Friday, December 3, 2010

Netflix Trying to Get into TV Distribution

Up to this point, it has been pretty easy to describe Netflix as a distributor of rental movies, irrespective of delivery system. But now Netflix appears to be making an aggressive play for rights to distribute "in-season" episodes of hit TV shows. That would make it more directly competitive with services such as Hulu, which primarily distributes TV shows.

Netflix reportedly is in talks with studios about gaining access to current episodes of primetime shows and is willing to pay between $70,000 and $100,000 per episode, according to a New York Post report.

If you wonder why studios now are getting more nervous about Netflix, TV distribution, especially of "in season" fare, is part of the reason. Studios know what happened to music owners when Apple's iTunes became a dominant distribution outlet for music, and are not anxious to see Netflix or anybody else get that powerful.

Nor is it just the studios that rightly have to be worried. The TV networks that air the programs traditionally have had rights some of the downstream revenue as well, but if Netflix gets into the distribution chain, that could change. Aside from those genuine issues, which have the studios and networks arguing about who controls digital distribution rights, the traditional bundlers of networks--cable, satellite, telco--also have to worry that no matter how those issues get worked out, Netflix is becoming a bigger threat to the value of multichannel video services as well.

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