Netflix Splitting DVD and Streaming Services Into Two Seperate Companies

Netflix today announced that they will be completely separating their DVD rental and streaming services into two different companies. The Netflix name will stay with the streaming side while a new company to be known as Qwikster will handle the DVDs. Yes, that means that those who want both will need to subscribe indepedently to different websites, and create queues and rate films/shows on each – there will be no integration between the two.

The company has taken a big PR hit lately, and the stock has dropped significantly, all due to the price increases recently introduced. CEO Reed Hastings apologized for how the news was communicated which led to confusion but did not suggest that prices would be dropped from their new levels.

As a long time subscriber who has utilized both – though finding the streaming library lackluster and rarely utilizing it – the whole situation has been frustrating. Not annoying enough to lead to cancellation even with significant price increase but I’ll definitely be dropping the streaming side until more quality content is added. Netflix has brought on some good TV series as of late and have plans for original series but otherwise I generally find little of interest when browsing through the available selections. The creation of Qwikster is a big step in their long-term plan of eliminating the DVD service and completely going to streaming. That would still appear to be several years away from viability however.