The latest addition to Netflix’s UK and Ireland content lineup is 115 hours of archive FremantleMedia Enterprises comedy and drama.
Top billing in the press release? Men Behaving Badly and The Naked Civil Servant (1975), as well as Australian crime series The Strip, drama Falcon Beach and a UK first run on Aussie drama Satisfaction.
It’s fair to say this will not drive significant customer adoption. FremantleMedia is the company whose subsidiary makes The X Factor. But such tier-A shows are kept for primary broadcasters like ITV (LSE: ITV) and their catch-up services like ITV Player.
But Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX) is upfront about what it calls its “moneyball” content acquisition strategy. That is, securing a broad range of non-premium content that can build in to a nevertheless-cogent offering.
- In the second pay-TV movie window, Lovefilm has exclusive deals with Sony Pictures and Warner Bros. (NYSE: TWX), as well as delas with Entertainment One, Studio Canal (formerly Optimum Releasing), Disney (NYSE: DIS), Lionsgate (NYSE: LGF) and Momentum. In TV, Lovefilm just signed deals to add archive ITV and BBC Worldwide shows.
- Netflix says it has film and TV from All3Media, BBC Worldwide, CBS (NYSE: CBS), Channel 4’s 4oD, Disney UK & Ireland, ITV, Lionsgate UK, MGM, Miramax, Momentum Pictures, NBCUniversal (NSDQ: CMCSA), Paramount (NYSE: VIA), Sony (NYSE: SNE) Pictures Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox (NSDQ: NWS) and Viacom International Media Networks. Now add Fremantle.
- In the pay-TV movie window, Sky Movies currently has exclusive deals with Hollywood’s six largest studios (Sony, Disney, 20th Century Fox, Paramount, Warner Bros. Universal) for linear and SVOD via subscription.