Starting on Nov. 5, Netflix customers who rent Blu-ray movies will have to pay an additional $1 per month, Netflix informed its customers via e-mail.
"As you may know, Blu-ray movies are more expensive than standard definition movies," a Netflix e-mail to all customers said. "As a result, we're going to start charging $1 a month (plus applicable taxes), in addition to your monthly membership charge, for unlimited access to Blu-ray movies."
The extra dollar will be automatically added to a customer's bill, and those not interested can edit their account on the Netflix web site.
The pricing change was announced a couple days after Netflix announced its fourth-quarter subscriber and revenue outlook is declining. Netflix will likely end 2008 with between 8.95 million and 9.25 million customers, which is slightly below the anticipated 9.1 million to 9.7 million.
The lower number of subscribers means it will miss out on around $14 million. Netflix attributes the decline in subscribers due to the slumping economy in the United States, which has forced many Americans to cut back on entertainment spending.
Blu-ray is a small portion of Netflix's rental business, with DVDs still the most popular format rented by subscribers. The company is expanding the amount of content available for download, as Disney and CBS recently were brought on board to expand Netflix's online download library to 12,000.
American consumers purchased 8.8 million discs in the first nine months of 2008 -- higher than the 5.6 million sold throughout 2007 -- but still only makes up eight percent of the video market.
This strong push towards downloadable content has created speculation that Netflix may begin to charge customers additional money for receiving regular DVDs in the mail. Not publicly confirmed by Netflix, it would make sense for the company to charge more for DVDs that are physically sent out as opposed to digitally downloaded.
Whew! I'm glad that I stopped Blu-ray at Netflix about a month ago. Now I can use that dollar to keep buying cat food for me and the the wife.
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Karma: 3080 , Thu 9 Oct 2008 11:43
cat foods bad, dog foods safer.
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Karma: 43820 , Thu 9 Oct 2008 13:09
Funny thing is that Blu-Ray movies are coming down in price so now netflix is going to raise theirs?
"ECONOMY" or as bush and harper moron say "wtf you guys talking about all is fine" fine my ass morons.. Netflix anticipating the drop in customers.. $1 is not much however multiply that by millions of customers. = $millions
Lets do a bank raid take out all your money then I wana see who really has the power.. You or the banks..
We need another depression.. simple we need it to clean up the garbage society that is lazy does not want to work and all they want is to sit and play consoles.. Eat your console mofo!!!
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Karma: 20090 , Thu 9 Oct 2008 15:44
@ Coolios
Well, they're saying nothing is wrong because they're trying to contain the panic. However, they're not doing a great job at it. I just renewed my mortgage yesterday and they quoted me 5.35%. I said that I got a quote last week from the bank manager for 5.15%. So they get back to me and say they'll hounor the quote, even though rates have gone up (for 5 year fixed). Funny that the rates for variable went down yesterday by 0.5%. What a nutty world.
I don't know what Netflix is worried about. I would think with winter coming and people not going out as much because of the recession/depression, they would stay home and watch more movies. I guess we'll see.
Come on everyone, it's only one dollar!
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Karma: 3340 , Thu 9 Oct 2008 16:17
Hopefully this will allow Netflix to store more copies and more Blu-ray titles in their inventory. Most Blu-ray discs are long wait through their service now. If an extra $1 a month improves this, I'm all for it!
Haha indeed, I'm still doubting to become a member of Netflix, is it worth the money anyway?
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Karma: 750 , Fri 10 Oct 2008 08:58
where do you get most of your movies from atm?
if you download them from torrents then its not worth joining but if you want blu-ray then it's probably good value...
Usually one or two movies per week from the local blockbuster, downloading is too slow here. Blu-ray, no player and TV yet 
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Karma: 750 , Tue 14 Oct 2008 09:06
well Jaz..i would say if you don't wanna make a trip to the local BB and worry about returning them on time then go for it
Hope that helps :P
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Karma: 3180 , Thu 9 Oct 2008 17:04
Hopefully they don't charge more for discs being sent out. If so, they better make ALL of their content digital then. I don't want to be charged more for the same service, but then have them say that the price that I have been paying, I can only access 2500 movies, as opposed to what all they have now. Now, if ALL of their content becomes digital, I wouldn't really have a problem with it.
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Karma: 9220 , Thu 9 Oct 2008 21:58
Ummm....last I checked, all of their content WAS digital - since they started. I have yet to see an analog DVD... 
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Karma: 9130 , Fri 10 Oct 2008 00:17
This raise of $1.00 isn't anything to worry about I would rather see a small raise then the company won't go belly up too soon I hope 
I had signed up for blue ray movies at a cost of $2 a month so my rate actually went down!!
Wow that is great to hear 
I myself find blue ray equipment to be very expensive I sure wish I had the money to buy it .
Oh no, my BluRay's will go from $1-$3 -> $1.25-$3.25. The world's gonna end :P
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Karma: 150 , Fri 10 Oct 2008 16:04
it's still less than the paperboy from the movie "Better off Dead". "Two Dollars, Two Dollars".
