Advanced Television

Netflix to challenge BSkyB for movie rights

August 20, 2012

By Chris Forrester

Reed Hastings, Netflix’s founder and CEO, says he will “invest heavily” in film rights in the UK as a direct challenge to BSkyB’s dominance. “We will be really aggressive in our bidding,” he told London’s Sunday Telegraph newspaper.

The story reports that Netflix is in direct contact with the six Hollywood ‘major’ studios, and that even if “it took two or three years” he was confident that Netflix would win at least some ‘Pay 1’ rights, that is the first window rights for TV screenings.

Netflix users in the UK and Ireland pay £5.99 a month for access to the Netflix library which also contains thousands of TV shows.

Hastings admits that internationally its losses are some $100 million a quarter as it invests for its future, but that the rental company has “a very long-term focus” to its business. Its next step is to expand to Scandinavia this autumn

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