Online DVD rental business Quickflix has made another significant step forward in its plan to acquire more content to stream online, announcing a new deal with American television network HBO.
The move is an important win for the group, as it attempts to add more content to its streaming platform in order to remain relevant and compete with traditional bricks-and-mortar outlets.
“None of these deals happen overnight,” Quickflix co-founder Stephen Langsford he told SmartCompany this morning.
“But we saw great subscriber growth and early signs of streaming take up are very encouraging – 10% of our 110,000 members have opted for streaming.”
Last year Quickflix topped 100,000 subscribers, although it is not yet profitable.
The new deal will allow the company to stream HBO content through PCs and the Sony PlayStation console. It’s a significant win for the company, as HBO remains traditionally cautious on which companies have control over its content.
But now it’s done, Langsford says it will help in future negotiations – some of which the company plans to announce in the next few months.
“We think HBO are great partners to have. And I think that given we’ve built up a great executive team and board, we’re setting ourselves up for pretty high growth.”
The growth of Quickflix comes at the same time bricks and mortar stores are attempting to maintain their relevancy. Blockbuster and Video Ezy, owned by the Franchise Entertainment Group, recently bought out the DVD kiosk business RedRoom.
The move is an attempt to keep up with an audience that prefers to source its content from as many places as possible. But there are still many industry experts who question just how long these stores can survive.
The bankruptcy of Blockbuster in the United States, owned by a separate entity, has fuelled fears the same thing could happen here.
Langsford says it’s important the business continually adds content to the streaming component so users have an alternative. Right now, Quickflix only offers a limited supply of choices.
And although the business has an advantage over other providers such as iTunes by using the PlayStation 3 console, Langsford says users will be able to rent movies over more devices this year.
“We will continue to add to the catalogue and we’re going to announce some more deals. We’re very happy with the range of titles that we’ll be expanding towards.”
That growth, he says, will provide scope for more negotiations with content providers.
“Success breeds success, and that plays into securing great content for our users and our interface.”
Patrick Stafford is a freelance journalist and a former deputy editor of SmartCompany.
