Starting on Monday April 28, Netflix's instant streaming service will join the programming lineup for some cable subscribers in the U.S., with an official channel dedicated to the insurgent internet entertainment service. The move is a breakthrough for Netflix, which has been trying to make its popular video streaming more mainstream.

Netflix has struck agreements with three small cable TV companies, Atlantic Broadband, RCN Telecom Services, and Grande Communications, to dedicate a channel to the streaming service starting on Monday, according to The Washington Post. The move will make it easier for Netflix subscribers that use those cable services to reach the service on their TVs, whereas most Netflix users need a separate box -- like a gaming system, Apple TV, Chromecast, or other internet-and-TV-connected device -- in order to watch Netflix on the big screen.

"We're making Netflix a channel on our lineup and in our channel guides," said David Isenberg, chief marketing officer for Atlantic Broadband, to WaPo. "If you're an RCN customer, perhaps in the D.C. area, you would pick up your remote control, you would tune to Channel 450, and there you'd find Netflix. You'd select it and that'll launch the Netflix app. Literally, watching Netflix is as easy as changing the channel."

Divergence, Convergence, and the Evolution of Entertainment Media

In his prescient 2006 book, "Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide," Henry Jenkins described the complex and sometimes contradictory interactions between established media like TV and new, disruptive ways of communicating and experiencing entertainment brought by the emergence of the internet.

One of the contradictions of media convergence is that, while new forms of media can encompass more functions, forms, and sources of entertainment (think Netflix's wide span of movies and television or Amazon Fire TV's similar breadth, but with gaming added as well), there's been a proliferation of boxes around the TV.

Writing before streaming ever became mainstream, Jenkins notes, "I don't know about you, but in my living room, I am seeing more and more black boxes. There are my VCR, my digital cable box, my DVD player, my digital recorder ... and my two game systems..." Nowadays, you could add in something like a Chromecast or Apple TV, along with all the "second screens" that interact with those boxes.

Jenkins saw the divergence of devices as only one phase in the process of media convergence, though. "We can see the proliferation of black boxes as symptomatic of a moment of convergence: because no one is sure what kinds of functions should be combined, we are forced to buy a range of specialized and incompatible appliances," writes Jenkins. "On the other end of the spectrum, we may also be forced to deal with an escalation of functions within the same media appliance," he adds.

It doesn't yet allow for Netflix integration, but it's ready in case Comcast ever decides it's become fiscally necessary. Re-convergence and the need to adapt and remain relevant is also what Comcast argues is driving its bid to take over Time Warner Cable.

Only A Step

Before we get ahead of ourselves with "future media-speak," it's important to recognize that "Netflix on channel 450" is only a foot in the door of old media acceptance for the internet's most popular entertainment service.

The three deals combined only reach about 500,000 customers, for one. Secondly, for subscribers to access Netflix through their cable company's "black box," it requires that box to be a TiVo, provided by the cable company with a required TV subscription. (This of course, is the "staying relevant" incentive for the cable companies' side of the Netflix deal.) Finally, like with HBO, you have to pay for a Netflix subscription on top of all of that -- it's not coming "bundled" by the cable companies.

Also, the idea that "watching Netflix is as easy as changing the channel" is not exactly true. Unlike HBO, channel 450 (or whatever the designation is) doesn't play always-on Netflix content like a traditional TV network; It just launches the app. Also, while Netflix has been able to work similar deals with companies in Denmark, Sweden, and the U.K., this is its first foray into U.S. cable -- and that even required Netflix to negotiate with some of its content partners before it happened.

Still, it's a start for Netflix, and a sign of more convergence yet to come in the changing and sometimes chaotic world of internet-driven media evolution.

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