On Thu, Sep 1, 2011 at 6:40 PM, Wesley McGee <[email protected]> wrote:
> As of February 28, 2012, you will not be seeing Starz movies stream on > Netflix. This was a nice, backdoor way to newish films to land on Netflix > when the studios kept pushing the Netflix window further and further back. > This will probably be frustrating news to Netflix subscribers who just had > to decide if they wanted to go stream only, pay more to retain both, or DVD > only with the latter ones knowing Netflix doesn't really want your > business... > > I have three 3-month gift cards left which -- if they let me redeem them > and leave me in the old plan -- takes me past February 2012 cut-off date. > Here's hoping they can find a way to find new content by then to compensate > for the loss of Starz. > > > http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/01/starz-to-end-streaming-deal-with-netflix/ > My new Comcast deal gets me discounted access to premium cable for the next 2 years, so I no longer need Netflix for Starz, but this is a bit of a problem for them. OTOH, like the article says, it is not unexpected - there have been rumblings for some months that this kind of thing was going to happen. I think the summer restructuring only makes sense if Netflx was preparing for major (major) investment in content - and for the likelihood that the sweetheart deals of the early stages of their streaming business were a thing of the past. Again, as the article implies, the $30M Starz contract with Netflix would have been redone at something around $300M - Netflix no doubt had about that much already allocated for that, and now has those funds available to go after some other content - together with even more millions that they are shifting from their mail-order business to streaming. The fact is, either Netflix will be able to acquire pretty major streaming content deals over the next 12 to 18 months, at a huge price, or they will be out of business in 3 to 5 years. My guess is they may not have a lot of new deals in place by this February, but they will have announced a few new deals that will take effect by the end of the year. -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
