Comments on: Are times getting desperate for Lovefilm?

By: Stuart Waterman

Stuart Waterman — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 10:59:37 +0000

I’m a LoveFilm customer, but I seem to spend a lot of time wishing it was better. I’ve got the integrated service on my Sony TV, but a lot of functionality from the website never makes it over to that interface (watchlists, for instance). The fact that you can be browsing the ‘Drama’ section and have to scroll through 7 series’ worth of individual episodes of Lost makes for a pretty tiresome user experience. If they’re not going to invest in improving the TV interface I wish they’d just say so.

It’s great to see they’ve added some good TV shows recently, but none of those make the headlines or watercooler chat the way ‘House of Cards’ has done on Netflix recently. Last night LoveFilm crashed completely, and despite the many complaints on Twitter they’ve refused to publicly acknowledge anything went wrong. They just keep eroding trust while the perception of Netflix is rapidly improving.

By: theexcelexpert

theexcelexpert — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 10:38:35 +0000

Were the sales guys knocking specifically on his door to get him to resign up or were they just going door to door to get new sales and resign ups?

This report makes it sound like they specifically sent a guy from the office to rescue this one subscriber. Where as reality it was just a guy going door to door selling new subscriptions and sign ups.

This is not a tactic above Sky or Virgin who have both used the same methods. Both still stop people in the street to see if they want to sign up or to sign back up.

Reading far too much in to it

By: Dmitry Shishkin

Dmitry Shishkin — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 16:06:43 +0000

Very interesting – I am curious, when it comes to the latest releases and generally the volume of served content, who has an upper hand? I am about to hit 1000 titles rented through LF (10 years with them), have been generally happy, but the streaming leaved a lot to be desired…

By: Christopher Woods

Christopher Woods — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 14:00:10 +0000

I’ve evaluated both the UK and US Netflix services and (unsurprisingly) the US offering’s still head and shoulders above the UK one. The UK one is ‘spotty’ to put it kindly.

Lovefilm’s not much different.

Finding no satisfaction in either, I continue to torrent eps of my favourite shows as they air Stateside; that old adage of convenience and quality rings true once again (surround sound, H.264 720p video, good stuff). I also subscribe to Sky TV here in the UK and series link all my favourite shows as they’re broadcast, so advertisers are still getting relevant revenues.

I even watch The Daily Show and Colbert Report through an American VPN (because CC UK refuses to syndicate and FX UK – now Fox – dropped Colbert Report years ago, so I also sit through all the US ads. And yes, I have the UK edits of TDS on my Sky box which I go and watch if I can’t be bothered to fire up the VPN. (not quite the same though with some odd edits to cut out US-specific promotalk, and you don’t get the extended web-only interviews… or HD picture).

I work in the IP and multimedia content industry, so I ‘get’ how the current framework of territories serves the industry. As a consumer though, I find it more frustrating than ever. One foot in both worlds.

By: Marius Fermi

Marius Fermi — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 21:45:53 +0000

I’ve been a fan of Netflix for a long time, in a stock sense I’ve been backing it since $52ish – the simple fact was that even with the continual onslaught from the Street and tech news outlets Reed Hastings kept on coming back standing tall and ensuring that everything will be ok.

Look at them now, news company keep on mentioned how Company X is going to utilize its billions in the bank to create a Netflix coffin, yet no one has actually come close. For Europe its by far the best thing and there will need to be some serious work from the larger corps to create anything that matches the ease and freedom of Netflix.

By: Bobbie Johnson

Bobbie Johnson — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 10:42:05 +0000

I noted in the piece that LoveFilm is doing a lot of very smart content acquisition deals, and the reason is precisely because it’s under so much pressure from Netflix. And it seems they are all (if the comments above are right) adopting very traditional sales strategies for their non-traditional businesses. Why is that? Are they significantly growing the market?

One thought. Mobile phone companies are notorious for the amount of churn — and yet I’ve never had a door to door salesman from any of them. Any ideas why not?

By: Bobbie Johnson

Bobbie Johnson — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 10:36:18 +0000

challenge accepted (at least in part). Please note I said that this was anecdotal, and much of the current data is in articles linked to in the story. In part the problem with reporting the data is that it’s wildly unclear and often a case of apples and oranges. All players have good reason for muddying the waters.

Netflix suggests it put on 1.8m international users in Q4 2012, but won’t break out territories: 1m subs by the middle of 2012 is the only publicly-accepted figure out there.

Lovefilm — particularly since the Amazon acquisition — is less keen on sharing numbers too: it’s last major subscriber announcement was a year ago, when it said it’d passed the 2 million subscribers across its five territories. I haven’t seen accurate data since then, though there are suggestions that it’s headed towards 3m: however, that’s not confirmed and there’s still no clear delineation between national markets.

Sky’s Now TV, a comparable service but one with far more niche approach, added 25,000 users in the last quarter.

Meanwhile BBC iPlayer, probably Netflix’s biggest UK competitor, says it delivered 2.32bn streams in 2012: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/jan/24/bbc-iplayer-ipads-mobiles

By: Adrian

Adrian — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 10:03:42 +0000

You’re joking right? As Oric’s research has pointed out recently, LOVEFiLM has double the choice of Netflix’s movie range. LOVEFiLM is also eating Netflix’s brunch with the growth of their TV seasons – since Xmas they have added 30Rock, Heroes, American Office, Battlestar plus loads of kids content. As for door to door and shopping centre sales activity being a signs of desperation – get real – SKY has been doing this for a decade.

By: cheese

cheese — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 07:01:37 +0000

Sorry but, hey, how about adding some good old (typical giga om) cred to this post? I miss facts – stats of LF vs Netflix vs Sky etc. Who has the market share, who is eating whose lunch, at what cost…you know, regular, simple, fact-oriented article – rather something driven by a purely anecdotal instance of a salesman knocking on a friend’s door.

By: Paul

Paul — Sun, 03 Feb 2013 20:12:36 +0000

There is also Sky Now which has access to content before the two can get their mits on it? At least that is their claim.

I cancelled my subscription back in September as I never got to watching the movies I was being shipped. Cancelling was rather painless. I did it online. I still get gift vouchers to rejoin or to give to friends as gifts.