Brazilian rent-by-mail and streaming operator NetMovies has signed a multi-year distribution agreement with The Walt Disney Co., giving its subscribers access to Disney movies and ABC TV shows on disc as they become available for sale at retail, and via streaming after that content debuts on premium subscription TV services.
NetMovies' subscription plans start at R$14.99 (US$8.57) a month for streaming-only or one-disc-out plus streaming (limited to four rentals a month) plans and go as high as R$64.80 a month for its unlimited three-discs-out with Blu-ray Disc access and streaming. The streaming service is available throughout Brazil but disc delivery is available in limited areas, mostly in cities in the east of the country.
NetMovies claims a library of 35,000 available movies and TV series on DVD and/or BD and a streaming library of 5,000 titles. It was established in 2004 and was most recently sold by Iseiasnet (which acquired it in 2006) on December 27, 2010 to New York, US-based portfolio manager Tiger Global Management for R$11.1m.
Analysis
US-based Netflix, which NetMovies seems to have emulated successfully so far, announced in early September its own plans for rolling out streaming-only services in Latin America and the Caribbean, with service beginning in Brazil on September 5. Netflix charges its Brazilian subscribers R$14.99 a month, the same as NetMovies' streaming-only and one-disc-out plus streaming basic plans, but doesn't offer a physical disc option in Brazil and has announced no plans to introduce one.
Netflix will likely outdo NetMovies on the acquisition of streaming content due to its existing relationships with US studios, rapidly building list of local partners and its greater financial wherewithal. Even so, NetMovies may not lose much ground to Netflix, at least in the near term, due to the fact that it also offers disc rentals. IHS Screen Digest estimates that only 21.5 per cent of Brazilian homes had a broadband connection in 2010, compared with 65.2 per cent in the US, where Netflix is the leading subscription disc rental plus streaming player. Penetration will grow, of course, but it seems NetMovies' existing customer base and the slight edge it has by offering disc rental gives it a small head start with which to build its streaming content portfolio with deals like this one with Disney.
Find Out More > IHS Screen Digest U.S. Video Intelligence