DVD rental company Quickflix who was accused by Blockbuster management earlier this year of having limited access to movies and TV content has launched a new on demand streaming service in direct competition to Telstra, Optus and Foxtel.
DVD rental company Quickflix who was accused by Blockbuster management earlier this year of having limited access to movies and TV content has launched a new on demand streaming service in direct competition to Telstra, Optus and Foxtel.
The service that is priced at $14.99 a month and available on a Sony Bravia TV delivers old catalogue movie content from a small number of Hollywood studio’s including Sony and Warner.
In comparison Optus is offering consumers access to a FetchTV player, 30 free movies a month from all of the major movie distributors as well as access to movie downloads for $5.99 a month from the major studios. Telstra with their T Box has a similar deal.
A senior industry executive said “The new Quickflix service is limited and will struggle up against offering from Foxtel, Optus and Telstra. The issue for Quickflix is that they are burning investor cash on a business that is facing some brutal competition. They don’t have access to all of the Hollywood studios because the studios are demanding five year deals and upfront payments and Quickflix is struggling from a lack of cash flow to fund the demands of the studio’s “.
Quickflix chief executive Chris Taylor said that their new service will source content from Sony Pictures Television, Warner Bros. International Branded Services, Lakeshore Entertainment, Content Media Corporation and Pinnacle Films.
Missing are movies from Universal, 20th Century Fox, Paramount, Disney, DreamWorks’s and MGM.
Taylor told the Australian newspaper “Deals with other major studios and content providers will be announced in the coming weeks. The time was right for us to move into that space as a business and get out there first.”
“We have never been more upbeat about the growth of the physical side of business than we are right now. We sit in an environment where video stores are closing at a rate of knots and we now have the marketing muscle courtesy of our capital raising to get the word of this service out there,” said Mr Taylor.
“We are in discussions with many of the manufacturers of connected devices… We anticipate that we will launch partnerships in the first quarter of next year with other players,” he said.
A CitiGroup Analyst said “Quickflix have already missed the boat. They are struggling in the DVD rental market up against Blockbuster. They are not making a profit and they are now trying to take on the likes of Telstra, Foxtel and Optus. Next year they will have to compete with Apple and Google as well as Amazon who could well end up buying Netflix an organisation who have excellent Hollywood relationships.
