• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, May 15, 2013

While it's unlikely that a particular TV series or film would lead to subscriber additions by itself, Netflix CFO David Wells said the new season of “Arrested Development” actually has a shot with its devoted fan base.

“There is an acknowledgment on our part that it might have an impact in (the second quarter) -- and that we otherwise would have felt like we had lower year-over-year net additions for Q2 based on a seasonal pattern,” he said Wednesday at an investor event.

Still, he said it's a “wild card.” Netflix later this month will release a new season of the show that went off Fox in 2006.

Separately, Wells said Netflix is not concerned that a plan allowing four simultaneous streams for about $12 a month will lead to abuse.

“If we felt like that was a huge problem, it would have factored into the calculus of releasing a four-stream plan,” he said. “Our observation and our view is that password sharing is not quite as large as (is) floated out there.”

Less than 2% of the subscriber base is expected to gravitate to the plan.

With “House of Cards,” Netflix does not own the DVD distribution rights, which are held by studio Media Rights Capital that allows Amazon to sell the discs. Wells said in the future Netflix might consider acquiring all distribution options.