Netflix boosts Blu-ray subscription pricing

Adoption, selection jump in recent months

By Danny King -- Video Business, 3/30/2009

MARCH 30 | Netflix will increase the price it's charging subscribers for access to Blu-ray Disc titles next month as both its high-definition disc inventory and adoption of the option has surged in the past few months.

Netflix's Blu-ray premium will range between $1 a month for its cheapest plan, which allows customer to rent one DVD at a time with two in a month, to $9 a month for its most expensive plan, which allows customers to keep eight DVDs at a time for an unlimited amount a month, Netflix VP of marketing Jessie Becker wrote on Netflix's Facebook page today. The largest movie-rental service via mail, which will change the prices April 27, will charge an extra $4 a month for the three-DVDs-out-at-a-time, unlimited-rental plan, which is believed to be Netflix's most popular offering.

The price increase takes effect as Netflix has widened its Blu-ray inventory as rentals of the high-definition discs have increased. About 1 million Netflix subscribers use the Blu-ray option, up from about 700,000 subscribers at the end of last year. The company's selection of Blu-ray titles has grown by about 60% in the past six months to about 1,300, according to Becker.

"We're committed to providing a high quality Blu-ray experience for our members who choose to add Blu-ray access," Becker wrote today. "In order to do that, we need to adjust Blu-ray pricing. As a result, the monthly charge for Blu-ray access is increasing for most plans and will now vary by plan."

As Netflix has widened both the selection of digitally delivered titles and the number of components capable of video-streaming them directly to TV sets, the company also has increased revenue from subscribers who rent Blu-ray discs. Late last year, Netflix started testing the Blu-ray subscription option by adding $1 to monthly subscription plans.