Netflix CFO Sees No Future for Amazon Rentals

Dave H. writes "In comments made at the Morgan Stanley Small Cap conference last week, Netflix CFO Barry McCarthy says he doesn't think Amazon.com will expand its video rental market into the US because the retailer's infrastructure wouldn't work to its advantage with video rentals. He also sees the window between theatrical and DVD releases shortening, which is a Good Thing." From the article: "The price of entry is much higher now than it was in the past, both in terms of the cost of locating warehouses and just the mere fact that Netflix and Blockbuster are both considerably larger now. McCarthy then said that Amazon is in the classic make-versus-buy dilemma, noting that the company can either start from scratch or try to acquire service through either an acquisition or partnership." Update 6/20: Barry McCarthy's position at Netflix corrected.

Comments

what he really said was

[epaton]

please dont go into business against us, we are for sale

Blockbuster Online

[Rick and Roll]

I signed up for Blockbuster Online only to discover that A) I don't rent enough for it to be a good deal and B) Anytime I rent something I want it right away.

I was impressed that they had many shipping locations. Unfortunately I was unable to take advantage of these because it took 2-3 days to get mail from the shipping location to my house, which is in the same state as the shipping location.

It seems shipping locations would be a lot of the cost of setting this up. Perhaps smaller businesses could pool resources?

Time between theatre and DVD

[syynnapse]

I feel like the time between theatre and DVD has shortened signifigantly already thanks to the quality of the films. There is an interrelationship between these two things. How long did it take National Treasure to go to dvd? a week? two?

Re:Time between theatre and DVD

[Spodie!]

It's not such a simple process to shorten the time to DVD release. I work in the sound department of a large motion picture studio and all the work I do is for DVD.

Nowadays, every DVD release is dictated by the marketing department. Almost two years ago we fundamentally changed every aspect of our workflow in order to be able to deliver final DVD audio to the authoring department faster. We shortened our delivery time by a week, but marketing wants it much faster - often, this is not possible.

The biggest problem is that the company is so large and there are so many titles in the pipe that the scheduling of elements being created by outside venders is very problematic - final approved picture, final approved audio, extras, subtitles, DVD menus, etc. Not to mention the fact that there are so many idiots up the chain that have no idea what's involved in getting the actual work accomplished.

The President of my company has said that he wants to eventually see the day when a person can walk into the theater, watch a film and on the way out buy the DVD. This could, and probably will happen, but it would likely be a domestic only 5.1 and/or Lt/Rt with little or no extras. The replication time alone would probably push back the theatrical release a week or so.

From the article:

[Kiyooka]

"Now Netflix CEO Barry McCarthy says that he doesn't see Amazon entering the online movie rental business in the US, putting ice on the idea that Amazon is naturally suited to the business."

There you go, cause and effect. What else did you expect? Do you think the CEO of Netflix would say: "the market is expanding rapidly with absurdly high profit margins and plenty of opportunities for newcomers. Amazon is perfectly suited to join the competition and can make tons of money with little alteration to their existing infrastructure. I'll be the first to welcome them with a handshake while we prepare to downsize!"?

Doesn't seem like anything out of the ordinary to me.

"As to whether or not Amazon and Netflix are in negotiations for a partnership, McCarthy said "my comment is 'no comment'." I think that statement is about as obvious as obvious gets. No doubt non-disclosure agreements are par for the course, but sometimes nothing is so revealing as a "no comment". Then again, that could be read as some kind of public invitation to Amazon. Idunno... this is /., somebody smarter than me help me out here...

Re:I can't wait...

[eclectro]

...until I become a CEO of a large company, so that I can tell other CEO's what to do and think!

I can't wait until I become a CEO of a large company so that I can patent what other CEOs already do and think.

4 a month = useless.

[sumday]

with netflix and blockbuster, you can have as many DVDs a month as you wish, but only 3 at a time, right?

amazon's service only allows 4 dvds a month. and you're only allowed 2 at home at any one time. at least, thats what they offer in the UK.

now, surely the people that are most likely to use a service like this are going to want alot more than that in return for their monthly fee. i watch alot more that one film a week, and i'm only an amateur film buff. so if i were to get one of these services (which i may do in the future) i'd be getting the one that allows me unlimited DVDs.

i did the math, and using the amazon service, you're not saving alot by getting the monthly fee. and if you only get 3 in one month, you lose money compared to renting(assuming renting is £2.50 like at my local rental place).

and if you live near a good library, its even cheaper and you can keep the DVDs for a week.

i'm usually a great supporter of all things amazon, but they really need to rethink their business model.

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Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:I can't wait...Other IMPORTANT CEO HEADLINES

[darkPHi3er]

1. Microsoft CEO sees no future for LINUX

2. RHEL CEO sees no future for UNIX

3. Google CEO sees no future for Yahoo!

4. RIAA CEO sees no future for P2P

5. CBS CEO sees no future for HBO

6. Western Digital CEO sees no future for Lexar

7. Oracle CEO sees no future for MySQL

8. Sun CEO sees no future for Dell

You read it here first!

Re:You're the wrong demographic

[jackbird]

accumulates data the way old women accumulate cats... copies them all in a few hours, and sends back the originals without even watching them.

I've never heard of anyone doing that to a cat.