OPINION: Big Blue's big box
By Paul Sweeting -- Video Business, 11/25/2008
NOV. 25 | BLOCKBUSTER’S ROLL OUT of a set-top box for playing digitally delivered movies will inevitably draw comparisons with Netflix and its partnerships with STB-maker Roku, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Samsung, because everything Blockbuster does draws comparisons with Netflix—except perhaps trying to acquire Circuit City. But the two DVD retailers’ approaches to digital delivery are not the same, reflecting both their different histories and different views of life without DVDs.
Paul Sweeting is editor of Content Agenda
First, Blockbuster’s new set-top strategy is built around on-demand downloads, not subscription streaming, as with Netflix. That puts Blockbuster’s service in a different window: VOD vs. post-pay TV for Netflix.
It also puts the emphasis on new releases rather than library titles, which make up the bulk of Netflix’s streaming catalog.
From a revenue-model perspective, Blockbuster’s service is built around transactional pay-per-view rather than all-you-can-eat flat pricing (although Blockbuster is attempting to muddy things a little bit by offering its new set-top box “free” with a $99 pre-purchase of 25 downloads, making the initial investment feel more like a subscription).
That makes the Blockbuster service closer to Apple TV than to Netflix.
The most important difference between the Blockbuster and Netflix systems, however, may be the set-top boxes themselves.
Read the full column on ContentAgenda.com.
