Netflix Maintains Streaming Subscriber Base with Focus on TV Shows

By Karla Robinson
February 29, 2012

The loss of its Starz contract may not actually hurt Netflix as much as originally thought. Now, more that half of all Netflix viewing is dedicated to TV, not films, presenting an opportunity for the company to compensate for the loss of movies.
“Analysts say the prioritizing of television partly explains why the company has been able to retain about 21.7 million streaming subscribers in the United States — totaling one in four households that have broadband — despite complaints about an inadequate feature film selection. It’s a transition that Netflix has made rather successfully in the last six to 12 months,” reports The New York Times.
The new-release movies from Starz only account for 2 percent of all Netflix viewing, a fairly big drop from 8 percent a year ago.
Even so, people remain critical of Netflix’s selection of films available to stream. An analyst firm Piper Jaffray reported only four of the 2011 top-50 grossing films were available on the site, and one of them — “Gnomeo and Juliet” — will be removed Wednesday.
Netflix continues to offer popular newer films through its DVD service but is placing more focus on TV with original content and expanding with older, cheaper TV content offerings.

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