On September 19, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings boldly admitted, “I messed up.”
He wasn’t kidding at all. In the last few weeks Netflix has taken a huge beating from its subscribers for several reasons: this summer the company raised prices for streaming, split DVD rentals into a separate service and pricing scheme, came up with the much-taunted name of “Qwikster” for its DVD division then lost a content deal with Starz, and has seen aggressive competition from the likes of Amazon, RedBox, and Facebook-integrated Hulu.
Shortly after announcing the price hike and split pricing, Hastings apologized for the lack in transparency with users and justified the split by saying he “realized that streaming and DVD-by-mail are becoming two quite different businesses, with very different cost structures, different benefits that need to be marketed differently, and we need to let each grow and operate independently.” He also frustrated consumers even more when he announced split billing and web sites.
On the upside, Netflix started streaming the first four seasons of “Mad Men” on July 27 and added the first three seasons of AMC’s “Breaking Bad” in early September, and it will air season two of “The Walking Dead” in mid-October. Netflix also inked a deal with DreamWorks to bring feature films exclusively to Netflix’s streaming platform.
Wall Street wasn’t convinced, however. With this infographic The Motley Fool tracks Netflix’s plummeting share price against its recent misfortunes. It has sunk more than 50 percent from a peak of nearly $299 in mid-July to $143 in mid-September. Ouch!
[...] Netflix Goofs of 2011: Infographic [...]