Netflix bosses head down under

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and chief content officer Ted Sarandos will launch Netflix in Australia next Tuesday March 24.

Ted Sarandos

The US executives will christen the Australasian service at a function at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, flanked by stars from Netflix original productions.

They’ll reveal the pricing for the service, which comes in three tiers: the single-stream standard-definition plan, two-stream HD and four-stream 4K ultra-HD “family.”

Among the talent from Netflix shows who will attend the launch are Lorenzo Rochelmy (Marco Polo), Ben Mendelsohn and Todd Kessler (Bloodline), Charlie Cox and Deborah Ann Woll (Marvel’s Daredevil) and Jennette McCurdy (Between).

Reed Hastings

Netflix will compete with Foxtel’s Presto Movies and Presto TV (the latter a joint venture with Seven West Media), Nine Entertainment/Fairfax Media’s Stan and Quickflix, heralding a fierce battle in the nascent subscription VoD (SVoD) sector.

Perhaps not coincidentally, Foxtel announced today its new iQ3 set-top box will be available for new and current subscribers from next Monday. Among its new features are a ‘start over’ function that allows viewers to go back to the beginning of a show that’s already started; scrolling back up to 24 hours to watch shows viewers missed; Wi-Fi connectivity; and more recording space for up to 345 SD shows.

Foxtel will reveal pricing, additional features and order details on Monday.

Shaun James, director of Presto and on demand, told C21: “The SVoD market is certainly heating up quickly, but it’s going to be a long game as there’s still a lot of education that needs to happen to make Australians more familiar with it and what content is available.

“Of course, consumers will be taking advantage of the trials to test-drive what’s out there, and it’s not unreasonable to think they’ll take one or more services – in most cases adding them on to existing subscription free-to-air viewing, as SVoD is really about a complementary viewing experience.”

Quickflix executive chairman Stephen Langsford said: “The increased awareness from the combined promotions of all the players will help build the category and increase demand across the board.

“We think multiple players can be sustained in the market and the evidence from the US is that many households will choose more than one service. No one streaming service caters for all the content nor necessarily covers all devices, so if you love movies and TV entertainment you’re likely to commit to more than one.”

Despite Quickflix’s net loss of A$8.6m (US$6.6m) for the six months to December 31, more than twice the A$4.2m loss it posted a year earlier, and a small drop in paying customers to 117,000, Langsford remains optimistic.

“Quickflix has made a huge investment over the years, which reflects in our accumulated losses. However, we have a solid revenue base and we’re growing, so we are very much looking to the future,” he said.