The rise of Netflix UK left plenty of Brits confused of what movie service they would choose or go for: will they vote for lovefilm or netflix? Annoyingly, the ideal answer of brits here are both .
What I want from my movie streaming service is everything I might ever feel like watching available for me to watch it whenever I want. What I really don’t want is to discover that the one thing I feel like watching is available on the one service I don’t subscribe to.
Until last week, this wasn’t too much of a problem. Amazon-owned Lovefilm had the subscription streaming market pretty much to itself in the UK – sure, you could rent films from BlinkBox and Apple, but that wasn’t quite the same.
Now there are two major services going head to head – a bit of extra competition is a good thing, we thought. And when the Netflix launch saw Lovefilm instantly drop its streaming prices, we thought we were right.
Lovefilx
But as time wears on, it becomes less awesome and more annoying. Both Netflix and Lovefilm are scrambling to snap up content deals to out-do the other. While the business thinking behind this may be sound – offering something the other guy hasn’t got – it’s frustrating for the actual users of the services.
At the moment, Lovefilm has exclusive streaming rights to Studiocanal’s movies – that will include Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy when it’s released. It also has a five-year deal with Entertainment One in the UK, including the Twilightfilms. There are also two time-dependent deals with Sony Pictures and Warner Bros that see their titles come to Lovefilm first.
Those are some pretty heavy hitters – and Netflix only has Lionsgate to hit back with. It’s a pretty good exclusive deal though, giving Netflix the exclusive on subscription streaming for Lionsgate films in the UK within one year of their release, including The Hunger Games, which is set to be 2012’s Twilight.
If nothing else, won’t somebody think of the tweens? How can we expect them to choose between Twillight and The Hunger Games?
So what’s the answer? Well, you could hope one buys the other and becomes a mega-library, or just wait and see how it all pans out. Or you could suck it up and pay £11 a month to subscribe to both.
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