Netflix, Streaming Video | featured news

Netflix’s video subscription service has trumped pay-TV channels and grabbed the rights to show Disney movies shortly after they finish their runs in theaters. The multiyear licensing agreement announced Tuesday represents a breakthrough for Netflix as it tries to add more recent movies to its popular service that streams video over high-speed Internet connections.

Move over, Web surfing. Netflix movies now take up more of the Internet pipes going into North American homes. A study published Tuesday by Sandvine Inc. shows that Netflix movies and TV shows account for nearly 30 percent of traffic into homes during peak evening hours, compared with less than 17 percent for Web browsing.

Netflix earnings reflect an increase in subscribers and fees as the instant-movie-streaming competition heats up.

Netflix Inc. is raising the prices of some of its subscription plans and is shifting its focus to streaming video as more members move to the Internet to watch movies and...

Netflix’s marketing costs increased 39% to $81 million in the latest quarter from $58.5 million in Q3 2009 [1]. Netflix continues to win new subscribers despite competing with a host of other online and offline video services offered by players like Apple, Amazon, Google, Comcast and Time Warner Cable.

Netflix and NBC Universal have struck a deal to load the streaming video site with tons of content from both NBC and its family of cable networks, including all 35 seasons of Saturday Night Live, and new episodes of the sketch comedy show the day after air.Saturday Night Live just aired its season premiere last night, but were not seeing the episode on Netflix. Apparently the deal hasnt been executed just yet.The day-after premiere episodes will continue through 2012, but neither Netflix nor NBC specified how long the other content deals will last.

In a sign that online streaming is coming to the forefront in Hollywood, films from Paramount Pictures, Lionsgate and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer will appear on Netflix's streaming service just three months after they appear on pay television.

The mail order and online video service maintains blistering growth, with profits to match.

One big story today is that Netflix added ABC content to its streaming service (it actually did this a couple days ago when episodes of Lost started appearing).