Professional web video land grab is heating up. Just as youtube is in talks with sony for licensing their content, netflix adds viacom content to its streaming inventory.
Yaaaaaaay! SpongeBob is taking over your Netflix account!
(Credit: Nickelodeon)
Viacom’s MTV Networks has brought some of its television content to Netflix’s library of streaming online video, the companies announced Monday.
The offering consists primarily of kids’ shows from the Nickelodeon network, with select seasons from the shows “iCarly,” “Blue’s Clues,” “Dora the Explorer,” “SpongeBob SquarePants,” and a handful of others, as well as the first nine seasons of “South Park,” the Comedy Central animated series that you probably don’t want your kids watching.
The share price has doubled since November, “taking it to a rich valuation of 26 times estimated 2009 earnings — a loftier multiple than either Google or Apple.” But the DVD mail order business wasn’t what juiced investors: it was Netflix’s streaming service. And reports that rival Blockbuster could be facing bankruptcy didn’t hurt. But now “Hollywood studios appear to be waking up to the threat posed by Netflix’s instant-watch service, which the company says is being used by millions of its subscribers,” Peers writes. “That almost guarantees that studios will look to renegotiate Netflix’s content-supply deals on tougher terms. At the same time, some of the studios [like Disney] are pondering their own online movie- or TV-subscription services.” The WSJ also notes competition coming from Amazon’s IMDB, which is expanding a free ad-supported streaming service. Concludes Peers: “Netflix fans take note: A correction is looming.”