One of the most fascinating things that will come out of this perhaps sooner rather than later is an antitrust suit. The more that Netflix establishes it directly competes with the cable networks, the easier it will be for them to establish (and it will still be arguably hard) an antitrust claim against the cable networks (premium and regular cable channels) and cable providers (the Comcasts) for protecting their monopolies or market positions against Netflix by starving Netflix of content. Even with whatever theoretical problems may exist with sustaining the claim, getting discovery if it does will surely yield emails about crushing Netflix that will look horrible in court and in public opinion. Not sure if this is on Netflix’s mind or not, but a lawsuit is a partial hedge to this “original content” strategy, and potentially will give them leverage on getting the other content on an equal basis.
Plenty more on this deal later. Netflix gets to the essence of using the Internet to disrupt a number of entrenched media-related business models and it’s doing it again and again.
[...] model is threatened by Netflix and other such models. To the extent that you are not interested in live sports and are willing [...]
[...] potentially positioning it to compete with Netflix. As I have discussed before, Netflix disrupts MVPD. Most big company CEOs would not be buying a business that potentially disrupts the core [...]
[...] is jumping further in the ring with Netflix, Dish/Blockbuster, Amazon, and Hulu, according to the WSJ. It is planning to organize content [...]
[...] content models, and the important place that sports fits in all this. See here, here, and here, for [...]
[...] posted a while ago about Netflix encroaching on HBO (and cable generally) territory by jumping into the [...]
[...] step in that direction for streaming as Netflix has been long signalling to the world. (See here and here, for example.) Netflix gains precise subscriber counts useful for negotiating deals with [...]
[...] the ever-increasing costs of sports rights. As I noted in this post: This model is threatened by Netflix and other such models. To the extent that you are not interested in live sports and are willing [...]