Netflix Losing 76 Titles From Library; Hulu Snaps Them Up
By Ed Biggs in Movies / TV / Theatre on 01 September 2015
Mere hours after the streaming giant announced that it would be losing 76 major titles from its service, one of its rivals sneaked in to snaffle them.
The streaming wars have drawn some more blood – within hours of Netflix revealing that they’ll be losing a large number of big blockbuster movies from their online library, rival platform Hulu announced that they would be picking them up instead.
Netflix announced yesterday (August 30th) that 76 big name titles and TV series, including The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Star Trek: Into Darkness, World War Z and Transformers: Age of Extinction, will be dropping out from their library over the course of September. This is as a result of the streaming service and its cable provider Epix ending their business relationship.
J-Law's 'Hunger Games: Catching Fire' is one of the big movies disappearing from Netflix
Delivering the news via the company’s blog, Netflix explained that the loss was due to second party licensing. “While many of these movies are popular, they are also widely available on cable and other subscription platforms at the same time as they are on Netflix and subject to the same drawn out licensing periods. Through our original films and some innovative licensing arrangements with the movie studios, we are aiming to build a better movie experience for you.”
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Essentially, they’re indicating that they’re preferring to cut costs on increasingly expensive licensing arrangements for some big movies in order to free up money for original programming. Variety gives the opinion that Netflix is increasingly looking for exclusivity in its dealings with studios so that only they can boast housing the big name titles.
“Netflix is a focused passion brand, not a do-everything brand: Starbucks, not 7-Eleven; Southwest, not United; HBO, not Dish,” it said in its long-term manifesto recently.
In this spirit, Netflix subscribers can look forward to the company’s exclusive deal with Disney kicking in from 2016, so lots of big name titles will be available there and nowhere else.
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