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Blockbuster CEO 'Confused by Fascination' With Netflix

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Re: Blockbuster CEO 'Confused by Fascination' With Netflix

#41

Post by omouse »

dhimes wrote: post #20
cmos wrote: post #14

wow. He should be fired. Immediately. Just saying those comments should be career suicide. His PR person is probably freaking out. Why would the board of directors just wait around for a clueless leader to drive them into the ground? They lost the battle. Time for an aggressive plan B to stay in business. Attempts to sell consumer electronics in blockbuster stores are pathetic and have failed over and over again. Fir…

You have to be careful with the licensing on that one...but a good idea in concept

As far as I know, they already play clips of movies or even full movies (though they are older movies usually).

Re: Blockbuster CEO 'Confused by Fascination' With Netflix

#42

Post by _csoo »

h34t wrote: post #38

There's a good lesson in here -- if one moves beyond knee-jerk criticism of the CEO for blindness/idiocy. To him, Netflix is a marginal player lurking in a "tiny" $5.6b, while Blockbuster is the giant, going after the $27.2b. From this point of view, narrow as it is, he's not really crazy at all. And obviously some investors agree. There's a lot of money here that Netflix isn't even trying for, and Blockbuster has a…

Physical presence is valuable if used properly. Most stores aren't very inviting and it's hard to shop around for movies when you can only see the cover of the movie. The movie packaging doesn't tell you much.

Hm. An interesting idea is to have reviews of movies stickered on the cases.

Re: Blockbuster CEO 'Confused by Fascination' With Netflix

#43

Post by h34t »

_csoo wrote: post #42
h34t wrote: post #38

There's a good lesson in here -- if one moves beyond knee-jerk criticism of the CEO for blindness/idiocy. To him, Netflix is a marginal player lurking in a "tiny" $5.6b, while Blockbuster is the giant, going after the $27.2b. From this point of view, narrow as it is, he's not really crazy at all. And obviously some investors agree. There's a lot of money here that Netflix isn't even trying for, and Blockbuster has a…

Physical presence is valuable if used properly. Most stores aren't very inviting and it's hard to shop around for movies when you can only see the cover of the movie. The movie packaging doesn't tell you much. Hm. An interesting idea is to have reviews of movies stickered on the cases.

I agree -- I'm just finishing up helping design a retail store for a new brand here in Calgary. With the right product/market mix, a retail store can be very profitable.

(Which is why it's good that Blockbuster is trying to change their retail model to something else -- "We have a physical store network that nobody can match, now let's figure out how to make money off it." It's just a shame that they haven't been able to take their eyes off those stores, so they've missed other opportunities..)

Re: Blockbuster CEO 'Confused by Fascination' With Netflix

#44

Post by rudyfink »

sysop073 wrote: post #10
jrockway wrote: post #2

"I've been frankly confused by this fascination that everybody has with Netflix," Keyes told Rafat Ali, in an interview with PaidContent.org. Translation: "I am not qualified for my job. I know nothing about my industry, or what my customers want. I get a nice paycheck though." I'm frankly confused as to why a CEO would think that being confused about his competition would bring him more business.

This was good too: "Why would anyone want to watch anything other than new releases" And this is why Netflix's share price is a good 15 times higher than Blockbuster's right now

At the heart of it, I think the "new release" is a market strategy rather than a consumer goal. Creators want consumers to believe that they should forget everything in light of the "latest and greatest". The creators' strategy is to attempt to drown out all other consumer thoughts with marketing. Consumers just want a good trade-off for their time.

In the past, information was substantially easier to find on things that were new. Finding good movies in the so called "long tail" of a video store involved book research, knowledgeable friends, or lucky guesses. You could choose what had been recently marketed to you or the devil or the unknown box. Modern information networks have changed this reality largely in favor of the unknown box.

The truth is that a large percentage of new creation is not really worth your time. The biggest advantage the new stuff has is frankly that it is new. As information systems progress, people will have an easier time separating hype from substance. This will effectively make older quality creations more desirable.

It is probably fanciful, but I'd expect his statement to be exactly wrong in the long run. The reality may become "why would anyone want to watch new releases"?

Re: Blockbuster CEO 'Confused by Fascination' With Netflix

#45

Post by dionidium »

cujo wrote: post #16
jrockway wrote: post #2

"I've been frankly confused by this fascination that everybody has with Netflix," Keyes told Rafat Ali, in an interview with PaidContent.org. Translation: "I am not qualified for my job. I know nothing about my industry, or what my customers want. I get a nice paycheck though." I'm frankly confused as to why a CEO would think that being confused about his competition would bring him more business.

I'm a bit confused by it too. What does Netflix have/do that BB doesn't?

I had Blockbuster's Netflix-like service. At the time I canceled (to switch to Netflix) something like 17 of the 22 movies in my queue were unavailable with a "long wait".

Re: Blockbuster CEO 'Confused by Fascination' With Netflix

#46

Post by aditya »

subwindow wrote: post #34
aditya wrote: post #32

Wow. Is anyone reading the article or just going on with Netflix fanboy'ism? This chart explains it all: http://www.flickr.com/photos/13736953@N00/2762004788/ Netflix is one segment of Blockbuster's entire getting media to consumer's strategy. Looks like the B&M folks are here to stay, no matter how much we love digital delivery! He's right, Netflix is a small blip on their radar!

I honestly can't tell if you are serious or not. This chart explains it all: http://finance.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chd... ;

I was being serious -- do you really believe what the market thinks of Netflix vs Blockbuster (ie. suits on Wall Street) or what the reality of the business is (my chart vs your chart, if you may :-)

Re: Blockbuster CEO 'Confused by Fascination' With Netflix

#47

Post by tlrobinson »

biohacker42 wrote: post #36
jrockway wrote: post #2

"I've been frankly confused by this fascination that everybody has with Netflix," Keyes told Rafat Ali, in an interview with PaidContent.org. Translation: "I am not qualified for my job. I know nothing about my industry, or what my customers want. I get a nice paycheck though." I'm frankly confused as to why a CEO would think that being confused about his competition would bring him more business.

It is refreshing that he bluntly admitted his confusion. Most CEOs know enough to BS so that it is not obvious that they are clueless. Give this guy some kind of pity award.

But is he really "confused" or is this a sarcastic attempt at badmouthing Netflix?

Re: Blockbuster CEO 'Confused by Fascination' With Netflix

#48

Post by hugh »

cmos wrote: post #14

wow. He should be fired. Immediately. Just saying those comments should be career suicide. His PR person is probably freaking out. Why would the board of directors just wait around for a clueless leader to drive them into the ground? They lost the battle. Time for an aggressive plan B to stay in business. Attempts to sell consumer electronics in blockbuster stores are pathetic and have failed over and over again. Fir…

My plan, if I were CEO of Blockbuster, would be simple (if undignified): compete on price.

A few years ago I lived near a Blockbuster -- I had a card but I hardly ever used it, because with rentals going for something like $6.50 (compared to $9 in the cinema or maybe $10 to buy the DVD outright at Walmart) what was the point? Then I moved to a new place, where my local video shop was an independent shop where DVDs rented for $3 a night. At three bucks a rental, I found myself watching a lot more DVDs, and of course spending a lot more money than I had previously.

(Oh, and then I moved away from the cheap video store, so now I have Netflix.)

If Blockbuster cut its prices to $3 per movie per night, it would get a lot of people thinking "Wait, am I _really_ watching enough movies per month to make my Netflix subscription worthwhile?"

This would, of course, only be a stop-gap measure, while they work on getting a good online-delivery system going for the long term.

Re: Blockbuster CEO 'Confused by Fascination' With Netflix

#49

Post by subwindow »

aditya wrote: post #46
subwindow wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly can't tell if you are serious or not. This chart explains it all: http://finance.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chd... ;

I was being serious -- do you really believe what the market thinks of Netflix vs Blockbuster (ie. suits on Wall Street) or what the reality of the business is (my chart vs your chart, if you may :-)

"The reality of the business" is that in the past year, Blockbuster has lost $70M, while Netflix has made $60M.

Re: Blockbuster CEO 'Confused by Fascination' With Netflix

#50

Post by jonknee »

aditya wrote: post #46
subwindow wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly can't tell if you are serious or not. This chart explains it all: http://finance.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chd... ;

I was being serious -- do you really believe what the market thinks of Netflix vs Blockbuster (ie. suits on Wall Street) or what the reality of the business is (my chart vs your chart, if you may :-)

Since Blockbuster is losing money and Netflix is making it, it's not just the suits deciding the reality of the business. Anyone can make a chart putting themselves in a good light.

The reality is the movie industry is changing and Blockbuster's model is being left out. The last movie I rented was on iTunes, it was way more enjoyable than getting in the car and going to look through the selection of a local store. I don't ever see going to a video rental store again.

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