You might have to wait 30 days to see NEW movies on Netflix.

[Papa Deuce]

from Yahoo!

While Redbox is going to war with movie studios that want to implement a month-long "sale-only" window for their latest DVDs, Netflix's CEO is reportedly OK with the policy—as long as there's something in it for Netflix.
In an interview with Bloomberg News, Netflix's Reed Hastings said the company may "voluntarily agree" to a month-long wait for new-release movies and TV shows, as long as the studios—which are desperately trying to pump up slumping DVD sales—can "make it economically attractive for us."

Naturally, "economically attractive" would mean cheaper prices for the DVDs and Blu-rays that Netflix buys from the studios, as well as more beneficial terms for streaming movies through Netflix's "Watch Instantly" service.

That's a much more laid-back attitude than the feeling at Redbox, which is suing three movie studios—Universal, Fox, and Warner Brothers—that are refusing to distribute its latest DVDs to Redbox at reduced wholesale rates until about a month after their retail release (the exact number of days varies per studio).

The studios argue that Redbox is cutting into their DVD retail business by charging just a buck a night for their latest releases. That said, Redbox has reached distribution agreements with a few of the big studios, including Sony and Lionsgate.

The difference between Redbox and Netflix, apparently—well, besides the obvious difference that Redbox rents its movies through kiosks, while Netflix is still primarily a by-mail subscription operation—is that Redbox seems to view the latest new releases as critical to its success. Hastings, however, tells Bloomberg that Netflix is "less new-release sensitive," and notes that new DVDs only account for about 30 percent of Netflix's total rentals.

Indeed, many of you have said the same thing whenever I've written about Redbox's battle with the big movie studios—basically, that paying just a buck a night for Redbox kiosk rentals is far more important than being able to rent a movie on the exact day that it arrives on retail shelves.

Personally, I'd be fine with waiting a little longer for DVD rentals as long as I, as a consumer, saw a benefit—for example, shorter wait times in my Netflix DVD queue, more streaming titles, or (gasp!) lower subscription rates.

But what about you? Could you live with a 30ish-day wait to rent the latest DVDs?

 

[ajk912]

I think it's ridiculous but whatever. It's not going to convince me to buy a movie, that's for sure!! Especially since they raised the cost of the new releases about a year ago? When they were $13.99 for the new release at CC/Best Buy, and about the same price at Walmart, I was often tempted and did buy some. I was like..ok, it's under $15 with tax, I can buy that. But now new releases are about $15.99 the week they are out where I shop. Uh..that's about $18 with tax, and for some reason seems to be a lot "more" to me. So I haven't bought a new release since the prices went up!

So I guess I will be waiting with Netflix!

 

[LoraJ]

It is ridiculous, but I can wait an extra 30 days.

 

[Disneyglobegirl]

I agree - it is ridiculous. I have alist of movies that I want to buy and a list of movies that I want to rent, making me wait 30 extra days to rent a new release that I do not want to buy is not going to make me go out and buy it just to watch it earlier.

 

[Swimnoid]

Agree with PPs. It will annoy me but half the time I dont get the movies back in time to catch a new release or they sit here for 2 weeks before I watch them anyway. Not gonna buy it just to see it earlier.

 

[momof1princess]

it's ridiculous. i watch movies as soon as they come out on netflix partly to decide if it's good enough to buy. withholding movies from netflix for 30 days is certainly not going to convince me to buy a movie on DVD if i haven't seen it first!

 

[java]

We just watched Mall Cop! But I am thinking the instant watch movies are usually older anyway.
And as for waiting 30 days to watch it from the release date - well that's just silly imho. (doesn't make me want to buy a movie more)

 

[Sparx]

i have 187 movies in my queue that are available, and about 30 that aren't, yet. i don't think i'll honestly notice an extra month of waiting, because i'm working through my other movies too.

doesn't bother me. i'm paying $8.99 to watch as many movies as i want to. i don't care if its a little later than if i went out and paid more than twice that to watch it instantly.

 

[Becky2005]

Really doesn't phase me. We tend to get our DVD's from the library, so obviously NOT new releases.

The only ones we usually buy are ones we saw in the theatre & decided we really liked them. Disney DVD's have been given as gifts and so we have those that way for some.

 

[Free4Life11]

The two times I went to a Redbox they didn't have any major "new releases" that I saw. Looked like a ton of B movies and crap that I've never heard of! Guess all the good movies go fast.

Not being able to rent a movie within the first 30 days is NOT going to make me buy the DVD...

 

[pansmermaidzlagoon]

I agree, I buy the ones I really want to keep - and those are ones I cared enough to see in a theatre.

I am not going to be more likely to buy them just because I have to wait a month longer to watch them! If I have waited that long and it wasn't important enough to see in a theatre, then one more month isn't going to convince me to buy the DVD.

I think it stinks, but I think most people will just adjust to waiting that extra month if we have to.

 

[MoonFaerie]

I don't buy movies I haven't seen, so it's not going to make me go out and buy movies. Plus, like others said, our netflix list is so long, we're not really going to notice another 30 days.

 

[Golf4food]

We don't buy anything we haven't seen first - either in the theater or at least once on DVD/Bluray. And since we don't go to see a ton of movies in the theater that means we don't buy a ton of DVD/BDs as new releases since we haven't seen them yet! We have dozens of movies in our Netflix queue - we won't notice a 30 day delay at all because we only do one disc at a time and usually only watch one per week. I can live 30 days without seeing something I've never seen before and if we saw it and loved it we probably already bought it anyway.

Movie companies just have to get used to the fact that the world has changed and they can't force us into buying new release movies just because they want us to do so - there are too many other ways of receiving media these days besides just discs: internet, satellite, cable... bootleg, haha. They've finally started to learn that people don't want to pay $30 for a Bluray and low and behold BD prices have dropped significantly, with many older movies now on sale for $9.99 and new releases around $19.99, which is where they should have been to begin with.

 

[Aimeedyan]

I remember as a kid, you had to rent new releases and couldn't buy them until later. Now the opposite seems to be the case!

We stopped our Netflix subscription due to Redbox. We really didn't have time to watch a bunch of older movies we wanted to see and were mainly using it for new releases. I could get a new release at Redbox for $1 so there was no point in using Netflix anymore.

I guess it really won't affect us, unless Redbox is affected as well. We certainly won't be buying all those movies! We probably watch 4-6 movies a week - buying that many is definitely NOT in the budget.

 

[powellrj]

It really won't affect me too much. I normally don't get too many new releases from them and if I do, I am in store early in the mornings on tuesday that I have never had a problem and if I want one on the weekend I just reserve it on-line. The website shows where they have the movie, and we have so many in the area, there is always one redbox that will have it and I can just reserve it.

I love redbox for all the movies they have that are never released locally. We never get any of the smaller movies, we only get the major ones. If I want to see something like Motherhood that opened this week, I would have to wait until it comes out on redbox.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

It won't bother me. I don't watch many new releases anyway. Even when I do, what's the difference between waiting 6 months from when it was at the theater vs waiting 7 months? I'm just not that time sensitive.

 

[HonnyDipp]

I buy my movies at a local video store. 30 days after a new release, you can buy them used half off. I get them from Netflix and by the time the 30 days is up, if I liked them, I buy them. This new rule may throw a wrench in my movie buying plans.

 

[Papa Deuce]

I don't often see the new releases right away, but lately I have been trying too. Though, now that I just hooked my XBOX 360 up for Netflix streaming to my TV, I have started watching more older movies, and more TV shows.

 

[Ephany]

We've never used Redbox and the movies or shows we get from Netflix tend to be a little more off the beaten path, so this means nada to us. I admit I had Transformers 2 in my hands yesterday at Target, but put it back b/c I'm pretty sure it'll be marked down for Black Friday or a Christmas deal in the next month or so. I can wait, it's no big deal. There are very few movies we buy the first week they're out, and they're usually Disney/Pixar or Barbie movies for DD. I think the studios haven't quite realized that the market is very different from even five years ago and consumers have a large variety of options that were not previously available.

 

[bicker]

While any one of us might react differently, the video disc distributors need to run their business based on a view of typical consumer behavior, instead. There are a good number of people who see a certain value in watching a film just as soon as possible, and see a loss of value in having to wait. What we can see clearly in this thread is that there are a lot of other people who actually don't care about waiting. So you've got two groups, one group for which the distributors get an advantage if they delay availability for rental, and another group for which the distributors incur no disadvantage.

Advantage + No Disadvantage = All Good

The concern, if there was to be any, would be if there were people for whom the delay would actually make it less likely for them to buy or rent -- i.e., people for whom the 30 day delay translates into a preference to do without the movie entirely (or perhaps waiting until it reaches commercial television). Just from the comments we've seen in this thread, there doesn't seem to be much indication that that's a prevalent perspective.