FRED PROUSER/Reuters/Corbis
It has already helped kill off video stores, but after a new deal with film financier Relativity Media, can Netflix fight with the big dogs of premium cable?
In a $32 million dollar deal with Relativity, Netflix is extending its tentacles further into the streaming video racket. The deal would allow Netflix to stream Relativity’s films online before they would appear on premium channels which is, if you will excuse the expression, something of a game-changer. (Currently, most films play premium channels roughly a year after they are released and months after they appear on DVD; most films currently on Netflix Watch Instantly started streaming years after they were released on DVD, though some premiere earlier through an agreement with Starz.)
As Reuters notes, the agreement right now only applies to films Relativity has financed completely, which includes Dear John and the upcoming the Nicolas Cage vehicle Season of the Witch.
The move looks to NewsFeed like a savvy one for Netflix. The company is poised to take a powerful lead in the low-overhead market for streaming feature films, with Hulu (which has a smaller line-up of mostly older and unheard-of films) as its only real competition. With premium channels like HBO, Showtime and now Starz increasingly focusing on original programming at the expense of first-run films, the move is also a smart one for Relativity. Streaming video from Netflix can play on all three next-generation video game consoles, Apple’s iPad, many Blu-Ray players — and, of course, your friendly web browser.