Netflix to Stream Hannah Montana Contagion
by John Paczkowski
Posted on September 23, 2008 at 11:50 AM PT
Looks like Netflix’s video-streaming business is developing quite nicely. On Tuesday the DVD-by-mail pioneer said it has signed deals with CBS and Walt Disney that will add some of those networks’ most popular shows to the Netflix streaming library. Beginning this week, Netflix will offer episodes of like CBS’s “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” and Disney’s “Hannah Montana” current season TV shows for streaming 24 hours after their initial broadcast.
Now, Disney (DIS) and CBS (CBS) already offer those same shows for viewing on the same day-after-original air date schedule on their own Web sites (though they aren’t presented commercial-free as they will be on Netflix). But that doesn’t seem to matter to Netflix (NFLX), which is clearly positioning itself as a one-stop shop for online delivery of movies and television shows.
And doing quite well at it, I might add. Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter estimates that between 10 and 20 percent of Netflix’s 8.4 million subscribers use the company’s streaming service regularly.
