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Don Groves is a Deadline contributor based in Sydney.
Australia’s only combined online DVD rental and subscription streaming service, Quickflix is striving to emulate Netflix while avoiding the U.S. company’s missteps last year in pricing and strategy. The publicly-traded Quickflix, which launched its streaming service in Australia in November 2011 and in New Zealand this March, has a pretty wide berth in which to fulfill its goal, but is limited in what it can pay for content. Still, Oz’s SVOD market is far less competitive than the U.S., with pay TV penetration at 30% and no indications yet that Netflix, Hulu or Amazon’s Lovefilm will enter the market. Unlike Netflix, Quickflix has been prudent with pricing, charging $A24.99 per month ($US26.24) for four DVDS plus unlimited streaming and $A29.99 ($US31.49) for unlimited DVDs and streaming. Through June 30 Quickflix reported it had just over 111,000 customers, of whom 28% are SVOD subscribers. Revenue for the quarter to June edged up by 3% to $5.1M.
The stock market wasn’t impressed as shares fell from 8 cents to below 5 cents amid concerns over its high churn rate and the prospect the company may be forced to issue new shares as it had just $5M in cash. In February, HBO bought a 15.7% stake in Quickflix for $10M and sealed an arms’ length programming deal. Quickflix also has SVOD content contracts with Sony, Warner Bros., NBCUniversal, MGM, the BBC and ITV. Chief executive Chris Taylor tells Deadline he hopes to sign Fox and Disney in the next 12 months. He’d also like to do a deal with Oz’s largest independent distributor Roadshow, but acknowledges he has to work within a “finite program budget.” Last year, Quickflix acquired Big Pond Movies’ customer base and library of DVD and Blu-ray discs from giant telco Telstra. Its streaming service will soon be available to approximately 1M Xbox users and to Samsung Galaxy tablets. On August 10 the streaming service ramped up its children’s programming menu, adding more than 300 hours licensed from the ABC, the BBC, Turner and Cookie Jar.
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The article fails to mention the clunky interface, lack of vision (beyond emulating Netflix), and lacklustre library.
I’d had high hopes for Quickflix streaming at launch, but cancelled my subscription just six months in.
True, IMO hbo hold the power here. Giving preferential treatment to Quickflix would be a start and they also bolster the bargaining ability of qfx for future content deals with other studios. Exciting times for us in oz that have been waiting for a Netflix Australia to launch.
Actually they just revamped their interface about a week ago. Lack of vision? u sit in their board meetings do u. Tac. Their streaming service is young, and they’re trying to develop it on a shoe string. As Chris Taylor recently mentioned their ‘vision’ is devices, subscribers then content.
Not only that they are trying to teach a market (world leader in illegally downloaded – ask Game of thrones) to instead pay for content. As I said before HBO is their home run here, holders of fantastic content and $10m on the line.
@JB If the content is crap, why are the subscribers going to subscribe?
HBO are holders of fantastic content. At the time I stopped subscribing to Quickflix, the only HBO content available was the first season or two of Sex & The City and some other outdated HBO content that most interested subscribers likely already had in their home DVD libraries. HBO aren’t offering their premium content for this service. They’re dabbling.
And yes, Australia is the world leader in illegally downloaded content. But I suspect you’ll also find the market is a world leader in buying US iTunes vouchers and a world leader in being a foreign territory illicitly signing up to US and UK streaming subscription services. This is a market that is willing to pay for good quality content while utilising a number of connected devices. Quickflix aren’t providing.
@ Dan
HBO are dabbling? really? wow. Why have you convinced yourself you know this? References would behove you at this point.
No Australia aren’t the world leaders in illegally downloaded content (but I’m glad you agree with me??). Google it yourself. We are unfortunately the leaders of illegally downloading Game of Thrones (a hbo owned program).
As for you suspect the Australian market are the world leader in US iTunes vouchers – sigh… I trust Dan Barrett isn’t you’re real name.
How does “unlimited DVDs and streaming” work in terms of the number of DVDs you can have at any given time? That cant be unlimited – right?
I’ve had quickflix for around a year now, and whilst all round it has been a good experience, there has been some downfall. I am on an unlimited DVDs per month with 2 sent at time, plus streaming. There is a wide selection of new and older movies available for DVD rental, the only downside is that if you return a movie Thursday don’t expect another one til atleast Monday, because they do not send over the weekend. They do not send you new ones until you have returned the ones you already have out. The max you can have out at one time is four, given that you mark the first two DVDs as returned so they send the next two. But then it takes longer to get the next couple afterwards. Streaming is not all that great. I stream through my playstation and once in a while on my iPad, but with the lack of new movies, or even well known movie titles, I use the streaming feature rarely. The last time I checked I think there were only around 300 movies available for streaming, and most being classic movies such as Casablanca or Gone With The Wind. These are great classic movies but not something I wish to pay monthly for. They do update it regularly but not with much noteworthy content. So all in all, streaming is a let down, only being good for when I am awaiting DVDs from quickflix, and the DVD rental is surprisingly good besides a long wait sometimes.