Netflix Turns Focus Back to Disc

[psi]

http://www.homemediamagazine.com/net...ack-disc-24127

Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos — who credits disc for helping Netflix make its foray into streaming — says the subscription rental service plans to turn its focus back to physical distribution

[saprano]

What the heck is wrong with these people?

[saprano]

And why is he mentioning this. He should be happy they didn't do this.

He's right though.

Meanwhile, Sarandos criticized the brick-and-mortar industry for not pushing their advantage compared to Netflix. He faulted studios and retailers for not more aggressively pursuing 28-day delays on new releases, including organizing studio-wide participation and greater marketing efforts at retail.

He said efforts by select studios (Warner Home Video, Universal Studios Home Entertainment and 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment) to promote physical and electronic sellthrough failed without full participation from all studios and retailers.

"It would have been much more effective on DVD sales had other studios done it, had other retailers got into it and had retailers embraced it more," Sarandos said. "There should have been end-caps at Best Buy that said "Not on Netflix" and moving those movies to the front of the store. That barely happened."

[pro-bassoonist]

Originally Posted by saprano

And why is he mentioning this. He should be happy they didn't do this. He's right though.

No, he isn't right and there is a good reason why he is unhappy -- putting end-caps in thousands of Best Buy stores claiming "Not on Netflix" would have been a pretty good free advertising for Netflix.

The arrogance at the company is at times quite overwhelming.

[ZoetMB]

Originally Posted by saprano

What the heck is wrong with these people?

Nothing. In business you try things. Some work, some don't. If they don't work, you try something else. That's what they're doing. They were just a bit ahead of the curve on downloading, that's all, but it takes time to get that right. So when downloading becomes bigger (and it will), they'll be ready.

No different than Apple trying different implementations of "Apple TV" and calling it "a hobby".

Almost every new TV (and BD player) sold has Netflix capability. It takes people a while to hook up their TV/BD to the net and absorb all of its capabilities, but eventually, many consumers will do so.

[Blu Titan]

Originally Posted by pro-bassoonist

No, he isn't right and there is reason why he is unhappy -- putting end-caps in thousands of Best Buy stores claiming "Not on Netflix" would have been a pretty good free advertising for Netflix.

The arrogance at the company is at times quite overwhelming.

That was my first though once I read the comment. The world according to Netflix .

[jpb07]

Not surprising for those following the situation for the past year or so. They are nearing the end of several distribution deals (Starz for one) that were signed for pennies on the dollar. When those come up you're going to see content go down and/or prices go up. People criticized them for the 28 day delay but it was a shrewd move. They locked up content at a lesser cost in return. Also I think they realized that a lot of ISPs were not going to sit back and allow them to make money off their bandwidth without taking a cut (caps/overage charges.)

Personally if they are going to go back to concentrating on physical media, the first thing they ought to do is slap a surcharge on streaming and go back to the flat $1 BR fee. At the very least they owe it to their BR customers to get all of the releases...new or catalog. Considering that the cost differences for the media are negligible, I'm sick of my surchage fee going to support this streaming BS.

[pro-bassoonist]

Originally Posted by Blu Titan

That was my first though once I read the comment. The world according to Netflix .

Originally Posted by jpb07

Personally if they are going to go back to concentrating on physical media, the first thing they ought to do is slap a surcharge on streaming and go back to the flat $1 BR fee. At the very least they owe it to their BR customers to get all of the releases...new or catalog. Considering that the cost differences for the media are negligible, I'm sick of my surchage fee going to support this streaming BS.

Correction It is not about "going back to concentrating on physical media", it has been physical media for them all along (aside from the fact that they had to spend quite a bit on content acquisitions). They hyped themselves a "streaming company" yet their business performance did not change. You ever wonder why there wasn't a single report from an independent party confirming that they became the "streaming company" they claimed they were? (This would mean that their core business was streaming).

They tried to manipulate the market and effectively become it, when in reality they are nothing but a delivery business. In other words, the market is and always has been controlled by the content owners, and Netflix are not one. Additionally, as it has been confirmed by Mr. Dunn at Fox, Netlifx is nothing but a buffet-type service that could be good for TV content, perhaps even some random B-grade library content; in other words, streaming could be a supplement of sorts.

Bottom line, however, is this: there is no alternative for Blu-ray. It delivers the best quality; with all A-grade content that will be sold on it for many, many years to come; and there is no alternative for it (Blu-ray) when it comes to ownership. People who have experienced Blu-ray know it, and so do the men who run the studios


Mr. Dunn (20th Century Fox):
"Avatar Coming To Netflix Streaming… The Day After Never"

http://blogs.forbes.com/ericsavitz/2...y-after-never/

Pro-B

[Anthony P]

Saprano: Right now movie DL is a money losing business. The only reason any company is interested in it is that when Apple came out with the ipod and itunes they managed to get almost 100% of the market with one feeding on the other, even though CD sales still surpas DL music, CD sales are divided by multiple players while DL are very concentrated and so itunes has the largest market share for music sales and so making lots of $ from music sales and ipods for apple.

As for why make the comments , like others have said, it is all about self promotion. Netflix for stock price wants to be constantly in the news, so every few months they find a reason to get quoted. As for why make the "not available on Netflix" end cap, it is simple. Like others said, it is free publicity:
Will people see it since it is on an end-cap? YES
Do the people that use Netflix already know this because they can't rent it? YES
Might there be some people that don't know Netflix exists? YES
If a person is there to buy the film would he also be interested in renting that film? NO
If there is a place(end-cap) that has the none-netflix movies with a sign, what does that imply in most peoples mind? that the other films are available on Netflix.

[animefan77]

I hope this means they will have new anime DVDs for rent & not just for streaming.

[BluBonnet]

It's about time.......

[Lepidopterous]

Is it really too much to ask to just have both available for most titles?

[SixSpeedSamurai]

Originally Posted by pro-bassoonist

Bottom line, however, is this: there is no alternative for Blu-ray. It delivers the best quality; with all A-grade content that will be sold on it for many, many years to come; and there is no alternative for it (Blu-ray) when it comes to ownership. People who have experienced Blu-ray know it, and so do the men who run the studios


Mr. Dunn (20th Century Fox):
"Avatar Coming To Netflix Streaming… The Day After Never"

http://blogs.forbes.com/ericsavitz/2...y-after-never/

Pro-B

Its not about quality whatsoever. It's about money. The studio makes a lot more from physical media sales than from streaming. Also, as much as I love Blu-Ray, the majority of the public don't care enough, streaming quality is good enough for them.

[Blove23]

Will it goes to show that physical media plays a big part today. I personally was never a big fan of streaming because it never could produce the same audio of a blu-ray. Now if they could only get back to getting the movies out to people on time and eliminate the long waits, I may join them again. Streaming on Netfix was only going when you could stream "Spartacus" season one.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, you better ask somebody.

[Rblu-Dblu]

Too little too late. They irritated me with their insistent push on streaming. I will never go back to them.

[EricJ]

Originally Posted by Rblu-Dblu

Too little too late. They irritated me with their insistent push on streaming. I will never go back to them.

I, meanwhile, have learned to ACCEPT apologies.

(At the moment, I'm on streaming only to save money, but think we're seeing the pendulum swing back to the middle--
Streaming is easy, and hard-disk is comprehensive and "true" BD, but think that any one is going to "take over", and you're jumping to the wrong conclusions. If Netflix can see its Instant service as just a competitor to Hulu instead of a competitor to hard-disk, they're on the right track.)

[pro-bassoonist]

Originally Posted by SixSpeedSamurai

Its not about quality whatsoever.

What is not about quality? Just about the entire debate is focused on quality:

1. Blu-ray, as the mass format that delivers the best quality in terms of audio and video, has no alternative. This is what Mr. Dunn clarifies.

2. A-grade content, which translates into quality, will be heavily restricted for streaming businesses. This is what Mr. Dunn clarifies.

3. I am unsure what "don't care enough" is supposed to mean. Blu-ray continues to grow in an economic environment that SDVD never faced. So, quality has got something to do with its growth.

Originally Posted by SixSpeedSamurai

It's about money.

We agree.

Originally Posted by SixSpeedSamurai

The studio makes a lot more from physical media sales than from streaming.

Correct. What I would like to add here is that the studio (especially the majors) make even more from licensing rights for physical distribution. This isn't the case with streaming, which is why Mr. Dunn addressed A-grade content and indirectly content devaluation.

Originally Posted by SixSpeedSamurai

Also, as much as I love Blu-Ray, the majority of the public don't care enough, streaming quality is good enough for them.

Actually, my view on the issue is slightly different. In this economic environment, the majority of the public have to care about other issues. This is not to say that they don't care about Blu-ray -- hence the reason why you cannot compare Blu-ray's performance to SDVD's performance in absolute terms.

Pro-B

[EricJ]

Originally Posted by SixSpeedSamurai

Its not about quality whatsoever. It's about money. The studio makes a lot more from physical media sales than from streaming. Also, as much as I love Blu-Ray, the majority of the public don't care enough, streaming quality is good enough for them.

Except: Streaming would be a nice business model...IF any "real" studios actually provided content.
As it is, their Instant service is scrounging between several cable-channels' streaming offshoots, a bajillion micro-indies from Magnet and After Dark, and whatever StarzPlay is showing this quarter.
If that was their entire catalog, they'd be in real trouble.

The attraction to streaming was partly money: The more rentals they delivered online, the less postage they had to pay. (And don't laugh, postage has been been one of the major costs for their hard-disk service.)
Mixing streaming with hard-disk lets them keep their postage costs down while still providing licensing deals to studios, who have vocally not been in a hurry to rent Avatar or Harry Potter to streaming.
But one OR the other wasn't going to cut it.

[rickah88]

Great news as far as I'm concerned! I understand Netflix as rubbed people the wrong way, especially the BD enthusiasts like myself...but I've stuck with them. My wife & I enjoy the heck out of the service! We do the 3-disc BD tier and it's a great value. For less than the price to see ONE movie at the theatre per month we view, on average, about 20 discs. This includes both movie & TV seasons all on blu-ray.
For me, it's a no-brainer!
I've got about 15 movies and 4 TV seasons stashed at the bottom of my queue waiting for BD release. The one that baffles me the most is BattleStar Gallactica Season 4/4.5! The latter part of the season, 4.5, is available on BD wheras the first part of the season is only DVD. I've called Netflix about this and their response was: They are waiting for the rental copy!
That's a whole other topic that boils my skin...those dreaded rental copies! I'm a huge extras fan, sometimes placing it up there with PQ/AQ! The words "barebones" and "rental copy" are two of the scariest IMHO!!
But I digress, if I start to see some of my long added movies become available on BD I'll be one happy camper!
I've mentioned this to Netflix before, they should add an option to 'request blu-ray' if a movie is not currently available. This way they could easily gauge interest and know if it's worthwhile to purchase copies of said movie.
In any event, I'm encouraged by this news!

[DigitalHoarder]

Could this explain why they took Whale Wars Season 2 off Instant Queue? 1st and 3rd season remain, which is a bit weird. I was in the middle of the 2nd and it surely doesn't help that Season 3, through 6 episodes now, has the episodes out of order.