David Farnor | On 19, May 2014

Ant and Dec. Dragons’ Den. Cilla Black. The list of nominees at the 2014 BAFTA TV Wards may not read like a forward-thinking bunch, but this year’s ceremony is when the British TV industry took a big step into the future. Yes, on the same night as when an award was given to the host of Blind Date.

Breaking Bad won the prize for Best International Drama last night – a phrase that is now a familiar mainstay of the awards circuit. But there’s nothing routine about it.

The AMC drama, which stars Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul, has picked up several gongs at the Emmys and Golden Globes over the years. But the programme’s final season, which premiered last year, wasn’t shown on TV in this country – it was only available on Netflix, which makes it the first ever show not broadcast to win a BAFTA.

“This is such an honour to be nominated in this category,” Aaron Paul said at the ceremony. “I feel so blessed to be in your company, my god. The fact that I’m standing on this stage is so crazy to me.”

Indeed, it was only last October that the British Academy changed its rules to make web-based series eligible for a golden mask, a shift that saw Breaking Bad waste no time in facing off against House of Cards for the International gong – another show only available through Netflix.

Of course, traditional telly broadcast is far from dead: ITV and Channel 4 took home eight awards each, with Olivia Colman taking home Leading Actress for Broadchurch, one of three the show received. But while Cilla Black and Julie Walters were honoured with the Special Award and Academy Fellowship respectively, Breaking Bad’s landmark win shows that it’s not just in America that video on-demand is changing the landscape of the small screen.

It is fitting, perhaps, that Best Mini-Series went to the BBC’s fantastic zombie show In the Flesh, which was broadcast on BBC Three – a channel currently set to become an online-only platform in the not-so-distant future. While there are concerns the broadcaster will cut its funding and support for new shows such as In the Flesh, Netflix’s victory is a reassuring sign that people such as In the Flesh’s creator Dominic Mitchell can still get recognition.

The streamers are coming – and British TV is ready to celebrate them. Bitches.

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