View From the Phlipside Radio - Self Inflicted Wounds

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 spent a lot of time trying to come up with just the right metaphor or image or whatever for this story.  And none of them seemed to fit.  Then I remember a basic rule in my family.  There’s no sympathy for a self inflicted wound.  If you hurt yourself by being stupid you get no sympathy.  So I have no sympathy for the folks at Netflix.  They are on a truly horrible roll and they have no one to blame but themselves.

Earlier in the summer Netflix drew immense negative reaction when they suddenly announced they were splitting DVD service and streaming video services and changed the fee structure.  They lost significant numbers of subscribers.  So you’d figure they be trying to smooth things over at this point.  On Sunday Netflix CEO Reed Hastings found a way to make it all worse.  Netflix is in fact splitting the company spinning off the DVD section.  And they are making every possible mistake along the way.  First they are sacrificing one of the most valuable assets any business has, name recognition.  The DVD service will no longer be Netflix but something called Qwikster.  Beyond losing the brand loyalty built into the old name they’ve chosen a meaningless, stupid name. Netflix combines two familiar terms for the internet and the movies.  It’s a perfect name for the service.  What the heck is a Qwikster?

But it keeps getting worse.  Because these will now be treated as completely different companies they will now have two completely separate web sites.  So if you actually decided to hang onto both the DVD and streaming services after the price increase you are now stuck having to deal with two different bills and two websites.  That’s right Netflix has decided to make your more complicated as well as charge you more money for it. It’s a truly astounding example of self inflicted wound after self inflicted wound after self inflicted wound.

How bad is it really?  One day after the Netflix announcement you found news stories titled “Are Netflix’s Best Days Behind Them?”, and “Is Netflix Committing Suicide?” and an article exploring all the other companies whose services could replace your Netflix account.  Netflix stock has lost almost 50% of its value just this year.

And they get no sympathy from this corner.  Not for self inflicted wounds.

Call that the View From the Phlipside

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