Should we really be surprised that Netflix’s first experiment with a linear TV channel arrives not in its native US, but in France? The country’s revered video engineering pedigree has earned it a reputation that not even Netflix can ignore. Yet the decision by French commercial TV network TF1 to make its live channels and on-demand content available to all Netflix subscribers in France is a move that rival broadcasters the world over will find perplexing—even maddening. It is the ultimate bending of the knee by a broadcaster to a streaming service—setting a provocative precedent not only for the French TV market, but for the global broadcast landscape. If anyone thought pay TV operators rushing to onboard the Netflix app…