Quickflix goes complementary
Streaming pioneer Quickflix is back with a new alternative, reports Hamish McNicol.
Television series during the week, movies at the weekend. That’s the media diet streaming company Quickflix thought would stick, and the one it has subscribed to in order to change.
The Sydney-based pioneer entered the subscription television market in New Zealand in 2012, long before the arrival of Netflix, Lightbox and Neon.
Its initial service, which cost $9.99 a month, provided subscribers with an ‘‘all-you-can eat’’ menu of about 400 movies and a similar number of television shows.
But last April, the company called in administrators.
Quickflix shares had halved in value on November 20, 2014, when United States giant Netflix said it would enter the Australian and New Zealand market.
The New Zealand subsidiary never went into administration and was unaffected, but last October, United States entrepreneur Erik Pence took over the company after paying administrators $1.3 million.
Now, Quickflix has changed tack, shifting from the ‘‘battleground’’ streaming video on-demand (SVOD) structure where you pay a monthly subscription, to a transactional video on-demand (TVOD) model, paying as you go.
Furthermore, Quickflix has turned to movies rather than worrying about television series, as it looked to become the most competitive digital movie rental service in the country.
‘‘There are huge amounts of money being spent on the rights,’’ Quickflix New Zealand general manager Paddy Buckley said. ‘‘Our view is to leave them to it.’’ As such, it has launched two new products here, Quickflix Access and Quickflix Red Carpet.
Access was a pay-as-you-go service which cost $6.99 to rent a movie for 48 hours, while Red Carpet gave you four movies in a month for $14.99, as well as bonus movies and TV shows from the company’s back catalogue.
Red Carpet members would also get access to exclusive competitions, such as the chance to win a trip to red carpet events in Hollywood.
Buckley said people would ‘‘binge’’ on television shows, but they also wanted to watch movies, mostly on a Friday or Saturday night. This had not changed much and would not change any time soon, but what would change would be how people access the content.
Apple’s iTunes and Google Play offered TVOD movies as well, which Buckley said were good services, but ones which were linked to their respective operating systems.
Quickflix, meanwhile, was ‘‘platform agnostic’’ and could be accessed through a range of devices.
Furthermore, Quickflix could provide the movie content much quicker, generally about three to four months after release, when movie rights were non-exclusive.
Buckley said Quickflix had about 1500 movies available, but that was rising rapidly as it looked to round out its library.
‘‘We’re moving from looking to compete with subscriptions to being a viable alternative to iTunes,’’ he said.
‘‘It’s complementary to that TV content.
‘‘Quickflix members do not have to join a subscription service to get access to the newest movies.’’