Netflix lost all the Starz Play movies and TV shows today. It’s been coming for months, the result of failed contract negotiations between Netflix and Starz. But now that it’s here, I feel like I lost a friend.
On the personal side, I’m a big fan of westerns. Two classic old western series, Gunsmoke and Wagon Train, made up a large part of my Netflix watching. They were owned by Starz. So they’re gone now.
Probably more significant to most Netflix viewers, all the Starz Disney films are history. Toy Story 3, Scarface, Young Frankenstein — all in all a very large part of what used to be available on Netflix has vanished.
Last year, Netflix made a serious of policy and public relations gaffes that ended up losing them countless subscribers. Well not countless — if you can count to 800,000 in one month. Now they’ve lost a valuable source of content, which gives customers another reason to hightail it.
Netflix will hopefully fill the gap with other quality content. But as of today, they are less of a value than they were yesterday.