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 ...
for what other distribution means?
If netflix is the only viable means of distribution (except for the “left over” low end viewers who still depend of broadcast TV schedules for the opiate TV of the masses) how will they distribute?
The only solution would be for those producers to have their own download stream which does not violate netflix patents.
Perhaps. Or maybe Netflix will make movie companies compete with each other to get access to its distribution.
Exactly. Content creators (like Paramount) don't care where or how their film is viewed, they just want to make money off the film. The cable company and Netflix are just two different distribution systems for their product.
I wouldn't be surprised to see a "film" version of Hulu pop up either (call it Hulu-Film for now), where Hulu-Film made its money off of monthly subscriber fees, and the film company gets the money from advertisements shown during the film. The more popular a film, the more money the film company makes.
There are several more business models I can think of that make good sense for content providers over the internet.
With the advent of internet ready TVs, the cable companies business model of delivering 100 static channels is just another of history's "buggy whips". Twenty years from now, the idea of having cable TV will be as antiquated as having a land-line phone is today. Your grandma might still have one, but nobody under 30 will.
And that is really what has the cable companies upset. They can see their cash cow (cable TV) fading away, and there isn't anything they can really do about it.
And therein lies the rub....exactly what is the price point that is $0.01 less than “too much”?
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We had the the 3 DVD’s out/unlimited for 16.99.
Price went up so we’ve switched to 2 DVD out/unlimited for 14.99.
We won’t pay 15 a month for 1 DVD.
I think the 16.99 was/is our limit, we will only step it back from there, until it’s no longer ‘worth it’ to us.
Netflix streaming service is worth, IMO, 5X as much as typical cable and costs one-fourth as much. They could stand to increase their prices quite a lot.
I have watched 5 years worth of Bones, 4 years of Psych, 5 years of Lost, 6 years of The Dead Zone, etc., all at my own pace & convenience.
I think the 16.99 was/is our limit, we will only step it back from there, until it’s no longer ‘worth it’ to us.
Netflix does. They could have a “standard” price that includes advertising during the shows, and a “premium” price that delivers the shows without advertising.
People like you, that won’t go beyond a certain price point, could choose the standard packgage and live with the advertising.
People that didn’t want the ads could pay a little more each month to eliminate them.
Anyway, I expect some competition to Netflix to emerge eventually. At the moment they have the market to themselves, but you know that can’t last forever. Hulu seems the closest thing, but they seem to target a different audience.
The barriers to competiton on the internet are lower than they are for cable. Competition will eventually come and push prices down.
You don’t charge more to a “fading star”, they see it as a threat.
You can change your netflix subscription to download only.
Yes, but you can’t get new releases. I get BluRay through the mail. They don’t have the same titles in BR that they do on the Instant Queue. BluRay is an extra $2 a month.
Then apparently you don’t want them to get rid of the mailers. I prefer the mailers to download, I’m still a physical object guy.
I want to get rid of the mailers IF I can get the same titles on Instant Queue. I get HD-quality feeds from NetFlix to my Samsung BluRay player; why can’t I get the same movies on Instant Queue that I get shipped to my mailbox?
For instance, you cannot get The Hangover on Instant Queue. It’s only available on physical media. You cannot get the latest Transformers movies or the Harry Potter movies on Instant Queue. I don’t know their process, but they don’t have all movies on the IQ; thus we have to get the physical media for newer releases. That’s all.
Or even the pay-per-view model, at $0.50 to $2 per film, more for new releases. Pre-pay your account with $20 to $50, refill when the balance goes to zero. People on a budget wait for films to come down in price before viewing.
The problem there is it’s separate deals. The physical media they get through the normal rental deals, the streaming content is lot of completely separate agreements reached with the various distributors. They don’t have Hangover on instant because the distributors of Hangover don’t want them to.
I’ve caught some great old school flicks, and I love the selection of old war movies; but the little lady wants to see new releases and hates waiting for the mail to show up with the movie and then sending it back to get another one, etc.
Time Warner is engaging in self-delusion. I, as have many, canceled my TW cable and Internet. I now get TV free with an over the air antenna (not the dish, the spiky things we all used to have on our roofs in the 50s and 60s) and I get Internet at a more reasonable price than TW’s via a DSL subscription. I can stream Netflix movies to my TV via that same Internet connection.
Understood, and I’m not arguing that point with you. I’m just saying that it would be nice to have those new releases on the IQ.
The founder of NetFlix even said, in reference to the Canadian NetFlix, that America is the only market that has the mailers. Every other country with NetFlix (I think just Canada?) has everything over-the-wire, which is much better for the consumer, IMO.
However, the US is far behind the rest of the world in broadband speed, so maybe the over-regulation of business in this country is part of the problem.
It’s funny because at first everybody else was mail only because Netflix’s online distribution agreements were only valid in America. Then they fixed the agreements, and they’ve pulled away from mail in other countries because it’s so much more expensive.
Now the last leg is falling with people choosing Netflix (where they can pick what they want) over Premium movie channels like HBO (where liberals choose what we get to see). With this leg gone, Hollywierd is going to have to make movies we want to see or lose money.
Sounds nice, but there are still many people without broadband Internet service.
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