Time Warner Chairman and CEO Jeff Bewkes has previously voiced his opinion that video streaming services like Netflix and Hulu couldn't compete with traditional cable services. He's also been very critical of the online services, calling Netflix a "fading star". Now it seems that Bewkes has changed his tune, saying that video-on-demand services can actually provide value to the networks.
On Wednesday's earnings call Bewkes talked at length about video-on-demand services like Hulu and Netflix. The CEO now feels that deals with those types of services provide Time Warner (and other networks) with a way to monetize shows that it can't necessarily sell into syndication. Shows that are extremely serial in nature, requiring consumers to have watched episodes in order, are particularly difficult to sell into syndication. Striking deals with the likes of Hulu or Netflix allows the company some financial gain for that content while still providing the episodes, in order, to consumers.
“We always thought there was a role for Netflix and Hulu in the distribution ecosystem to give consumers access to content they couldn’t get before,” Bewkes said. “For our studio, what that does is monetize content better than it was being monetized before.”
Bewkes indicated that these were not small deals that were being made. Specific numbers weren't given but the CEO said that the deal made with Netflix was worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Deals like this allow Time Warner and its networks like The CW to make more money from their content, which is the most important thing for their bottom line.
This particular flip-flop on Bewkes' part is pretty interesting. This is a man who has previously been very down on the idea of Netflix and has gone so far as to compare that company to the Albanian army. I'm going to guess that as long as his company can make money by working with Netflix or Hulu, he'll be a happy CEO.
