Netflix Push Into Kids’ TV Shows With DreamWorks

June 18, 2013 Leave a comment

Netflix Rises on Deal for Exclusive DreamWorks Programs

Netflix Inc. (NFLX), the dominant subscription video-streaming service, rose as much as 6 percent after agreeing to a multiyear deal with DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc. (DWA) to obtain original programming.

Netflix shares climbed $12.72 to $226.71 at 10:18 a.m. in New York, the biggest intraday increase since April 23. The stock has more than doubled this year. DreamWorks jumped 5.2 percent to $24.The agreement is the largest contract for original content in the history of Netflix, the Los Gatos, California-based company said in a statement today. It gains access to new series from the creators of franchises such as “Shrek,” “Madagascar,” “Kung Fu Panda” and “How to Train Your Dragon,” adding to a growing stockpile of exclusive video.

“Netflix is starting to get to a degree where content companies are considering them a viable distribution partner” for new programs, said Brian Fitzgerald, an analyst at Jefferies Group LLC. Studios are “coming to Netflix for deals instead of vice versa,” he said.

The deal covers more than 300 hours of new programming, including shows inspired by characters from DreamWorks Animation’s movies, new feature films and its Classic Media library. The first series are expected to be broadcast in 2014 and they will be shown in all of Netflix’s territories, according to the statement.

The agreement shows deepening ties between Netflix and Glendale, California-based DreamWorks. In February, the two companies teamed up to create “Turbo: F.A.S.T.,” a television series created for Netflix based on the upcoming DreamWorks film “Turbo.” Netflix also signed an agreement with DreamWorks in 2011 that gave it exclusive distribution rights for first-run feature films.

Chief Executive Officer Reed Hastings has positioned Netflix as the undisputed leader in online video, recovering momentum he lost two years ago after pricing and product missteps, by adding original shows and exclusive studio deals.

Netflix previously revived “Arrested Development,” the comedy show that was canceled by Fox in 2006, as it bets on original programming to fend off competitors like Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN)

To contact the reporters on this story: Robert Valpuesta in London at rvalpuesta@bloomberg.net; Madeline McMahon in New York at mmcmahon26@bloomberg.net

Filed under TMT Trends

About bambooinnovator
Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: