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Backtracking on its plans to divide its streaming and DVD services, Netflix announced this morning that both services will remain under one banner. Last month, the company announced plans to market its DVD-by-mail delivery service separately from its streamed video product as an entity called Quickster.
Following that announcement, customers were quick and furious to express outrage (not to mention confusion), especially coming on the heels of price increases and other changes in July, including charging separately for the mail and streaming services.
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings made the announcement this morning, explaining, “It is clear that for many of our members two websites would make things more difficult, so we are going to keep Netflix as one place to go for streaming and DVDs.”
Defending the July price increase as necessary, Hastings went on to say that the company has vastly expanded its library of available content. In addition to adding movie titles from Paramount, Sony, Universal, Fox, Warner Bros., Lionsgate, MGM and Miramax, Hastings also noted that in “the last couple of weeks alone, we’ve added over 3,500 TV episodes from ABC, NBC, FOX, CBS, USA, E!, Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, ABC Family, Discovery Channel, TLC, SyFy, A&E, History, and PBS.”
