Netflix, Spanish television, and La casa de papel: Growing global and local TV together in the multiplatform era

Abstract

This institutional-industrial analysis evaluates how Netflix’s post-2016 rebranding efforts resulted in its ongoing transition from a centrally-managed multinational corporation, based mainly in Silicon Valley, to a more decentralised transnational operation with multiple interconnected headquarters worldwide. Utilising a blended macro-micro critical perspective, Netflix’s October 2015 debut in Spain is examined as an inflection point for this subscription video on demand (SVOD) change agent, Spain’s then-traditional TV infrastructure and the transnational television industry. Netflix’s eventual integration into the Spanish television landscape and its transnational distribution of La casa de papel/Money Heist (2017–2021) serve as a two-fold object lesson into how glocal relations occur during TVIV.