Warner to Raise Content License Fees for Netflix, Redbox

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Warner Brothers has come up with another brilliant idea to generate revenue, the company plans on increasing the licensing fees they charge Netflix and Redbox. That is brilliant! Raising licensing fees should fix everything!

“The current pricing and window are not really commensurate with the value that those kinds of availability are extracting,” Bewkes said. “We think that the value our [studios] should get for that period of exhibition is considerably higher than what's there now.”
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good job time warner way to drive piracy through the roof! ARGGGGHHH!
 
I was just waiting for this. Each and every studio will do this crap until Netflix prices are the same as Cable/Satellite.
 
Or better yet, how about Netflix and Redbox just stop paying licensing fees to WB and stop carrying their movies altogether. I'm sure Torrent sites will gladly pickup the slack...

I'm sure they are within their right to charge more to license, but it's none of their business to determine how much Redbox and Netflix charge for their service. Furthermore, they better make sure that licensing is equal across the board for all avenues. Otherwise, this might be a form of price fixing; just ask Microsoft.
 
I am not a TV/satellite subscriber now, but all this anti-competition publicity these studios, networks, and cable companies have been generating, it tempts me to subscribe to Netflix again (I was only subbed for a month a long time ago) to see how it good it is now and to financially support a company trying to innovate in the industry, instead of holding it back as the big players are doing.
 
sorry this is a non starter they will try to do this and they will fail. the huge issue is making CRAP MOVIES all year and banking on a few block busters.
 
looks like they're going all political on Netflix... here's a particular entity who's doing well, making money, growing great, and another entity who's doing poorly, can't spend their money very well, so they slap a special tax on those who do good just because they're doing good.
 
This will be an unpopular post but Netflix is a great value as it is. For the cost of 1 DVD a month, you can watch many. With the streaming, it gets to be an even better value. If the price is raised by a few dollars, what is the big deal? If 2-3 extra dollars hurts someone that bad, they shouldn't be subscribing to this in the first place.
 
jamesrb said:
This will be an unpopular post but Netflix is a great value as it is. For the cost of 1 DVD a month, you can watch many. With the streaming, it gets to be an even better value. If the price is raised by a few dollars, what is the big deal? If 2-3 extra dollars hurts someone that bad, they shouldn't be subscribing to this in the first place.
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2-3 dollars to start, then all the other studios jump on the same bandwagon and pretty soon that 2-3 dollar no big deal to you turns into 40+.
 
They should tell them to shove it and tell all there subscribers to call and send letters in to WB every day least so how much WB sales fall
 
"...not really commensurate with the value that those kinds of availability are extracting..."
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Doesn't value have to exist in the 1st place?
Guess they haven't noticed the drop in quality coming out of studios these days...
 
Here's a fix. Warner Brothers titles on Netflix can be optional for an additional fee. Then I can choose not to give them anything.

If Netflix goes up I have no problem with dropping them. Just like I'll be dropping Frontier for taking over FiOS in this area and raising the price $30 a month. While I'm cleaning house I'll get rid of all of these greedy bastages. :mad:
 
jamesrb said:
This will be an unpopular post but Netflix is a great value as it is. For the cost of 1 DVD a month, you can watch many. With the streaming, it gets to be an even better value. If the price is raised by a few dollars, what is the big deal? If 2-3 extra dollars hurts someone that bad, they shouldn't be subscribing to this in the first place.
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The big deal is that other studios will want to charge more, so that "extra 2-3 dollars" will turn into atleast double or triple that.

The fact is, the studios clearly didn't bank on Netflix being as popular as it currently is. Now they are going back and trying to grab as much cash as they can get. What Netflix should do, is tell them to shove it and drop all Warner movies from the catalogue. Then they can cry and blame piracy ten fold because they just lost money from the Netflix deal. However, I don't see this feasible given the fact that they own the rights and set their own prices.

This is a little off topic, but on the topic of film studios... If they want 3D to be succesfull, they need to compete with the 2D version of the same film and have no extra charge (or not as high). My theatre charges $3.00 on top of the ticket price for a 3D version. When I saw my first movie, I was told it was to pay for the glasses. I got smart (or so I thought) and kept them for the next movie that I saw in 3D (Avatar). When I went to pay and was told the $3.00 per ticket was for glasses, I said its ok, I have my own so I don't need to be charged. All of a sudden, the charge changed from glasses to its more expensive to make a 3D movie. After that point I refused to see any more movies in 3D. I HIGHLY doubt it costs $3.00 per ticket more for the equipment, but whatever.

Back on topic, I am really surprised they aren't looking into forcing theatres to charge for "premium" seats (eg like at stadiums). You want to sit in the middle of the row at the best viewing spot? That'll be $2.00 extra. If you want to pay regular price, we have seats right underneath the screen. Ha! That'll be the day!
 
Doom4life said:
My theatre charges $3.00 on top of the ticket price for a 3D version. When I saw my first movie, I was told it was to pay for the glasses. I got smart (or so I thought) and kept them for the next movie that I saw in 3D (Avatar). When I went to pay and was told the $3.00 per ticket was for glasses, I said its ok, I have my own so I don't need to be charged. All of a sudden, the charge changed from glasses to its more expensive to make a 3D movie. After that point I refused to see any more movies in 3D. I HIGHLY doubt it costs $3.00 per ticket more for the equipment, but whatever.
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Well, it probably does cost $3.00 per ticket to pay for some of the new projectors required for 3D viewing. Some high end 5k projectors for theatres will cost in the range of $200,000+ for one theatre. If they update 3 theatres to support 3d at your local theatre, after installation costs, testing, perhaps paying more for the movies from WB(b/c we know WB is a profit-wh-re) they might easily be looking at $1,000,000 in their first year if they want to recover the installation costs over a period of a year. If they have 333,000 customers a year, that adds up pretty decently.

Now if we assume that they want to recover costs over 2 years...perhaps a bit less could be charged but in 2 years they might need to upgrade projectors again for some brand spankled new new new projector type.
 
Doom4life said:
Back on topic, I am really surprised they aren't looking into forcing theatres to charge for "premium" seats (eg like at stadiums). You want to sit in the middle of the row at the best viewing spot? That'll be $2.00 extra. If you want to pay regular price, we have seats right underneath the screen. Ha! That'll be the day!
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I'd gladly pay an extra $2.00 for seats that let me get away from theaters filled with someone's noisy bastard children.. equipped with cell phone jammers and had ushers that kicked inconsiderate loud pricks who like to carry on conversations while others are trying to watch a movie. ;)
 
How about just producing movies that more people would want to see?

Face it, most movies aren't worth more than the price of redbox or netflix, which is why they have boomed in recent years. Blockbuster $5 rentals were just way overpriced for what the consumer received.

To me, most movies being produced today are not even worth a $1 to watch, to be honest.
 
Seraphical said:
I'd gladly pay an extra $2.00 for seats that let me get away from theaters filled with someone's noisy bastard children.. equipped with cell phone jammers and had ushers that kicked inconsiderate loud pricks who like to carry on conversations while others are trying to watch a movie. ;)
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What he said.
 
zukihara said:
To me, most movies being produced today are not even worth a $1 to watch, to be honest.
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I saw Land of the Lost (w/ Will Ferrell) at the $1 theatre and felt it was a waste of a $1. Only movie I though it wasn't worth one measly dollar. Thats pretty bad.
 
Seraphical said:
I'd gladly pay an extra $2.00 for seats that let me get away from theaters filled with someone's noisy bastard children.. equipped with cell phone jammers and had ushers that kicked inconsiderate loud pricks who like to carry on conversations while others are trying to watch a movie. ;)
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Sorry, I should have been a bit more specific.... How about $2.00 for "premium" seats that is treated the same as they do now (kids, cell phones, no ushers, etc.) ;)
 
You know, if they would make their entire library available instead of only the completely shitty movies I wouldn't mind.
 
Doom4life said:
The big deal is that other studios will want to charge more, so that "extra 2-3 dollars" will turn into atleast double or triple that.

The fact is, the studios clearly didn't bank on Netflix being as popular as it currently is. Now they are going back and trying to grab as much cash as they can get. What Netflix should do, is tell them to shove it and drop all Warner movies from the catalogue. Then they can cry and blame piracy ten fold because they just lost money from the Netflix deal. However, I don't see this feasible given the fact that they own the rights and set their own prices.

This is a little off topic, but on the topic of film studios... If they want 3D to be succesfull, they need to compete with the 2D version of the same film and have no extra charge (or not as high). My theatre charges $3.00 on top of the ticket price for a 3D version. When I saw my first movie, I was told it was to pay for the glasses. I got smart (or so I thought) and kept them for the next movie that I saw in 3D (Avatar). When I went to pay and was told the $3.00 per ticket was for glasses, I said its ok, I have my own so I don't need to be charged. All of a sudden, the charge changed from glasses to its more expensive to make a 3D movie. After that point I refused to see any more movies in 3D. I HIGHLY doubt it costs $3.00 per ticket more for the equipment, but whatever.

Back on topic, I am really surprised they aren't looking into forcing theatres to charge for "premium" seats (eg like at stadiums). You want to sit in the middle of the row at the best viewing spot? That'll be $2.00 extra. If you want to pay regular price, we have seats right underneath the screen. Ha! That'll be the day!
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The glasses for Avatar cost .50 for the studios.
 
Seraphical said:
I'd gladly pay an extra $2.00 for seats that let me get away from theaters filled with someone's noisy bastard children.. equipped with cell phone jammers and had ushers that kicked inconsiderate loud pricks who like to carry on conversations while others are trying to watch a movie. ;)
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Those theaters exist. They are called the Arc Light theaters in LA. I Sooo wish we had something like that up in the SF Bay area. I'd gladly pay $2-5 more a ticket if I got to pick my seat and it put an usher in the theater to kick the ass hats out with no re-fund.
 
Their not going to give up that dying business model easily, are they?
 
osrk said:
good job time warner way to drive piracy through the roof! ARGGGGHHH!
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And when piracy increases, they'll increase their prices more and purchase laws that make piracy punishable by getting your hand cut off. That'll show 'em!
 
xxEIEIOxx said:
Here's a fix. Warner Brothers titles on Netflix can be optional for an additional fee. Then I can choose not to give them anything.

If Netflix goes up I have no problem with dropping them. Just like I'll be dropping Frontier for taking over FiOS in this area and raising the price $30 a month. While I'm cleaning house I'll get rid of all of these greedy bastages. :mad:
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I like this idea, hell add to that and add some kind of fee each time you watch one of there movies, along with a pop up explaining why this is.
 
I could see it if Netflix actually had good content that you could stream. I'm not paying over 12 a month for crap movies like 'Santa Claus vs. the Martians' or other 40 year old movies that were crap when they came out. Have you seen the so called new releases? Like every other business model out there: Give you a little good stuff to get you as a customer then start shoveling crap. Hulu is getting just as bad. I can't remember the last time I started Hulu.
 
xxEIEIOxx said:
Here's a fix. Warner Brothers titles on Netflix can be optional for an additional fee. Then I can choose not to give them anything.
If Netflix goes up I have no problem with dropping them. Just like I'll be dropping Frontier for taking over FiOS in this area and raising the price $30 a month. While I'm cleaning house I'll get rid of all of these greedy bastages. :mad:
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Amen and +1 for the Johnny Dangerously reference!
9000 internets to you, sir!
 
What would you pay for any content you want, when you want, with no commercials? All right from your couch.

NEVER before has this been possible, you either had to go buy, go rent, or go to the theater, or buy this or that cable package.

Netflix's $8 a month model cannot be continue to be feasible with rising customer expectations of more/better content.

As the article said our viewing habbits are changing, we want selection and convenience. We are buying less (for good reason) but expect essentially the same access to content through netflix (when we want, how ever many times we want).

DVD sales/rentals are about %50 of studio income, if people stop buying DVDs for netflix that money (at least a good %) has to come from somewhere.

Netflix got a "deal" on content for a while (yes crappy content for the most part), studios didn't think it would be as successful. Now it is and starting to eat into their other streams of revenue. Lets HOPE content providers start negotiating more with Netflix. The music industry was late to the same party and look where they are at.

Even through prices may go up, Netflix has the opportunity to get better content out of the deal. I will pay more for more/better content, whether its tiered pricing or their current structure.

Now if Netflix bends over for the same content I would be disappointed, cause what is available now is worth %8 a mo.
 
If I were netflix... I would try a negotiate a tiered pricing system.

Base streaming includes, titles 5 years old(er) (from DVD release)

Additional add-on packaged per company (WB,Disney etC) with all content from 1-5 years old.

That still gives DVD sales 1 year to sell for profit, gives 5 additional years of additional subscription income. Then a small flat fee for the rest...
 
If there were actually a decent selection of WB films on Netflix Streaming, I wouldn't care. So not only do you have to wait 28 days to get WB movies on Netflix, they have a very poor amount of content, and they are raising prices.

Great move!

I bet Paramount will follow suit.
 
While it would never happen, NF and RB should collude and agree to boycott all WB movies. Yeah, it'd piss off their customers, but it'd hurt WB even more. :cool:
 
I was just this morning tossing around the idea of dropping my Netflix account. This is all I needed to make up my mind.
 
Perhaps Netflix does not even require any licensing agreements with the studios?

I guess it depends on how much the studios want. I don't believe that there is anything stopping Netflix from buying their DVDs at retail or through other distribution methods. The only issue would be how long it would take them to accumulate enough inventory to satisfy their customers. Who know? It might even be less than 28 days.
 
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