Earlier this year, Warner Bros. was one of the first home video companies to make a deal with Netflix that would delay the availability of new releases by 28 days in exchange for greater access to Warner’s catalog. Now the company says it is mulling over the possibility of making that delay even longer.
Says Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes:
“So far the 28-day window has clearly been a success versus no delay… The question of whether we ought to go longer is very much under scrutiny. It may well be a good idea.
Bewkes says Warner won’t seek to make any changes to its current agreement with Netflix until that deal expires in 2011.
Question is: Which is more important to Netflix subscribers — Having the newest movies or a larger selection of movies to stream online?
Time Warner May Consider Longer Delay for Netflix, Redbox [BusinessWeek]
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This is why you never give in to bullies. Cause they keep coming back, once they’ve found out you’ll cave, and give into what they want.
Aside from this being a stupid idea all I can say as someone who owns over 700 DVD’s and about 30 blurays, I still wont buy a new release movie without renting it first unless I know without a doubt I will enjoy watching it more than once.
In fact just to vote with my wallet I wont buy any Warner movies at all until well past the release window and after a nice fat price cut. I also wont pay to rent them on Xbox Live anymore.
Deals like this hurt the legit consumer. I could easily pirate any movie in perfect dvd or bluray quality weeks before it hits retail but I dont. If i can wait the span from theatres to dvd i can also wait till their little no rent contract window expires.
Bigger Streaming library, I’d rather buy the movies that I must have, few but memorable and hold up their watch ability (Kids Flix, Inception, Avatar, etc.) But what I want to see is if they move it to 2 months after the DVD release, I want that new movie open to stream not just the physical disk!
Anyone want to bet that Warner’s sudden love for Blockbuster is behind this, and that they wat to prop up Blockbuster’s current business model?
with newsgroups its out 3 weeks before it hits torrents, it downloads in about an hour, and there is no risk of being caught. torrents are crap.
Has anyone explained why it has to be an either/or? Why can’t we get movies on Disc and a bigger streaming library? Why does there have to be a delay?
Having a larger selection to stream should be the main priority right now (and should be a priority until almost every movie is streamable) – but it’s also very important to have new releases regularly showing up as well. I’m getting pretty tired of booting up Netflix and having nothing but old, terrible Asylum and Troma films flooding everything out. Hell, it took them until the release of Paranormal Activity 2 to put the first one on the streaming service – after trying to bait and switch us with Asylum’s cash grab “Paranormal Entity”, which has been on the “horror” queue of the program for over a freaking year.
UPDATE YOUR STREAMING SERVICE, NETFLIX.
Um, I believe Paranormal Entity was streaming a long, long time ago. I remember because my friends brought over the DVD and then I checked Netflix and realized it was streaming.
Paranormal Activity, I mean. Boy, Asylum loves to use similar names.
I rent movies that I didn’t feel were good enough to buy but good enough to watch again at home. I figure about 80% of my “library” is watched once and then put on the shelf forever.
waiting longer is not going to force me to go to the overpriced movies nor will it prompt me to purchase the DVD.
why can’t we have both damn it
I’ll choose larger selection. There is so much content available that I don’t mind waiting a little longer for new releases.
I prefer Netflix, 28 Days Later or 28 Weeks Later
While it will never happen, I’d like to see Netflix protest by just pull Warner Bros. from their library. It’s ridiculous — what if public libraries weren’t allowed to offer new books until a month after publication — we’d see a lot more action and protest for something like that…
Hello Bittorrent.
The longer the delay access to new movies, the more – and faster – will ripped pre-release DVDs and BluRays become available. Do they really think that delaying “Grown Ups” longer would actually increase disc sales?
I want both. Streaming is fine for things I’ve missed seeing over the years, but sometimes I want to treat myself to the latest release I missed out on when it was in theaters.
When Bewkes said that it had “clearly been a success”, are we to assume from this that their DVD launch week/launch month sales have gone up? Maybe I’m not current on the story, but I have no idea if they’ve backed that up with an announcement of sales increases.
Like several of the previous commenters, a delay from Netflix will not affect my decision to buy a DVD in any way. If I don’t want to own it for the long term, I won’t buy it. I’ll wait. If the delay is ridiculous, I’ll probably just forget and I won’t see their movie at all. That’s kind of a killer in this day and age where related media, such as selling MP3s off of the movie soundtrack and selling related memorabilia, is a large portion of the profit from many movies. Not to mention, a complete killer to any movie studio trying to keep interest up in a movie they hope to turn into a franchise.
If they extend it again, I’m out of Netflix (after 7 years). Movies show up faster and in MUCH better quality on pay channels now anyway. The “HD” streaming is a joke…. They simply don’t have the bandwidth to compete in picture quality. It might be ok if I have a little 42″ tv, but I don’t… So Warner Bros. loses twice!
I think it’s better to get rid of the stupid rental disks, and give us the whole movie!
Back in “the day” video stores survived off of their catalog of titles, not new releases. Netflix is just the same.
more streaming.
It’s hard to tell what progress was made from the last delay deal, but it didn’t seem to me that much more was added.
I still haven’t been affected by the 28 day delay, so if it needs to be longer I guess I probably won’t notice it still. However, I’d hope they’d offer many more movies for this. It’s getting kind of ridiculous.
Obviously they’re feeling the burn of these services–maybe they’re even having trouble moving units of new releases, but this is something the entertainment industry has always struggled with. They want to be in control and keep these old business models in place… Killing me!
Netflix sucks just as much as Warner Bros. for giving into their demands in the first place. Their streaming selections are a joke.
For the movies I miss in theatres, I’m glad I have a local movie rental chain cheaper than Blockbuster nearby when I want to watch something new I’m not going to buy. And for the times I’m broke, I can always download the DVD rips.
Like almost everyone is saying, a larger streaming library. Currently, I have about 80 movies in my instant queue and about 10 in my actual movie queue and I am sure most people here have more instant than regular. As much as I want to see new releases faster, I can go to the theater, or download them on a bit torrent site if i need to see them that badly. I don’t care if Netflix delays all new releases for 3 months…..as long as we can have complete access to all movies and shows the studios have on instant (which it were Netflix will be sooner or later and then rid themselves of discs all together).