Vivendi just launched (PDF) Watchever on Wednesday. The service offers access to “entire seasons of award-winning U.S. series, blockbusters and international art house films” for €8.99 (USD $11.99) per month. Among the “thousands” of available titles: AMC shows Mad Men and Breaking Bad, early seasons of HBO shows like The Sopranos and Sex and the City and films like Slumdog Millionaire and There Will Be Blood.

The Next Web, which first reported the news, thinks this “could be the start of a trend in which Apple cuts deals for regions where there is a strong localized offering that delivers content appealing to Apple TV owners there.”

Netflix is not available in Germany. The Amazon-owned Lovefilm, which offers both streaming and physical DVDs, is available in Germany but, like Amazon Instant Video in the U.S., it’s not available on Apple TV.

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Please note: This article contains MASSIVE spoilers for the 5th season of “Breaking Bad.” You’ve been warned.

For the past two months, AMC has prefaced each new episode of the critically-acclaimed drama Breaking Bad by alerting viewers to the existence of BreakingBadStorySync.com: A second-screen experience for each episode, timed to update with the show if you skipped the DVR and watched live.

Second screen experiences are nothing new, but they’re something I’ve always primarily associated with award shows and lighter fare. I was curious as to what a second-screen experience for a gritty cable drama like Breaking Bad would be like. So for the 2012 finale, I made sure I was home in time, with my laptop on the couch with me.

Powered by the real-time web platform Echo (whose website was down as of writing — Google cache here), Breaking Bad Story Sync proved to be a relatively entertaining mix of photos, video, polls and flashbacks, cleverly tied to the on-screen action — a great way to engage fans. But it was also, at times, a crass effort to get people watching ads — while watching ads, on top of ads.

The episode, “Gliding Over All,” began with anti-hero Walter White (Bryan Cranston) gazing intently at a fly — Story Sync began by reminding us about the 3rd season episode where Walt was super-obsessed with a fly in the lab…

…before moving on, a few minutes later, to poll viewers on whether or not the shocking murder which ended last week’s episode was necessary.

(For not the last time, the poll showed that an overwhelming majority of people are no longer rooting for Walt.)

One more poll popped up before we reached the first commercial break of the episode, at which point I expected to see some bonus content to keep those normally used to a DVR experience from getting twitchy. Instead, we got this:

Yeah, that’s a banner ad right above another ad.

There were three more ads for the SRT over the course of the Story Sync experience, turning my two-screen viewing experience into two screens of commercials. In addition, when I clicked to watch a video replay of a violent prisoner-shanking montage (which was the StorySync update immediately following that montage airing on TV), the video began with a 30-second pre-roll ad — for Breaking Bad.

Yo dawg, I heard you like “Breaking Bad” so I put an ad for “Breaking Bad” in your “Breaking Bad” Story Sync experience.

Overall, the technology powering the service performed well — there were no lags in updates, no loading issues, and the interactive elements were glitch-free. I also liked the subtle “tock” noise which indicated an update — just enough to alert you without being distracting.

Beyond the technology, though, watching with Story Sync had two strong benefits: First, the polls and quizzes, which at times lacked subtlety:

But did offer some fun interactivity:

Second: The flashbacks and reminders of past episodes, which were timed perfectly with the on-screen action. If you’ve never watched Breaking Bad, know that it’s a show which loves thematic callbacks and inside jokes, a fact which Story Sync celebrated all episode long:

The biggest drawback to a second-screen experience on a drama like Breaking Bad is that like many sophisticated dramas, there are often big moments that are played quietly. Which is to say that I was looking at my stupid computer when, on screen, it was revealed that Walt had brought along his trusty vial of ricin poison to his meeting with a potentially expendable contact — a big character and plot moment, and one that I completely missed.

In fact, I didn’t learn about it until the next day, when I read one of the many blog recaps of the episode. Instead, I thought that the Story Sync update which followed that scene was foreshadowing ricin’s appearance.

Despite that unfortunate glitch, I overall found the whole experience intriguing, especially those moments which proved that whoever was behind the experience had some snark in them:

Second-screen viewing is definitely not a fad, and leaning into the curve of distracted audiences isn’t a bad strategy, especially when you can also simultaneously encourage real-time engagement. And given that Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan has said he’s worried about how DVRing affects the current TV business model, it’s hardly a surprise that this show is one of the first to play with this combination of elements.

The next time we might see Story Sync again will be when The Walking Dead returns for Season 3 this October (it originally launched during Dead‘s second season last spring). But while my first experience was interesting, I’m not sure it was compelling enough to make me forego using my DVR for future AMC programming — especially given the additional ads that came with it.

Perhaps it’s enough to just watch a TV show — especially when it’s one of the best shows on television. Perhaps I’m more old-fashioned than I thought.

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Arrested‘s rebirth, over four years in the works, has the potential to completely change the game in terms of the way we regard web content in the future. I mean, cult network sitcom gets a literal second life through the largess of a company that began life as a mail-order DVD service? If you time-traveled to 2006 (the year Fox originally canceled the show), and told this story, no one would believe you.

And yet, it’s happening: scripts have been written, producer/narrator Ron Howard’s Tweeting from the set, and David Cross, on a recent press blitz, said no shortage of interesting things about the series’ return, including this to Rolling Stone:

I think it’s going to be 13 episodes, not 10. There’s too much story. Some characters will have two-parters. Everybody sort of participates, sometimes in a bigger way and sometimes in a tiny little thread that goes through everybody else’s stories.

This is the sort of statement that would make a network executive’s head explode, due to the way traditional TV is budgeted and structured on a per-episode basis. But we’re on Netflix’s turf now. Unexplored territory.

Beyond Lilyhammer, which has been renewed for a second season, the industry hasn’t gotten much sense yet of how Netflix’s many high-profile in-the-works projects, such as Arrested, the Eli Roth series Hemlock Grove or the Kevin Spacey-starring House of Cards, will really work out — especially because the question of how to promote a VOD project is still a bit up in the air.

With theatrical releases, you get premiere dates, big galas. But Netflix is so stealthy about announcing what’s available and what isn’t that websites and email services have been created to update people.

Without doubt, I’ll know what day I’m calling in with the Arrested flu next spring — it’s impossible to imagine that not being heavily promoted by both the production and Netflix — but the Netflix experience in general has always boiled down to “Wait, THAT’S available now? Okay, cool.” Seeing how Netflix adapts to accommodate the original programming they’re launching, while still enabling the casual browsing of the user experience, is a fascinating challenge.

The other element is the fact that like Lilyhammer, all 10-13 episodes of the series will be released at once, setting fans up for epic marathon sessions. The term “binge viewing” has been coined to describe how many TV fans now consume shows, gulping up entire seasons on DVD or streaming services. It’s a wonderful way to fall in love with a show — just sinking into it the way you might sink into an epic novel. And Arrested‘s new season, according to Cross, sounds designed with just that experience in mind:

I’m not gonna divulge anything, but I know what the stories are and what Mitch [Hurwitz] is doing, and it’s so layered. It’s really audacious and amazing. I think a lot of people will miss the work that is involved, the story, the Venn diagrams that are being created, the domino effect that characters have with each other in their various episodes. I know what he’s doing, and this has never been done on a TV show like this. This makes Lost look like a Spalding Grey monologue. You’ll have to watch each episode more than once.

Given the show’s pre-established track record for hidden jokes and gags, this sounds more than promising.

The AMC series Breaking Bad is a key example of a show that’s grown its audience thanks to binge viewing, indicated by how its ratings have increased with each season, as new viewers discover the show through Netflix. But Vince Gilligan, in a recent interview with KCRW’s The Business, had this to say about the phenomenon:

It’s wonderful, but I do see the worry — this is a business, it’s show business and if there’s no money to be made, then this wonderful job I have and other jobs like it are going to dry up. So we should all be interested in how they monetize this stuff. It’s wonderful when people binge-watch the show — I say have at it — but I do see the companies, not just ours, the various companies concerned that if you’re binge-watching on a DVR, you’re skipping all the commercials. And if the guys who buy the commercials realize that all their commercials are being skipped, they’re going to stop buying commercials.

It’s an attitude you’ll hear elsewhere in the industry — which may be why Netflix is doubling down on its subscription model. I couldn’t track down the budget for Arrested Development‘s new season, but House of Cards‘s price tag was reported by some as $100 million, and Hemlock Grove, it’s said, is budgeted at $40 million for 13 episodes — otherwise known as about $3 million an episode. That’s real TV money — in fact, it’s the same budget as Breaking Bad.

It’s a long time until the spring of 2013, but looking forward it’s hard to imagine a more important signpost for the convergence of television and the web than Arrested Development. If it succeeds, it’ll legitimize a whole new distribution platform and business model. And if it fails, well, we’ll at least get to see Tobias in his cutoffs again.

The TV singularity approaching us consumers of media is at times a scary one: We’re used to shows that cost millions an episode, but we’re also now used to consuming whatever we want, wherever and whenever we want. Some people think that going forward, these two mindsets won’t be able to co-exist. But Netflix seems to disagree, and the Bluths may be the ones to prove it.

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Nearly four weeks after blacking out AMC Networks channels — and popular adult drama Breaking Bad along with them– Dish Network has seemingly done just that. And this could have broad implications in the pay TV business, where programmers have typically held most of the leverage when negotiating new affiliate agreements.

Asked Friday if a revolt among Dish’s 14 million subscribers has inspired the company to work with AMC on a new affiliate agreement and restore its channels, a spokesman for the satellite company said there was no update to the impasse.

Also read: Why Breaking Bad doesn’t scare Dish, but Walking Dead will

“Are you hearing anything,” he asked?

Strangely, I had to respond, “No.”

If the on-air and online campaign launched by AMC to steer Dish subscribers to other pay TV services is gaining traction, AMC sure isn’t beating its chest about it. An AMC representative on Friday told us grassroots subscriber revolts take time to gestate.

I also made an inquiry into the Dish sales department. A Dish rep told me there’s no timeline for AMC, WE TV and IFC returning to the service’s channel lineup any time soon. “Those channels are gone,” he told me.

Contrast that with the DirecTV/Viacom licensing dispute earlier this month — even as the corporate rhetoric raged on both sides, DirecTV sales reps kept assuring customers that a deal to restore channels including Nickelodeon and MTV was “imminent.”

Meanwhile, a perusal of the sales charts for Apple’s iTunes store shows that the most popular TV download is the most recent episode of Breaking Bad, titled “Madrigal.” This could be seen as lending credence to Dish’s negotiating position all along — that it has no reason to increase the program licensing fee it pays AMC, because its subscribers have so many other ways to access AMC shows. (New Breaking Bad episodes are also available through Amazon Instant Video, and Netflix has seasons 1-4 of the show exclusively.)

The AMC rep we spoke, however, said the network’s shows are always highly ranked on iTunes when they’re in season.

As for AMC’s linear TV ratings — and by extension, its ad sales — losing access to Dish’s nearly 14 million homes has undoubtedly rendered a hit. Last Sunday, ratings for the “Madrigal” episode were down 21 percent from the prior week’s fifth-season-premiere, with only 2.3 million viewers tuning into the initial run of Breaking Bad.

PR-wise, there appears to be little pressure on Dish. Summarizing the dispute for its online and mobile audience on July 3, ABC News lauded Dish for not saddling its subscribers with increased program licensing costs, titling its story, “Why Dish dropping AMC might be good for consumers.”

Asked whether he thinks AMC channels will ever return to Dish, Bernstein Research senior analyst Craig Moffett backed up AMC’s assertion that this impasse all ties into an unrelated legal dispute pitting Dish against AMC and its former parent company,  Cablevision.

Also read: AMC – “Dish never even talked rates with us”

Set to go to trial in September, Dish finds itself short on leverage in the $2.5 billion dispute, which stems from its decision to drop now-defunct channel Voom HD in 2008.

When a settlement does occur, Moffett contends, the restoration of AMC’s channels will likely be part of the agreement.

In the meantime, Dish doesn’t appear to be breaking a sweat … and while no subscriber data is available beyond June 30, the day AMC channels were yanked, it appears to have found its leverage.

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AMC says it’ll stream the fifth-season premiere of its hit adult drama Breaking Bad on Sunday night for the nearly 14 million Dish Network subscribers who no longer receive its channels.

While AMC series are ubiquitous through over-the-top channels like Netflix, current-season episodes of the cable network’s shows typically aren’t available through streaming.

“AMC wants its loyal Dish viewers to experience the excitement of the Breaking Bad premiere at the same time as their friends and neighbors, and we want to give Dish customers an extra week to switch providers so they can enjoy the rest of the season,” reads an AMC statement issued Thursday.

(Note: AMC said nothing about paying the $175 early termination fee for any of those disgruntled Dish subscribers.)

Dish customers can visit http://www.amctv.com/breakingbad4dish starting at 3 p.m. ET Friday and authenticate their subscription for the stream, which begins Sunday at 10 p.m. ET.

Also read: AMC – “Dish never even talked rates with us”

AMC Networks channels, including not only the flagship AMC, but also the lifestyle-oriented WE TV and the movie-based IFC, were pulled off Dish July 1, coinciding with the expiration of a carriage deal. The satellite carrier claims AMC is seeking excessively high carriage rate increases to renew the contract. AMC says no negotiation of rates has even occurred — Dish’s decision, it contends, relates to a separate litigation between the two paries. (You can read all about that here.)

So how much anti-Dish messaging will AMC be conducting during this streaming presentation Sunday? An AMC press representative didn’t respond to our inquiry.

Also read: For Netflix users, “catch-up” TV viewing has a catch

But the strategy of making Sunday’s anticipated Breaking Bad debut available differs entirely from Viacom’s decision Wednesday to pull streaming availability for most of its current programs in the wake of its carriage dispute with DirecTV.

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Netflix already has exclusive rights to past seasons of AMC’s Mad Men and Breaking Bad in the U.S. and Latin America through Lionsgate (NYSE: LGF) and Sony.

The package also covers non-exclusive rights for other shows from AMC Networks, including Portlandia and The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret (IFC); Braxton Family Values, My Fair Wedding, and Bridezillas (WE tv); and All On The Line with Joe Zee and Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys (Sundance).

Netflix has been expanding existing deals and adding streaming video steadily and CEO Reed Hastings said earlier this year efforts would step up going into the fourth quarter. Showing signs of significant improvement took on new urgency with the fallout over changing pricing plans and spinning DVDs into Qwikster paired with the announcement by Starz Entertainment that it would not renew. Starz programming includes many of the first-run movies on Netflix.

This isn’t a huge deal but it’s a sign to subscribers that Netflix continues to look not only for new programming but for exclusive programming and a lure for potential subscribers interested in certain kinds of cable programming without paying monthly cable rates. In addition to building library content, Netflix has put a particular focus on getting past seasons of current shows from across networks.

In terms of TV, that puts it strategically between Hulu Plus, which so far remains the go-to place for next-day access to the largest amount of prime-time shows plus catch-up for current seasons and depth in terms of past seasons, and Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN), which is increasing its stock of shows that are off the air.

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Viewers can now turn to Comcast’s Xfinity TV or Dish Network’s DishOnline.com to catch up on the first two episodes of the critically acclaimed AMC show. Comcast and Dish have both confirmed that they will also have future episodes of Breaking Bad available to subscribers the day after the show airs.

Making shows like Breaking Bad available online is part of an industry-wide initiative called TV Everywhere, which enables pay TV subscribers to access on-demand videos for channels that they pay for. In addition to watching through user web browsers, some networks and distributors also make those shows available on mobile and connected device applications.

Time Warner is the biggest proponent of TV Everywhere authentication, and its HBO Go application might be a good example of where the industry may well be headed. The HBO Go website and mobile applications give viewers access to every episode from every HBO original series, as well as movies that the network has rights to.

For a premium network like HBO, which relies on per-subscriber fees and not advertising for the bulk of its revenues, that’s fine. But for ad-based cable networks like AMC, there’s a lot more at stake. While authentication systems are getting better, the reporting and advertising models for streaming video haven’t quite caught up to the traditional TV business. The worry is that viewers might “catch up” on those shows on streaming sites rather than watch as part of the live audience, where networks make a large portion of their revenues.

AMC has long been a supporter of the TV Everywhere vision, as it was one of the first networks to partner with Comcast and others when the initiative was first getting off the ground a few years ago. But in practice, it has largely held back from making full-length content available through the websites of its distribution partners.

That appears to be changing, however. This isn’t the first major AMC show to appear on an authenticated basis: The final three episodes of last season’s hit show The Killing popped up on the Comcast Xfinity TV portal not long after the series ended. That caused us to wonder whether more content from AMC Networks would become available on TV Everywhere sites and mobile apps. (Interestingly enough, those episodes of The Killing have been taken down from the Xfinity site, almost as mysteriously as they appeared.)

Other AMC-owned networks are expanding the amount of content they make available through TV Everywhere as well. The company, which was recently spun out of Cablevision, also owns IFC, the Sundance Channel, WE and Wedding Central. In addition to Breaking Bad, shows like IFC’s Dinner With the Band is now available for subscribers, as well as Sundance Channel’s Iconoclasts and Man Shops Globe.

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The final three full episodes of The Killing‘s inaugural season are now available on Comcast’s online service for subscribers who might have missed out on the conclusion of the critically acclaimed cop drama. While hardly a trove of new content, to our knowledge this is the first time that AMC has made full-length content available as part of the TV Everywhere portal.

The idea behind TV Everywhere is that subscribers who pay for cable will get access to on-demand content from channels they subscribe to online (and increasingly on mobile and connected devices). AMC was one of the first networks to announce its participation in Comcast’s TV Everywhere initiative, but so far, full-length shows have been slow to appear on the Xfinity Online portal. While it has added some short-form and promotional clips to the Comcast site, until now, most of those clips are the same content that’s available on the AMC.com.

AMC parent Rainbow Media, currently a subsidiary of Cablevision, plans to spin out of the cable provider later this year. In addition to AMC, Rainbow Media also owns IFC, the Sundance Channel, WE and Wedding Central. A quick look through their channels on Xfinity Online show more full-length episodes becoming available: For instance, shows like IFC’s Dinner With the Band and Young Broke & Beautiful now have episodes available for subscribers, as well as Sundance Channel’s Iconoclasts and Man Shops Globe.

But the big question for fans of AMC drama is whether or not the availability of episodes from The Killing means that other popular programs from the network — like Breaking Bad or Mad Men — will soon find their shows online. Up until now, the only way to watch episodes from those shows online was through VOD service like Apple’s iTunes. (I know because I’ve bought Season Passes for both from iTunes over the last several seasons.) Breaking Bad‘s season premieres July 17, and could be the first big test to see if AMC is committed to making more full-length shows available through TV Everywhere services.

That said, even if those programs don’t show up on TV Everywhere portals from Comcast and others, they could become available through other online services. For instance, episodes of Mad Men will soon become available on Netflix, as part of a deal it struck with Lionsgate, which produces the series.

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Mobile Video News for iPhone and Android: PacketVideo releases app that enables delivery of operator-branded TV and video services to the iPhone. (iPhone World) German company dailyme.tv has ported its mobile TV service to Google’s Android, delivering 600 TV and video channels to the platform. (release)

RedOrbit Taps Keystream; science and tech site will use the automated ad insertion software to monetize its videos. (release)

AMC Launching a Trio of Web Vids in Support of Breaking Bad; in support of the second season of the (ed. note: fantastic) drama, the network is launching viral video, minisode recaps of season one and new original webisodes. (The Hollywood Reporter)

Betawave Launches Video Platform; Betawave TV will feature family-friendly programming and will be ad-supported. (MediaPost)

AlwaysOn Selects Kaltura; media network picks the open source white label provider to power power its video offerings. (release)

MobiTV Hits the 6 Million Subscriber Mark; company has added 1 million subscribers since December. (release)

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