Lang’s remit was to make that investment pay off by realizing the value of the library built by the Weinstein brothers — Shakespeare in Love, Chicago, Good Will Hunting, No Country for Old Men, Kill Bill, Spy Kids and more — and largely ignored by Disney when that relationship soured. Lang told paidContent last year that Disney managed about $1 million in digital revenue, mostly through electronic sell thru, and he saw the digital rights as fertile ground.

He was aggressive about maximizing the potential of streaming, VOD, international rights and more — and he managed some noteworthy deals, among them:

»  A multi-year agreement with Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX) that could be worth $100 million if all the options play out.
»  Opting out of a potentially more lucrative exclusive deal in order to spread digital rights.
»  A separate agreement for Netflix UK and Latin America.
»  Deals with Starz and Hulu.
»  Home entertainment distribution through Lionsgate (NYSE: LGF) and Studiocanal.

Miramax also launched its own streaming rental program on Facebook, the Miramax eXperience, experimenting with Facebook credits as currency and iPad as a platform.

Miramax CFO Steve Schoch will be interim CEO during the search for Lang’s replacement. Lang remains as a consultant. Richard Nanula remains as chairman.

Why now? It looks like a move to operational from entrepreneurial, to delivery from the aggressive deal making needed to put the “new” company on sure footing. The Miramax name also could be valuable on a full studio, given resources and commitment.

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Lang asked why the company split its streaming and DVD businesses, giving Sarandos the chance to emphasize the part that doesn’t get a lot of sympathy in the U.S.: the need to separate its growing global streaming business from its U.S.-only DVD operations. (That doesn’t excuse Qwikster as a brand but then, what would?) On the Netflix wish list? Global streaming rights, which Sarandos admits is a “pipedream.”

Asked if Miramax distinguishes between TV and online rights, Lang’s reply — that digital rights are usually among the first questions — shows how the space between the two continues to narrow. Sarandos also illustrated that by announcing another new series that will premiere on Netflix in the U.S., Canada and Latin America: Lillyhammer, a series about a Mafia hitman hiding out in Norway — starring Sopranos alum Steven Van Zandt.

The conversation starts about 14 minutes in. The mipblog has full live blogged play-by-play.

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“50 percent and sometimes 60 percent of viewing is TV episodes now,” said Netflix’s chief content officer Ted Sarandos, during a joint keynote at the Mipcom conference in Cannes with Miramax CEO Mike Lang.

This is the key factor behind Netflix’s high-profile deal to stream episodes of Mad Men, and also its decision to ink an exclusive deal for David Fincher’s new remake of BBC drama House of Cards.

“That can be mis-perceived as Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX) giving up on movies, which it’s not. It’s just consumers saying what they want,” said Sarandos during his keynote. He also announced a new exclusive deal for a TV series called Lilyhammer, starring actor/musician Steven Van Zandt.

Sarandos said that Netflix intends to use its recommendation algorithms to seed the show with users who are most likely to enjoy it. “We really think we can use these same algorithms to launch a show very rapidly, and put it in the hands of the people who’ll love it the most,” he said, citing the previous example of Starz’ Spartacus show being promoted to Netflix users who had enjoyed the film 300.

Miramax is one of Netflix’s key partners, with Lang having joined as CEO in December 2010 with the ambition of striking a series of digital distribution deals. He previously worked as executive vice president of business development and strategy at Fox (NSDQ: NWS) Entertainment, where he was closely involved in the acquisition of Myspace and the creation of online TV service Hulu.

“In a way I’d like to believe our company is a bit more Silicon Valley than Hollywood,” said Lang during the keynote, while outlining Miramax’s strategy of working with traditional TV partners, new services like Netflix and Hulu, and launching its own direct-to-consumer offering on Facebook, iPad and Google (NSDQ: GOOG) TV.

“We believe that cross-platform is key to growing the digital transactions business,” he said. “We believe that all these different platforms can be complementary and co-exist together. We think everything starts with the consumer. They’re not focused on windows or on what schedule they can watch something or on which device.”

Lang also said that when he joined Miramax, the studio was “basically closed for business”, despite having a library of more than 700 films. “It was a case of innovate or die,” he said, before outlining why this means he loses little sleep worrying about piracy.

“Piracy really is not the bigger issue for our company or for our library. It’s been lack of exploitation, just not getting it out there,” said Lang. “Most consumers at some point in their life don’t want to pirate. The way to then react to that is to offer legitimate, great services for them.”

Lang noted that there is still a “robust market” for ownership of films, even in the physical world, citing the upcoming Blu-ray release of Pulp Fiction with a raft of extra content as a good example.

He also drew on his experience of the music industry when launching Myspace Music to suggest a key lesson that the film and TV industries need to learn.

“Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) is the strongest company in the music industry, and because there was not enough competition, and still to this day is not enough competition, as an industry it can’t then influence, packaging, merchandising… all the things that are vital,” said Lang.

“As the movie business we have to be very cogniscant of that. That’s why we did our deal with Netflix, and why we also did our deal with Hulu. We want multiple players to be successful… Our goal as an industry should be to have as many as possible, ad may the best service win.”

This article originally appeared in MediaGuardian.

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Lilyhammer stars E Street band rocker Steven Van Zandt playing a mobster who agrees to move to Norway as part of a stint in the Witness Protection Program. The casting is reminiscent of Van Zandt’s last major TV role, in which he starred as Tony Soprano’s right hand man Silvio Dante on The Sopranos.

Lilyhammer was produced by Rubicon Tv AS for NRK Broadcasting in association with SevenOne International, but it will get its U.S., Canada and Latin America premiere on Netflix. The show’s dialogue is a mix of Norwegian and English, with subtitles to fill in for the other language, depending on where it’s shown.

The Lilyhammer deal adds to the amount of exclusive programming Netflix has invested in recently to differentiate it from other streaming services and cable networks. Earlier this year, Netflix announced an exclusive deal to bring the Kevin Spacey-David Fincher project House of Cards online to its streaming customers, committing to an unprecedented two seasons of the show. In doing so, it beat out traditional cable networks like HBO or Showtime.

Adding more original and exclusive content is one way Netflix is trying to appease a user base angered by a series of missteps which have lowered its customer satisfaction rating pretty dramatically. The bad news for Netflix began in July, when the company announced a change to its pricing that split its DVD and streaming plans and increased costs by as much as 60 percent for users who subscribed to both. Later, Netflix announced that it was separating the businesses altogether and rebranding its DVD-by-mail service Qwikster, which was also met with wide-scale disapproval.

Signing exclusive deals could also help replace some content that will disappear once Starz pulls its TV shows and movies from the streaming service early next year. In addition to Lilyhammer and House of Cards, Netflix has committed to an exclusive deal with Dreamworks Animation to license its movies in the pay TV window when they become available in 2013.

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