Streaming for Attention!

by Sara Dirkse — January 15, 2012

I’ve been in S. Korea for the past few weeks, and while I was there a flurry of OTT news hit my inbox. New streaming services and content deals are being announced left and right, and there are new toys awaiting me in the lab (Boxee antenna dongle, anyone?) So without further delay, I bring you a rundown of the latest on the streaming service front:

On Tuesday, Comcast unveiled plans for a new streaming service, Xfinity Streampix. The service will launch first on web browsers and Apple gadgets, followed by Android devices and Xbox 360 later this year. Based on the initial list of content providers it looks like Streampix will have a decent portion of the shows available on Netflix and Hulu Plus, and at $5 a month (or free, if you subscribe to certain bundled services) Streampix could be a contender. Provided you are a Comcast subscriber, of course — cord-cutters-by-necessity, like me, are out of luck. Fortunately, the lab is wired for cable (unlike my neighborhood), so I’ll have a full report on Streampix when it launches.

Verizon also announced plans to launch a streaming video service in partnership with Redbox, the DVD-rental kiosk operated by Coinstar. No details yet on pricing, content partners or launch date, but we’ll be keeping an eye on this one.

Amazon announced a licensing deal with Viacom earlier this month, bringing the number of Prime streaming videos over 15,000. The content covered in the deal includes shows from MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, TV Land and VH1. Prime Instant Videos are included with an Amazon Prime subscription ($79 per year, which also gets you free shipping on most physical items you buy.)

And finally, Netflix signed a deal this week with The Weinstein Co. to show “The Artist” and other movies before the films are released to premium pay-TV channels such as HBO and Showtime. Netflix also made a foray into original programming, with the premiere of the series Lilyhammer earlier this month and two others reportedly in the works.

And it appears there will be more, Netflix’s Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos told Bloomberg there would be five original series on Netflix by mid-2013. But at a time when several of my friends are cancelling their Netflix subscriptions because they’ve run out of content to watch, I have to wonder: Will this be enough to keep Netflix ahead of the competition?