Netflix CEO predicts DVD has two years of life left
If Netflix CEO Reed Hastings is to be believed, DVD is preparing to go the way of the VHS cassette.
According to Yahoo’s Today in Tech, Mr. Hastings said that DVD will remain the primary delivery format for movies for the next two years at his company which currently boasts 11 million customers. He did not, however, say if it would be Blu-ray or streaming movies that would replace the aging format.
Seeing as Blu-ray still only has about 10 percent market penetration at this time, and Netflix is continuing to invest in its streaming technology, it seems likely that Mr. Hastings was referring to streaming becoming the dominant delivery format. This isn’t to say that DVD will just disappear overnight as he sees the format holding on in some way for another decade or so past 2012. This is a reversal of previous statements Mr. Hastings has given where he saw DVD remaining Netflix’s primary focus through as late as 2018.
If the CEO was discussing streaming as the primary delivery format in the near future, you have to wonder if he knows something about the United States broadband plans that is not yet common knowledge. The fairly low penetration of the necessary broadband speeds has been seen as a barrier to streaming movie delivery gaining wide acceptance in the USA. The Obama administration has said getting broadband speeds to every home has been a priority for the President since the campaign trail, but it is expected to take some time roll out.
The second biggest barrier had been the ease with which consumers could watch streaming videos on devices other than their computers, but the company has been working diligently at changing that for some time now. With interfaces for the service now on devices such as the Xbox 360, the Roku box and even being built into some TV sets, once broadband speeds become more prevalent in this country, Mr. Hastings’ predictions will probably come true.
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October 10th, 2009
You article Headline is misleading. Please reread the Netflix interview. He NEVER said DVD has two years of life left. Sensationalistic Journalism at its best.
October 10th, 2009
I guess nobody ever considers that there is a place for VOD, physical media, and streaming content, and that all are desired by consumers. There are people who feel that streaming content will short circuit blu-ray media, but fail to take into account that the streaming capacity to do this doesn’t exist for most folk, and then you have the backbone providers wanting to constrain your downloads to a certain GB limit. Also overlooked is the fact that digital content is harder to manage then physical media as it might be regulated by copy protection to certain devices or providers. Now Mr. Hastings can predict DVD slowing, but with DVD showing 104,884 titles (including entire TV series) that have not been ported to any other medium, it will be a quite a number of years before this medium is ever obsolete if ever. I find that DVD pricing is very reasonable and availability of titles by B&M and online stores to be amazingly vast.
October 10th, 2009
Wishful thinking.
That said, of course he wouldn’t care about broadband penetration. How many movies comparatively speaking do you think Netflix mails to areas with poor broadband coverage? I bet that number I’d miniscule compared to total rentals.
October 10th, 2009
Broadband speeds are not the only barrier. Speeds are irrelevant if “bandwidth caps” by the customer’s local ISP prevent or restrict delivery of product.
When nonsense like “bandwidth caps” are finally dealt with and outlawed as anti-competitive ,..and also broadband saturation is 75% even in rural areas.
Maybe then we could consider having discussion of VOD taking over DVD…even then it won’t happen for five years at the earliest from that point.
My guess it won’t happen, at all.
Blu-ray…it has to come down in price to DVD levels and even then there has to be a healthy economy for people to even consider replacing their DVD library with Blu-ray.
October 13th, 2009
Agree with Ralph. There’s those, and many other issues that need to be worked out before streaming/online can be the only format.
I’ll stick with physical media for the time being….