Netflix Stock Tanks After New Q3 Forecast

The Starz content on netflix is 99.9% crap anyway. Good ridden to them. Netflix should probably say this out loud for the public to gain some traction and recover their losses.

I'd call out Starz and Sony on their "valuable content." I believe Netflix does much more for them than vice versa.

As for splitting up their service into dvd/streaming, I just canceled my DVD subscription, which wasn't as valuable to me as the streaming anyways.

Too bad so sad.

Does anyone really care about Starz? The company sounds like it's holding on for dear life to survive.

I really like Netflix. The Wii version is slick and it works perfect with the wiimote. This price hike is absurd though, and hopefully it made Netflix realize that it's not invincible like it thought it was. You can't screw your customers over like that.

It would be great for them to drop the price back down after all the negative publicity, but I doubt that will ever happen.

Gotta say I love the appropriateness of the picture in relation to the article.

Oh well, more power to the consumers for learning to talk with their wallets. Wish more people would do the same.

Yep dropped them after the price hike. Their new releases are like from 86 also.

People are freaking out over those numbers??!??!?! Point something out of millions??? If it was a couple million, SURE I can see some panic.

Wow...seriously? Ok, so they only have 37 millions subscribers left...

Also, their prices are dirt cheap. It's by far the bet out there. People should stop whining.

Except they've raised prices on consumers yet their streaming library is only getting smaller with the exit of Starz Play. It sort of contradicts their third point:

"3. to enable us, with the growth in revenue, to license more streaming content and thereby improve our streaming service even more"

Netflix was offering Starz more than 10 times their original contract and Starz declined them and went to Blockbuster (makes you wonder if it wasn't some sort of secret deal ahead of time). I think content providers are finally taking online streaming seriously and are really pressuring Netflix for MUCH higher payments. So taking into account the greed of content providers and also the ISP's which are probably also pressuring Netflix - Even a 60% increase in price is pretty justifiable I think.
But it wasn't really a 60% increase in price - they just took away a promotional offer. Which honestly even if they really increased everyone's fees by 60% - they'd still be the cheapest in the market and if you're totally broke - then eat at McDonalds one day less out of the month or don't have your Starbucks coffee for two days.

They don't want to state the real reason that when they go back to negotiate their contracts next year, they'll need extra revenue just to buy the content they already had because the providers are now getting better offers from more powerful companies like Blockbuster (DISH network). I agree with their need to raise prices, but the execution was horrible. No one likes an over 50 percent increase, regardless of the reasoning.

Netflix wants to increase their streaming, but it will cost them far too much to get the streaming rights for a larger catalog. They have an advantage in how many devices can currently play Netflix easily, but they could lose this advantage pretty easily if Blockbuster got on those devices. Their real advantage right now is in the DVD rental, this is where they should expand. Redbox is fine for new releases, but they can't keep a large catalog in those little machines. There is little competition for older release DVD/BR rental and their mail based business could keep a massive physical catalog. There's a growing amount of competition for streaming content, they're going to lose ground on that front.

There aren't 37 million subscribers. Many of those are Streaming + DVD plan users.

This article is missing some key info:
Fewer customers than expected are opting to take Netflix's DVD-only subscription package. Netflix now expects to have 2.2 million such subscribers, down from the previous forecast of 3 million. The company also cut its forecast for streaming-only subscribers, to 21.8 million from 22 million.
IE: 1 million less customers than projected, 4%

And also:
At the end of September, Netflix predicts it will have 24 million U.S. subscribers. That would be down from 24.6 million at the end in June. It will be only the second time in Netflix's history that the company's customer count has fallen from one quarter to the next.
IE: Investors are predicting that Netflix is going to continue to shed customers. Especially with the loss of Starz content and nothing to replace it with.

$16 is still a great value for what Netflix offers. Premium channels like HBO or Showtime are utter crap. the best thing they offer are their original series and even if you like those are they really worth the cost for a, maybe, two shows?

Yes, the rate jump does seem to be a large one percentage wise but I still wouldn't give Blockbuster or Dish a dime of my money.

I'm sorta confused why netflix goes straight to production studios to serve as an intermediary for on-demand type content. It would be a great site to host a new show, and would probably generate a ton more views.

Could have subscription rates based on shows/studios/titles/ whatever.

The pre cursor to my last statement is, the model for Cable TV is dying, and Netflix is in the best position to satisfy the most consumers.

if dish gets it's blockbuster streaming service going then netflix may very well go belly up

I use to have Netflix, dropped them recently because of their price hike and selection shrinkage, especially for instant streaming. Now I use Amazon Instant since it came free with my prime membership and has more interesting shows and movies on it than Netflix currently has.

time for Hulu.

"clever price hike"?

Considering we are in the midst of a SEVERE recession there is NO clever price hike. .

I signed up for Netflix when I remembered how much I HATE watching commercials on hulu plus...

If I was a stockholder I would've bailed after they announced the price hikes.

Blockbuster? I wouldnt hold my breath for anything from them instead I would advise people looking forward to their service to BEND OVER AND SPREAD WIDE.

After forcing their app on my phone with no way to get it off Blockbuster can suck a big donkey dick.

The starz deal was all about paranoia from the big customers or big money folks cable and direct tv I would bet. They feel threatened by Netflix and rightly so as many people are jumping ship for cheaper online streaming.
The online business is where the future seems to be heading where people like you and me and baby makes three can find what they want to watch instead of the poor content and very high prices that cable/dish are asking for
I would bet on Netflix coming out on top after a few months to a year and get back customers for a couple or reasons. One is it's still way cheaper than cable/dish. Two, I know that people have very short term attention spans and will opt for price over pride and sign back up because of the price difference. They knew they would take a bashing but also know it is a short term issue and will get back most who have left and continue to get more of the people jumping ship on the cable/dish area.
It is a good move, they don't really care who they piss off because they are taking the long term view which will win out in the end unless others can build up a competing streaming business that is cheaper while people are still mad at them.

And that Starz issue is a non-issue. I agree with a lot of people on here when they say good bye, you suck anyway and won't be missed. I've rarely seen anything worth watching in the starz area on Netflix and them leaving won't make a dent in what I watch.
I don't know who else they have to deal with to get movies but if there is more that take off from Netflix then they could be in real trouble as well as the entire on-line streaming business. If the big boys want to expand into this area as part of their already huge fee's and put pressure on the whole industry who knows what will happen. I don't know if this is even something they can do but if they CAN do it they will.
If Netflix wanted more customers and a little more money they could have dropped their price one dollar and got a huge amount of customers. But they may not have the equipment needed to handle the bandwidth from a large amount of streamers so they maybe don't want them now but later as they build up their systems to handle the traffic. Just a guess there.
But with the economy on the rocks people are going to be taking good looks at where they can cut costs and not hurt them that much with makes Netflix look all the more attractive choice. Even with the price hike.
I know 3 people personally who have said they have had it with cable/dish Prices and very poor content.
Me I don't care one way or the other, I started years ago with a DVD recorder/burner and have gotten all most every movie and a lot of shows 500+ DVD's worth so the whole issue doesn't matter to me but it might matter to others. I saw how cheap the cable/dish network channels were getting and so planed it out. I got what is good from the tv and supplement the rest with streamed shows. Dropped DirectTV and haven't missed it one bit. I really do like how much more money I have now that they are not getting it.
Man, it all really adds up to a lot of money to pay to watch a lot of crap being offered today and on top of it they are doing repeated shows every day on a number of channels so it's value tanked and I got the heck out of that rip off industry.
In a weird way you know when something is going wrong in any town is when the pawn shops and low life stores start moving in and when they started a show about pawn shops of all things it was enough of a sign saying get the heck out of here. What I still can't understand is who is watching that crap that keeps it going? Is the tv watching public going totally brain dead? Or watch those stupid car shows and that really stupid motorcycle show where all you hear is a ton of beeping noise that says "foul language here" that maybe some can think it's neat and cool on it's own and the rest if meaningless dribble from greasers with a soap opera tint to it of who will get fired this episode. Geez, is this what people really watch? Maybe the under 13 year folks can get entertained by it.
Then again I know younger ones then that, that can see through it. Lets just leave it as a low to no IQ segment that get off on it and the people who just like shows where you don't have to think while watching them.
It's shows like this that helps making the switch to streaming so popular.
So I can understand why Netflix is doing this price/format change and will get away with it.

EpixHD, Crackle (free) , HULU plus .... have lot of movies. In my case our nearby library allows us to rent 7 movies for a week for free. That includes brand new movies. I am glad i cancelled netflix an year back.

Made the swap to blockbuster for disks , keeping net flix for steaming... main reason being i can get ps3/xbox 360 games through blockbuster or blue rays if there is no games i'm interested in atm