Netflix killed Blockbuster, as we all know. Now the online movie streaming and delivery service might be about to take another victim — itself. Netflix shares tumbled almost 20 percent this week after the company conceded it would end up with fewer customers this quarter than it had projected — a full million fewer.
It seems Netflix didn’t think its controversial price increase would result in such an exodus by subscribers. Announced in July and put into place this month, the change divided many customers’ single subscriptions into two. Internet streaming video and DVDs by mail are now two separate plans. Customers who want movies both ways now pay as much as 60 percent more per month.
The company expected to add 400,000 subscribers this quarter. Instead, it will lose 600,000. That means an unexpected drop of a million customers.
Netflix tried to reassure shareholders. “Being able to precisely forecast and predict the behavior of that many people on a fairly radical change is something we’ll get better at,” Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos said.
It seems strange that Netflix was caught unaware. As soon as the company announced the change a couple months ago, subscribers took a break from streaming films on the Internet to complain about the unprecedented price increase. Executives must have noticed all the vitriol posted on their company’s own Facebook page.
This wasn’t the first share drop this month, either. Netflix stock fell 9 percent a couple weeks ago, after Starz announced it would not renew an agreement allowing Netflix to offer its customers streaming movies from Sony Pictures and Walt Disney Studios. Netflix’s contract with the pay cable channel expires Feb. 28.
Given that Netflix’s growth seems dependent on its streaming video service, this could end up being a bigger problem even than a loss of almost 10 percent in share price. It’s already the case that the company offers fewer movies to stream online than it will mail out. In less than half a year, that number could get a lot smaller.
In other new,the “Harry Potter” franchise might have come to an end, but fans can at least look forward to reunions. The first, of a sort, has just been announced. Rupert Grint, Jim Broadbent and David Tennant will appear on-screen together again — well, their voices will. The three have signed up for the first animated feature film featuring beloved British television character Postman Pat.
The title character of “Postman Pat: The Movie — You Know You’re The One,” a village postman who does much more than just deliver the mail, as important as that is, will be voiced by Stephen Mangan. He’s best known here in America for the clever Showtime series about British screenwriters gone Hollywood, “Episodes.”
“I’m absolutely thrilled to be playing the world’s best-known postman in his big-screen debut,” Mangan said after the announcement. “However, when I excitedly told my 3-year-old son that I was going to be Postman Pat, he said, ‘No you’re not, Dad, don’t be silly.’ ”
Kelly Jane Torrance is The Washington Examiner movie critic. Her reviews appear weekly and she can be reached at [email protected].
