Netflix just spent almost a billion dollars buying movies to stream

August 10, 2010 - 5:52pm — Bibliofuture

At a cost of nearly one billion dollars, Netflix on Tuesday said it would add films from Paramount Pictures, Lions Gate and MGM to its online subscription service.

It was a coup — albeit a costly one — for Netflix, which knows its needs to lock up the digital rights to films as customers stop receiving DVDs by mail and start receiving streams via the Internet. The deal will commence Sept. 1.

Ted Sarandos, the chief content officer for Netflix, said he is essentially taking the “huge pile of money” that Netflix pays in postage for DVDs by mail — about $600 million this year — “and starting to pay it to the studios and networks.”

Full article:
http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/10/netflix-to-stream-films-from-paramount-lion...