Posted on 12/14/2010 6:26:14 AM PST by Gondring
For the past year, executives at big media companies have watched Netflix with growing resentment — for its success in delivering movies and television shows via the Internet, for its stock price nearly quadrupling, for its chief executive being named businessperson of the year by Fortune magazine.
Now many of the companies that make the shows and movies that Netflix delivers to mailboxes, computer screens and televisions — companies whose stocks have not enjoyed the same frothy rise, and whose chief executives have not won the same accolades — are pushing back, arguing that the company is overhyped, and vowing to charge much more to license their content.
“It’s a little bit like, is the Albanian army going to take over the world?” said Jeffrey L. Bewkes, the chief executive of Time Warner, in an interview last week. “I don’t think so.”
[...]
If Netflix is to renew the Starz pact — and thus keep a steady flow of Hollywood movies — it will probably pay many times the current $25 million a year. Richard Greenfield, an analyst at BTIG research, estimated a new deal could cost Netflix more than $250 million a year. Mr. Bewkes suggested a new deal may not be reached, because Netflix’s subscription streaming service, which costs about $8 a month, isn’t high enough for the company to pay top dollar for movies.
[...]
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
eztv.it + utorrent + USB ext drive + ( WDTV | popcorn hour ) == no need for cable tv for shows
if you’re looking for sports or news broadcasts, you’re stuck with cable or an antenna
I signed up for Netflix and got the Roku box for streaming in the spring. It is great. I watch it 2-to-1 over cable TV.
And the streams/DVDs — NO COMMERCIALS.
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Major networks are now trying to get into the streaming. They think they can make $$$. They will, in all probability, eventually drop that, as they will try to go proprietary viewers [meaning download a special program just to watch].
Some networks are already trying to pull back from the streaming services, including Hulu, which, ironically, is owned by a couple of major networks who are stiffling it out of existence.
Another factor is SlingBox.
Whatever old men.
Perhaps. Or maybe Netflix will make movie companies compete with each other to get access to its distribution.
They recently significantly raised their prices. That’s an indication to me that they see an end to market share growth, and need to increase profits by other means. So maybe their salad days are over.
How? If the provider provides a service to the customer and the customer downloads gigs of docs for business or pleasure, what's the issue?
If the provider provides unlimited service as a contract to the customer, and the product downloaded by the customer breaks neither the law nor the contract, how is that "poaching"? I notice folks don't scream their heads off at music streaming by radio stations or other sources, but only want to go after Netflix. They don't mention Amazon provides the same service, although not the same amount of content.
Are they somehow different from Hulu, or NBC, or ABC, or Fox, or CBS? They all allow one to stream full episodes of their shows, as do many other networks.
You guys are such idiots. You don’t like people counterfeiting your programs and movies but you can’t get your head around the consumer demand and fulfill it.
Consumers want to use all three screens to view entertainment and news. That is the computer screen, TV screen and Cell phone screen. Moreover, they want to use these screens on demand or for time shifting so they can watch programming and movies at their leisure as their time allows.
Netflix and on demand features enable the consumer to control when they watch a particular program or movie but the consumer also demands control over when they watch their favorite “whatever”.
The consumer will push demand for control over when and where they are entertained and they understand technology better than the executives of the large entertainment corporations.
Increasingly the technology to time shift and watch programming when it is convenient or can be schedule around their is becoming easier to acquire and basically a no brainer with nerds writing programs that enable consumers to do such.
We no longer want to sit down on the couch at a particular time, chosen by some executive who is living in the past, a time that relied on selling ad space for time slots.
We will watch your ads even if we couldn’t care less about the product offering. In return we demand the ability to enjoy your products on the medium we choose and the schedule our lives allow.
Make it harder on us and watch your revenues stay flat.
Make it easier for us to enjoy your product on our time, wherever we choose and you will at least see an improvement in revenue, margin and ad rates.
We love the Instant Queue, but the title selection leaves a little to be desired. We love being able to catch up on entire seasons of shows, but we’d really like to be able to see the newest releases through the IQ.
In the meantime, I have my digital “rabbit ears”, my 44” HDTV, six free TV channels (for news and such), and Netflix for whatever movies I want to watch.
OK...on occasion I hook up to Hulu for something, but that’s pretty rare.
I have a similar setup, and this is why the cable compaines hate streaming over the internet. It has caused people to drop their cable enterly (the cash cow for cable companies). The term is “chord cutters”, and it is a big problem for cable compaines.
When we turned in our cable box recently, there were two people there getting new boxes, and eight people turning in their box. A business can’t survive where you are losing 8 customers for every 2 new customers.
BTW, we use Hulu a lot. Subscribed to Hulu plus (which just went down in price again).
Price wise, I think Netflix could increase their $9 a month fee without much of a hit. When you compare it to the cost of cable TV per month, it is still a great deal.
Then maybe Time Warner shouldn’t be able to make movies AND have cable.
Cable was supposed to be commercial free paid TV— what happened to that?
Enough already.
I love Netflix but I will drop it if it starts bumping up too much in cost.
We don’t NEED Hollywood but Hollywood does NEED an audience.
You got that right! Most subscribers are paying over 100 bucks a month for TV! I know some folks forking out nearly 250 bucks a month for cable. That's a car payment! What a rip-off. The only service Time Warner provides that has value is its High Speed Internet, which is the perfect medium for my viewing needs, at a mere fraction of the cost. The digital cable box is a useless waste of money that will become extinct.
I wish NetFlix would do away with the mailers and just let us get new movies over the web.
Netflix is one of the Postal Service’s largest mailers. I am a bulk mailer and have noticed a huge decrease in all mail except for Netflix.
God bless you for that link!
Some networks are already trying to pull back from the streaming services, including Hulu, which, ironically, is owned by a couple of major networks who are stiffling it out of existence.
Steaming is the future. Networks that don’t get into it big time will be like the old land-line phone companies that didn’t get into cellular early. They’ll end up having to spend big bucks to buy their way in (or be absorbed by another company).
TNT’s is an example of a cable TV channel that is screwing it up big time. They aren’t on Hulu and their internet streaming is a clunky disaster; incredibly hard to use.
I suspect you’ll see several channels/TV-content-providers get together and create an alternative to Hulu (maybe several). Hulu’s model of having advertising during the shows seems like a workable business model. Heck, how many cable TV channels are 100% advertiser supported (they are given to the cable company for free)—lots.
And therein lies the rub....exactly what is the price point that is $0.01 less than "too much"?
Netflix has to peg that exactly...then slowly, over time, with some enhancements, climb toward that point. Also...that point will change over time.
Neat marketing/pricing problem, yes?
Unfortunately, rural customers often can’t get movies downloaded. Either their internet is balky and slow, or the universal 5G limits now in place prevent it.
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