The last time I wrote about the traditional cable bundle — which has been so lucrative to networks like CBS and HBO — I warned that change comes very slowly, but then happens all at once.

This is the all-at-once part. Last week was pretty big for television, one in which not just a cable channel, but a broadcast one as well, jumped onto the streaming bandwagon with both feet. We all knew it was coming, but not this fast. The future, as it always does, sets its own schedule.

And Netflix is the necessary figure in what will come to be seen as the year that television staged a jailbreak. Yes, Netflix, which was supposed to lay waste to traditional media companies, may have saved them instead.

True, Netflix’s earnings took a beating last week, partly because it missed estimates and partly because, well, it now has company. But its bet on streaming has never looked smarter.