Search results for Netflix
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Posted
Oct 23 2007, 09:46 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
I love rooting for Netflix. One reason is that in five years of being a customer, I've never had a bad experience. But the bigger reason is that Netflix has doggedly pursued its business model to become a worthy rival to BOB, also known as Big Old Blockbuster. After losing ground to BOB this year, Netflix has regained its momentum.
The company surprised analysts last night with stronger-than-expected quarterly results and a 24% increase in subscribers, to 7 million. Its shares are up more than 9% today to above $25 as investors applaud the news.
Netflix's outlook seemed bleak three months ago, when the company missed revenue targets and had its first drop in subscriber numbers. BOB, meanwhile, said its online subscribers rose by 600,000 to 3.6 million. Netflix's share price dropped below the $16 mark in July in response.
Netflix has cut some subscription plans by $1 and reduced marketing costs to save money. A bit of a risky strategy, but one that seems to be paying off. Still, Netflix's position has always been volatile, and in the future the company faces increased competition from Amazon and others.
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Posted
Nov 02 2007, 04:11 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
This is how I picture board meetings at Blockbuster world headquarters. CEO Jim Keyes stands up and slams his hands on the table. "This Internet thing is killing us!" he shouts. "Come on, people, we need ideas!"
Silence. Crickets chirping.
If any company could pack the Internet up in a box and shove it on the garage shelf, it would be Blockbuster. Oh, for the days when it could zap you with late fees if you didn't have the movie back by 4 p.m. Or when it could charge you an arm and a leg for new releases. The company hasn't been able to handle the rise of online distribution or the Web-slash-mail delivery system that Netflix has pioneered.
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Posted
Nov 14 2007, 03:11 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 DVDs used to be the profit makers for movie studios, but a new report says DVD sales are tanking this year -- and suggests Hollywood is headed into the red.
DVD sales have fallen for the last three years after soaring by 75% between 1999 and 2004, according to the report, by Global Media Intelligence. In the first half of this year, DVD sales in the U.S. dropped by 12.5%.
I haven't seen enough solid clues about why DVD sales are down. I don't think the next-generation formats, Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, are mainstream enough yet to eat into the DVD market. Maybe more cable and satellite options, such as on-demand programming, are factoring in. DVD player sales are down 15% over the past year, after dropping 24% the year before.
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Posted
Dec 06 2007, 04:17 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 Those red DVD mailers Netflix uses are a huge pain in the butt for postal workers. In a report out this week, the Postal Service says it has to manually process 70% of Netflix's DVD envelopes because they jam up the mail machines.
And here's government bureaucracy at its finest. Normally the Postal Service would charge Netflix for having a "nonmachineable" mailpiece. But this kind of envelope isn't discussed in the official "Mail Manual," so the Postal Service can't classify it as nonmachineable. So the Postal Service has had to suck it up and hand-process Netflix envelopes. That's added $41.9 million in labor costs over the past two years and will add $61.5 million over the next two, the service estimates. No more. The Postal Service's Inspector General wants Netflix to make its envelopes easier to process or pay a 17-cent surcharge for each one. Netflix says it will redesign its mailer to avoid the fee. A spokesman spins the issue to note that the company actually saves the post office money by going to the post office to get returned discs. Netflix is entitled to have the discs delivered because it pays for first-class postage.
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Posted
Dec 21 2007, 03:15 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Blockbuster continues to struggle with balancing its online rental plans with its more profitable in-store business. The company said yesterday it's raising prices for its Total Access subscription plans, and Citigroup analyst Tony Wible said he thinks half of the subscriber base will ditch. In a nutshell, the premium plan increases by a shocking $10 to $35 a month. That plan allows you to rent three DVDs at a time online with unlimited in-store trades. If you rent one DVD at a time, the price increases by $2 to $12 a month. The most popular plan, which gets you three DVDs at a time, will cost $21 a month. These plans let you rent DVDs online or at stores. To ease the pain, Blockbuster is cutting the monthly price of some of its by-mail plans by $1.
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Posted
Jan 08 2008, 12:19 PM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
The Blu-ray and HD-DVD folks can bicker all they want about whose next-generation format is going to win. Comcast and other companies are laying plans now that could make that battle irrelevant. Comcast today announced "Project Infinity," a grandiose name for a plan to make 1,000 high-def movies and TV shows available each month by the end of this year. By 2009, Comcast wants to offer 6,000 movies on demand -- half in HD. Comcast will also begin rolling out ultra-high-speed Internet that allegedly allows you to download a high-def copy of a movie like "Batman Begins" in four minutes. I say "allegedly" because downloads in real life never seem to happen as fast as promised.
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Posted
Jan 14 2008, 03:24 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Netflix does most of its business by mail, but the company is getting ready for the future by spending $40 million on a video streaming service for customers with high-speed Internet connections. Today, the company is lifting restrictions on that service so that customers can watch as many movies and television shows as they want from Netflix's library of 6,000 titles.
Netflix previously set time limits on how much customers could watch per month, presumably to save money on bandwidth and the fees it must pay Hollywood when a movie is streamed. Today's move could be costly, because the company isn't raising its monthly rates to compensate for the added expenses.
Why the sudden burst of generosity? We probably have Apple to thank. If the rumors are true, Apple is set to announce movie rentals over iTunes tomorrow at its Macworld Expo. Apple hasn't been much of a competitor to Netflix before, but with a movie rental service the company becomes a threat.
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Posted
Jan 17 2008, 12:32 PM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Talk about bad timing. Apple just announced it will offer downloaded movie rentals (including high-def) over the Internet. Netflix is working on a set-top box to do the same thing, and Microsoft has been ramping up its downloadable movie offerings over Xbox Live.
Now, one cable company is starting to push back at excessive bandwidth usage caused mainly by video downloading. After an internal memo was leaked, Time Warner Cable confirmed it's planning a trial in Beaumont, Tex., in which it will charge Internet subscribers based on usage. (Time Warner's shares closed down 22 cents to $22.35 Friday.)
It's a tricky situation for Time Warner and other cable companies. Customers generally pay a flat rate for Internet (about $50 a month in my case), but a small minority are basically torrenting HD movies like crazy and sucking up a bunch of bandwidth. According to the leaked memo, 5% of subscribers were using up half of the total bandwidth.
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Posted
Apr 10 2008, 12:36 PM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Blockbuster is feeling the love again in its love-hate relationship with the Internet, and this time I think the company is serious. The Hollywood Reporter says Blockbuster is making a set-top box for streaming movies to TVs, and could announce the service this month. The device would be tied to Movielink, the online movie service for PCs that Blockbuster bought last year. It's an ambitious move for a company that has never figured out the Internet. Blockbuster has bumbled around while Netflix, Amazon, Microsoft, TiVo and others found ways to marry video and the Web. Blockbuster went guns blazing after Netflix two years ago, pouring money into its DVD-by-mail service before deciding to pull back and retrench. Now, Blockbuster is making some smarter moves. For one thing, it's actually doing something with Movielink. And by offering a streaming box, it avoids the messy license and DRM issues that come with a downloading service. But Blockbuster faces some real problems, which may be why its stock price only rose less than 2% on the news today.
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Posted
Apr 14 2008, 12:19 PM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Does one loser plus one loser equal a winner? Not in the case of Blockbuster, whose offer to buy Circuit City is being met today with near-universal derision and head-scratching. The video chain, which has been in a losing battle with Netflix, has offered as much as $1.3 billion for Circuit City. That's more than a 50% premium to Circuit City's closing stock price on Friday. Blockbuster wants to combine the companies into a chain that would sell portable devices, DVDs and other content. Circuit City investors are understandably thrilled by the potential marriage. Shares of the company soared 28% today to $4.98. The electronics chain has been exploring sale possibilities, and this kind of premium is attractive. Blockbuster investors, on the other hand, are not happy: shares dropped nearly 11% today to $2.79.
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