Netflix to raise prices

[Smokey]

Netflix is preparing to raise its prices for the first time in three years to help pay for more Internet video programming such as its popular political drama "House of Cards."

The increase, to take place sometime before July, will hike prices by $1 or $2 per month for new customers. The Los Gatos, Calif. company says current U.S. subscribers will continue to pay $8 per month for a "generous time period."

The move announced Monday as part of Netflix's first-quarter earnings report illustrates the financial pressures mounting on the company as its spends more money to license compelling content. The efforts are aimed at warding off competitive threats from Amazon and Hulu.

The company added another 2.25 million Internet video subscribers during the first quarter to end March with 35.7 million U.S. customers. That's up nearly 50 percent from 23.9 million U.S. subscribers in July 2012 while the company was still trying to sooth customers irked by the last price increase.

The company attracted another 1.75 million subscribers in Canada and overseas, leaving it with 12.7 million international customers.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said the company needs to charge higher prices so the Internet video service can afford to bid against its rivals for programming —and reach its long-term goal of 60 million to 90 million U.S. subscribers.

Netflix poised to raise prices after strong 1Q: Associated Press Business News - MSN Money

[Worf101]

Yeah... I heard. Streaming is a wonderfull thing. I didn't think I'd take to it, I resisted as long as I could... now I watch it like once a day. Amazing. But it's cheap at twice the price.

Worf

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Yeah... I heard. Streaming is a wonderfull thing. I didn't think I'd take to it, I resisted as long as I could... now I watch it like once a day. Amazing. But it's cheap at twice the price.

Worf

I agree with your last sentence big time. I didn't think I would take to it like I have. But there is nothing like a good cup of coffee, and a netflix documentary to start the morning off. While I still prefer to buy my movies on Bluray, their documentaries are mostly excellent, well informative, and really stimulate an open mind no matter what the topic is.

[ForeverAutumn]

I received this email from Netflix today. Looks like Canadian prices will be held for existing clients for two year.

In order to continue adding more movies and TV shows, we are increasing our price from $7.99 to $8.99 for new members.

As a thank you for being a member of Netflix already, we guarantee your plan and price (excluding tax) will not change for two years.

[Feanor]

I received this email from Netflix today. Looks like Canadian prices will be held for existing clients for two year.

A good thing as far as it goes. I still get a crappy Netflix stream in the evenings and especially weekend evenings. Could be Rogers Cable, Netflix, or my local device which is a Sony Blu-ray player. I tend to blame Netflix because the stream quality seems to vary a bit with the particular show I'm watching.

Also, Netflix selection -- for Canadians -- is pretty rather limited. Recently I've enjoyed House of Cards, Breaking Bad, Downton Abbey, and Dexter.

BTW, F.A., vis a vis Rogers versus Bell, the former is the only high-speed ISP in my area. Due to old infrastructure, Bell is still limited to about 8 Mbps in my area, (and that's down hill with a tail wind). I get pretty good speed from Rogers ...

[ForeverAutumn]

Your speeds appear to be much faster than mine and I still have no issues. In fact, seeing how poor my speeds are, I'll be calling Bell when I have time to ask them what the deal is. The cost of my internet services is going up on June 1 (I think). I'll be lodging a big fat complaint about that given my poor results on this test.

[Feanor]

Netflix hasn't announced a price increase for Canadian subscribers -- no doubt it will get around to it soon enough.

Canadians don't get as good a selection as US subscribers, unfortunately, but Netflix is still a relative entertainment bargain. The other beef I have with Netflix speed; especially in the evenings or on holidays, streams can be interrupted while buffers are filled and/or resolution can drop to pretty fuzzy levels -- I think this is a Netflix problem though I know my ISP, Rogers.com, "throttles" to some degree.

[ForeverAutumn]

Feanor, I'm on Bell and I've never had a streaming problem on Netflix.

I'm glad that there is no price increase in Canada yet, that we know of. I just had to increase my internet service because I was getting uncomfortably close to my usage limit each month, as we're starting to watch more on Netflix and less on regular TV.

[winston]

well as you all, might have feel the wind of this news by now "Amazon announced just this Wednesday/Thursday that it had entered a multi-year deal/contract with (HBO) to be the sole streaming provider of its content. the article mentioned that this will be for Amazon Prime users only, however prime users reportedly won't have access to episodes of current seasons so don't go looking for Game of Thrones after cutting the cable, BTW if your a Prime guy that wasn't too happy with the $20 Prime increase then the HBO bonus will soften it up a bit...

that said, I love my Netflix, they're the best streaming value to date, and I can subscribed month to month on/off as often as I like, 'so I'm not planning on leaving "lets see what the raise brings to my Roku stick