‘House of Cards’ A Huge Hit In China While Comcast Snags Netflix’s Programming

Theres no argument that Netflix’s House of Cards is a huge hit in the United States. Surprisingly, the runaway hit has found a new audience in an unlikely country. According to a report by NPR, the series starring Kevin Spacey is doing very well in China.

The second season of House of Cards debuted on Valentine’s Day, and Americans couldn’t get enough of it, but apparently neither could viewers in China. Right now 83 million streams are dedicated to the hottest television show. House of Cards super fan Andrew Jiang, binge-watched all thirteen episodes in a single day. It’s a feat that Americans just couldn’t touch on the debut day.

According to Jiang, the reason behind it is that House of Cards might be more interesting to China than Americans due to its unique political structure. For Americans it’s a genre that has been written about before, but for China viewers it’s an untapped story.

“Because you get this kind of political drama all the time. While in China, there is no political drama.”

The Communist Party in China usually has a close eye on the entertainment that is brought into the country and what’s exposed to its citizens. Jiang continued to analyze why House of Cards works so well in China.

“Everyone is like a hero and everyone is like a great statesman. It’s just propaganda, but in House of Cards, what you are going to see is the sausage-making process.”

Speaking about the show’s realism, its star Kevin Spacey told the Washington Post:

“Some people feel that 99 percent of the show is accurate, and that the 1 percent that isn’t is that you could never get an education bill passed like that.”

House of Cards’ popularity has been so significant that other cable providers want in on Netflix’s numbers. According to The Verge the show will now be available to Comcast subscribers. This is huge news for original programming on Netflix. Up until now viewers needed to have a Netflix account to view its programming and library of streams and DVDs. As far as House of Cards is concerned this is no longer an issue.

Comcast also announced that in addition to the political drama they will also offer the original Netflix series Orange is the New Black in May. The show’s second season debuts on June 6, 2014. This extension of programming is reportedly due to a separate distribution deal with Lionsgate.

[Image credit: Netflix]