View From the Phlipside Radio - Starz Strikes

My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media.  TV, radio, the movies and more.  I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion.  Call this the View from the Phlipside.

I think most people who know me would say that I’m a pretty easy going guy.  I don’t get ruffled or ticked off too easily.  But the folks at Starz are really starting to get on my nerves.

You may remember earlier in the year I noted that Starz apparently didn’t value folks like me too highly when they took Dish Network to court for giving long time subscribers like me a year’s worth of Starz for free.  Seems they see themselves only as a value added higher price tier and not for the everyday hoi polloi.  That was fine.  It’ll take a while to drag through the courts and for the time being I was getting my extra movies and even kind of liking the whole Starz package.

Now it turns out that Starz really doesn’t like me (and maybe you too) unless they can put their hand into my pocket.  The latest is in some ways a repeat of the first act.  Except now they are woofing in the direction of Netflix.

Netflix has been in my dog house most of the summer after their announcement that I would have to pay more to get the same service I’ve had for a couple years now.  Suddenly I’m feeling a little more chummy with the folks at the DVD and streaming video service now that Starz has given them the back of their hand.

Here’s the deal, Starz owns the rights to a variety of recent release movies.  If Netflix wants to stream them then they have to pay Starz for the rights.  Since that includes the films of Walt Disney Studios and Sony Pictures that’s a pretty valuable asset.  Not  a problem, the two had an agreement since 2008.  This time around Netflix offered 300 million dollars.  A year.  More than 10x what it was paying now according to people who should know.
And Starz said no.  You see on top of the annual rights fees Starz wants Netflix to charge the subscribers more with additional cost tiered pricing for access to the Starz stuff.  They want Netflix’s money and my money too.

The idea apparently is to protect their relationship with cable TV and satellite services.  Yeah, folks like Dish.  To me this sounds like shooting yourself in BOTH feet.  Maybe I need to start looking at some other movie services out there.

Call that the View From the Phlipside