Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX), a company that made its name and its fortune (as such) by delivering DVDs through the mail, is working on a deal with start-up pay TV channel Epix for "exclusive online rights" to films from Paramount Pictures, Lionsgate and MGM. Netflix will reportedly pay up to $1 billion for the rights to these flicks which it would then run over the Internet and, presumably, to the TV.
At the other end of the spectrum, Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA), which already has plenty of content on both the Internet and TV, is going the other way with a Blockbuster marketing partnership that would offer a selection of 100,000 or so movies and TV shows via the U.S. Postal Service.
The DVDsByMail deal, according to Comcast Corporate Communications VP Jennifer Khoury Newcomb speaking to Multichannel News, would "give our customers a complementary option to the on-demand and online video content available to them."
DVDsByMail would be available to Comcast subscribers with a double or triple play bundles. They would get a discount on Blockbuster DVDs and the chance to return them to Blockbuster stores.
For more:
- L.A. Times has this story
- and see this story
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