers become more comfortable "living online."

"What's been great for all the online, on-demand distributors of content is that people really start to think about a place where we have first-window content that hasn't been anywhere else," Koh said. "I think it's a great virtuous circle that makes people more curious about 'Hey, I can discover things that I like here in this world that isn't necessarily available for me through traditional networks.'"

Hulu's most successful first-run series, "Misfits," returned this fall for its fifth and final season, and the company announced its first co-production with Lionsgate, "Deadbeat," a supernatural comedy starring Cat Deeley and Tyler Labine, as well as second seasons of the animated series "The Awesomes" from "Saturday Night Live" star Seth Myers and the western procedural comedy "Quick Draw."

Koh, whose company partners with network TV to stream their series, said on-demand companies like hers help "raise consumer awareness about shows that may need a little more time to gain a big audience."

"Then that audience goes and finds that show on the network because they want to watch it live when an episode comes on," she said. "Or they use us occasionally when they want to play catch up."

Amazon is also throwing its hat into the original content ring. In May the company announced that it would be creating five shows based on response from 14 pilots it posted online. "Annebots," "Alpha House," "Betas," "Creative Galaxy" and "Tumbleleaf" have all gotten the green light. With so much available content, viewers now no longer have to patiently wait for a new TV series to gain traction. They can instead catch up on a show that is already popular or indulge in original programming from aggregators.

CNN Money recently reported that the concept of "binge watching" may be changing. A Harris Interactive survey commissioned by Netflix found that those responding considered binge watching to be "watching a handful of episodes (between 2-6 episodes) of the same TV show in one sitting." Respondents also said they found binge watching an enjoyable activity.

That is not at all to suggest that broadcast and cable are dead. To the contrary, 2013 found fans losing it over the series finale of AMC's "Breaking Bad," enraptured by "Game of Thrones'" "Red Wedding" episode and fully embracing new shows like NBC's "The Blacklist" and Fox's "Sleepy Hollow."

Staff writers at The Atlantic recently selected their favorite episodes of 2013 and they were as varied as episode seven of "Arrested Development" on Netflix to the "You've Got Sext" episode of Fox's "The Mindy Project." On the cable side, original programming including A&E's reality show "Duck Dynasty" and the History Channel's miniseries "The Bible" scored big ratings.

In October, the Nielsens released its first ever "Twitter ratings," which measures the amount of tweets about a show and the size of the audience that views them. For the week of September 23, "Breaking Bad" ranked No. 1 with 9.3 million unique users seeing tweets specific to that show.

The increased focus on social and TV also grew in 2013, with Twitter announcing in November that it had updated its apps to allow for better organization of trending TV shows. That means it's now easier for "Scandal" fans to find each other and for viewers to the live production of NBC's "The Sound of Music," which they did in droves.