Posted on 09/01/2011 7:56:51 PM PDT by Wayne07
Premium cable network Starz Entertainment will end its deal to provide movies to Netflix, a surprise decision that will deprive the popular online video service of its most valuable source of recently released movies.
Analysts had said that if Starz were to renew its agreement, which expires in February 2012, it could have been worth as much as $300 million to John Malone's Liberty Media-owned network.
However, executives at Starz apparently concluded that they would lose even more money by giving consumers a reason to subscribe to Netflix instead of the cable channel.
"This decision is a result of our strategy to protect the premium nature of our brand by preserving the appropriate pricing and packaging of our exclusive and highly valuable content," Starz said in a statement Thursday. "With our current studio rights and growing original programming presence, the network is in an excellent position to evaluate new opportunities and expand its overall business."
Starz, which controls pay-cable rights to movies from Walt Disney Studios and Sony Pictures, signed its current agreement with Netflix in 2008. At that time, online video was watched by only a small number of tech-savvy young people and the estimated $30 million per year the cable network received was seen as new revenue that would have little impact on its traditional television business.
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(Excerpt) Read more at latimesblogs.latimes.com ...
Well, I think advocating theft is a pretty liberal idea too...
HBO is a wasteland for six month of the year. I will resubscribe when Boardwalk Empire starts it’s new season .
sigh, here comes another one....how can it be theft oh righteous one?
The Starz no-deal simply says they were too greedy. Now they get nothing. Do they think they'll find someone who'll pay more than Netflix would for their re-syndication rights? Doubtful. I never heard of Starz before they showed up on Netflix and I'm sure I'm not alone in that. Netflix is big enough now that they can deal with Disney and other studios direct rather than through some middleman licensee. The same is true for any deep-pocketed competition (e.g., Apple, Amazon). So the real loser here is Starz.
What third-tier players need to understand is that folks are not going back to $100+/month digital cable TV "bundles", certainly not in this economy.
Meanwhile, International expansion is the next frontier. In a couple of months when we learn that (a) the feared subscriber drop-off didn't happen and (b) Netflix is now rolling out its previously announced expansion into Latin America and South America, nobody is going to care much about Starz. It's even possible that Starz may quietly come back to the table with more reasonable demands once they realize this too.
I agree... time will tell.
Well, I hope really good movies like Tokyo Gore Police aren’t part of the Starz package, because you just don’t get to see movies like that every day.
I just went through every movie offering re Starz. “I spit on your corpse” and a lot of Perry Mason offerings. Netflix has a lot of good offerings, especially the classics. I’ll wait and see.
My favorites on Netflix are the British shows. Hopefully they will work on getting more quality television series.
I also get HuluPlus and it has a ton of TV shows like even from the olden days when TV was first invented. Plus, you can just watch one after the other. And it has this classic movie thinie called Criterion with 800 movies some of them pretty weird like Rasharon or whatever where there are different stories going on at once.
Well, it appears to me that you are watching things off of a pay channel and not paying for it, unless you are paying Starz for it.
Every show from Spartacus to Camelot are broadcast in the UK under non-paying channels, and just like Game of Thrones, not produced by one entity but multiple UK outfits meaning broadcasts are under multiple platforms not specifically with Starz.
Anything else? Keep it up. I’m not even going to explain why FR posts articles but that would be...too...easy.
Nice! Couldn’t have happened to a more consumer friendly company! /s
Now see, I was unaware of that. I withdraw my objection.
I bought 2 Roku XD boxes so I could get the other channels and the damn thing would not work with my routers. I had a Linksys 4000 and had to get Netgear after upgrading my DSL.
I need to get another streaming device because I have Amazon Prime which I watch on my Xoom. Amazon Prime has almost the same offerings as Netflix but it’s not easy to find stuff.
This really sucks. I guess everyone wants their piece of the pie and are missing the opportunity to fine tune a great service that allows people to watch what they want when they want.
I agree. This will all change because it is too good. You can watch a TV show without commercials and sooner or later the money people will have to try to skin a few more pennies off everybody. I look for youtube to start having more problems too.
No biggie. If there was a questionable post on FR, I would ask the poster as well.
Your popup blocker sucks then. Try adding Easylist + EasyPrivacy + Malware Domains and you’ll likely never see an ad again, unless you go to obscure hobbyist sites that tend to have tightly related niche ads.
W/huluplus, do you have to watch the commercials like on hulu free? Also, how much is huluplus and how do you pay?
could you please freepmail me that also? thanks.
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