Posted Thu Feb 3, 2011 at 07:00 AM PST by Dick Ward
The company is pushing towards movie ownership instead of streams and rentals.
Netflix is making a lot of money streaming movies and the folks at Warner want a piece of it. In a call about the company's fourth quarter results, CEO Jeff Bewkes said that the company would be raising the licensing fees that Netflix and Redbox are paying for movies.
It seems as if Warner underestimated both Redbox and Netlix and priced their content accordingly. "The current terms are not commensurate to the value of our films,” said Bewkes in the call. “The value should be considerably higher than what we are getting now.”
In addition to raising the price to Redbox and Netflix, Warner is introducing premium Video on Demand (VOD) content which would let viewers watch movies on demand just 60 days after the theatrical window.
Warner is pushing hard for disc ownership as well, especially with the new Ultraviolet digital rights management system. "Ultraviolet should dramatically increase the appeal of owning movies," says Bewkes.
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