Blockbuster is attempting to mount a comeback with a new streaming movie service aimed directly at Netflix.
“Blockbuster Movie Pass” was unveiled by the movie rental chain’s new parent company, Dish Network, at a press conference in San Francisco on Friday.
The new service will combine Dish Network’s satellite on-demand subscription service with Blockbuster’s physical mail rental service, offering Dish subscribers their choice of over 100,000 titles by mail, 3,000 movies streamed to TV and 4,000 movies streamed to computer for $10 a month (on top of Dish Network’s current subscription prices, which start at $19.99 a month).
The service launches October 1 for all Dish subscribers and is free for the first three months.
“It’s one company, one bill, one connection to everything you need in video entertainment,” said Dish CEO Joe Clayton.
A Blockbuster executive said that the company has plans to launch a stand-alone streaming only website under the Blockbuster brand, but declined to give more details.
Still, there was no mistaking that Dish Network was sniping at its embattled rival Netflix on numerous occasions throughout the presentation: Clayton’s comments about a single entertainment source were clearly aimed at capitalizing on Netflix’s recent unpopular decision to spinoff its DVD-by-mail business into a wholly separate brand called Qwikster, and Clayton even called Qwikster out by name at one point among a laundry list of competitors that won’t offer the same perks associated with Blockbuster’s physical store locations: Namely the ability to walk in and exchange DVDs.
Dish was careful to point out that under the Blockbuster Movie Pass you could order the movie “The Social Network” to steam on your TV or computer, a thinly-veiled reference to the fact that Netflix briefly lost that movie from its catalog in June and is poised to lose it again in 2012 after failing to resolve a contract dispute with content provider Starz.
Dish Network purchased Blockbuster for $320 million in April. Blockbuster, hammered by competition from Netflix, Redbox, Amazon and other upstart video companies, suffered a long and slow decline from prominence until it had to declare bankruptcy in September 2010 with nearly $1 billion in debt.
“Wall Street criticized Blockbuster for the bankruptcy, but to Main Street, the name Blockbuster represents something of value in video entertainment,” Clayton said.
Blockbuster shares were down 6 percent after the announcement. Netflix shares were up over 2 percent and Dish Network shares were up almost 4 percent.
Correction: This post mistakenly reported that “The Social Network” was currently unavailable in Netflix’s catalog due to the contract dispute with Starz. We apologize for the error.
