Netflix Launches In UK With Underwhelming Content Range
The launch of Netflix UK is finally official as the streaming service finally unveiled it’s content to a hungry UK and Irish public. But initial browsing shows not much content to get excited about.
Netflix UK. So many shows..I've never heard of
A quick look showed a lot of old movies and TV shows but very little premium content (as our netflix reviews and comments below show). That did not stop Netflix having a pop at Amazon owned rival, Lovefilm.
Chief Executive of Netflix, Reed Hastings was in London for the launch and speaking to The Telegraph said, “We offer a much better user experience than Lovefilm with HD video streams available. We are on more platforms, such as Nintendo Wii and we have a broader content offering.”
Lovefilm, who have around 2 million subscribers in the UK, have countered with the service Lovefilm Instant. The streaming only service manages to undercut Netflix’s prices and although launched on December 6th, Lovefilm have confirmed the price is staying at this level.
Netflix are promising to beef up the range of content, and certainly have setup a few deals recently with broadcasters, ITV, BBC Worldwide and Channel 4. Expect better content and more of it as the service gets rolling.
To compliment the launch, Hastings also revealed more content deals that include Disney, Sony and Twentieth Century Fox.
One thing Netflix have not brought across the pond is DVD rental, which Lovefilm are offering. It is obvious that Netflix are going digital only, and if they can get the content and pricing right, they may become a big player in the UK. But Lovefilm seems to have the better range at this time, so it is gloves off and fight, fight, fight.
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Wow Netflix has arrived. I just had a look through and all they got is a few films in each category to stream!
Then there are some crappy old tv shows!
Unless they improve they have no hope. I don’t even wanna sign up for the free trial if this is all the mighty Netflix have to offer!!
I couldn’t agree more, after such a funfair about Netflix hitting the UK shores, they have done so in very un american fashion – lacking in force/content. Reminiscent of Love Film’s online release and extremely disappointing.
@jer
It’s worth saying that without signing up you can’t see the vast majority of the content available. I’m pretty impressed with the range of content for day one. The service itself is certainly head and shoulders about LoveFilm’s dreadful streaming.
Netflix seems to have better TV content, as in it has some. LoveFilm (at least via XBox, which seems to have less content than LoveFilm’s website) doesn’t have any TV.
To be honest, both are pretty piss poor contentwise.
i think tabloids are giving uk netflix a hard time, like this article, and so many other articles, sating about fierce competiton netflix has in the uk. WHAT COMPETITION! Sky is only for sky subscribers, and the amount of repeats that they show, i never need to watch thier streaming content anyway, there is no need. plus to get sky movies and hd it costs me around £40 a month. i have tried lovefilm streaming and dvd rental, and while thier rental is good, cheaper than paying £3.50 everytime to watch a new release, thier streaming service is horrible. they still want to charge you £3.50 for anything new. the streaming on some free movies would be just ok, and other movies it would be totally crap. like youtube back in 2003. thier selection is lame, they would add new streaming content while taking away older content, so they never really have a huge library. did i mention the pixelated quality and freezez you get. plus thier service is only availabe on a few wifi enabled devices. iphone app.(what about android app)not on wifi tv’s dvds? i tried netflix yesterday on my ps3 and android phone. and the whole experience is like from another planet. the content on day one! looks alot larger (once you log in) than on lovefilm which has been running for quite a while now, the quality is brilliant much better than lovefilm, and navigating through menus is so much better integrated, no more waiting for different pages to load. love film can take thier £1 saving and stick it up thier …! netflix is exactly what the uk needed, too many companies in the uk are sitting on thier asses and being lazy with us consumers because they have no real competition, while taking our hard earned money, hopefully lovefilm will get thier act together now and start offering a proper streaming service. for me however it’s too little to late. goodbye lovefilm! goodbye Sky!
I have just signed upto netflix expecting a far far better service and content than lovefilm. But oh boy what a disappointment it was if content does not improve i will defiantely be canceling my subscription. as lovefilm has by far the better range of FILMS. Also netflix freezes yet had no such problem with lovefilm. i defiantely dont recommend.
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I have been using this service and I must admit the HD quality is GREAT. The downside as you all mention is the amount of content it has. There have been a few things removed too, so perhaps agreements are not in place.
Seeing how they paid like 1.2bn$ for the content on the American service, then I can see how they cant stack it with all that content straight away on the UK side. The important thing will be how fast content shows up. Lovefilm quality is bad, but if you take the mail option with it then you can get loads of BD’s each month and enjoy HighDef on the great films and live with the SD on the crappy film/shows.
I havent measured bandwith yet, and neither of my Sony TV’s have the netflix app so I cant see how well the app does there. There is a reason lovefilm cut their price, there is a reason lovefilm is about to start offering HD — That reason is competition! Without netflix (or another company) fighting for market space then lovefilm is not going to grow in quality.
I gave up on my Netflix UK account and tried this http://playmo.tv service which is free and gives me access to the US version which has a huge selection in Netflix
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No bourne movies
No star trek
No mission impossible
No lord of the rings
No Matrix movies
the above are pretty bog standard but netflix doesnt have any of them (yet..)
Content needs to improve drastically. But im streaming on apple tv in HD for £5.99
and the quality is fantastic.
Hoping the content improves soon!
To be honest, I’d say the content isn’t that bad, especially for TV. I expect that more will be added as time goes on as well. Maybe just my tastes, but the content for me is just the kind of thing I like anyway, so I’ma stick with it.
For £5.99 a month, I am not complaining. Plus, haven’t had a problem with quality/playback, which is a definite thumbs up from me.
Also, James: “I have just signed upto netflix expecting a far far better service and content than lovefilm. But oh boy what a disappointment it was if content does not improve i will defiantely be canceling my subscription. as lovefilm has by far the better range of FILMS. Also netflix freezes yet had no such problem with lovefilm. i defiantely dont recommend.” – Lovefilm employe, much?
For £5.99 a month, what do you people expect, Blockbusters?
Netflix has only just launched here, I can’t even begin to imagine how complicated it is to transfer massive, expensive content over to the UK. If I were paying £20 a month for this service, I would be disappointed with the content, but as it is, it’s a pretty sweet deal.
It can only improve, and I’d rather do this from day 1 than later when they up their content and suddenly new memberships skyrocket in price..
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Well I’ve had the Netflix service for a month now, and have to admit I like the style, quality of streaming, amount of my gadgets I can use it on etc..
The only problem is still what was wrong 4 weeks ago, and that is content. I have used the US version of Netflix, everything is the same as the UK streaming service, apart from the fact that there is virtually limitless content on the US version. No matter what your viewing pleasure, in the US no matter how picky you are they have more content than anyone could watch in several lifetimes.
Now the UK, 4 weeks later, and it’s still virtually empty. You can’t be choosy as it would take you a week or two to watch everything you actually want to see, then your watching movies you have seen before, then by week 3 your watching movies you probably wouldn’t rent/watch normally.
Nothing much has been added, every day when I switch it on I’m hoping to see a boost of content…but every day I’m disappointed.
I have previously been a long time customer of lovefilm, mainly for streaming. At least they have a very large database of films etc, about 90% more than Netflix UK. It may not look as good, in presentation or ease of use and certainly most are no where near the quality of the HD streaming of Netflix.
But at least when I had Lovefilm, I wasn’t watching the same film again a few weeks later!
heyy i have netflix UK and i think its amazing!! soo many awesome films and tv shows. the vid will load in less than 5 seconds!!! lovefilm takes over 30 seconds! in my comparrison netflix have much better service than lovefilm. and NO i dont work for netflix. im 16 years old and in my opinion netflix is just great. at least try the free trial and see for yourself
Errrrr… “so many films” says Ally above?? What? I’ve just signed up and there are hardly any… 75 per genre maximum. That’s farcical! Maybe 75′s a big number for kids today?! (oh dear!…). All up, it’s under 1000 films.
The interface also seems to be made for 10 year olds. A basic ‘search’ facility and then about 16-18 genres listed (if you count ‘popular on facebook’ as a genre!), with between 25-75 in each category. ‘Foreign’ films don’t even get separated into country.
If this doesn’t improve pronto (and they’ve been launched since Jan haven’t they?) then I will cancel before the free trial’s up. Love Film’s efforts, which I must say have started to improve with this competition (I noticed yesterday the ‘fast connection’ option in their on demand service), are far superior. You can’t sign people up to a service that has 25 million users in the USA (i.e. it’s not a ‘start up’ company) and expect them to ‘hope’ it improves with time. It’s got to have some substance from the start. Very disappointing.
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At least with Lovefilm you can change the aspect ratio to what you want, I have a widescreen tv and was forced to watch a movie on Netflix in 1.1, awful. So Neflix might have HD streams so what, Lovefilms SD for me looks just as good, and to those that complain about Lovefilms streaming should get a better connection, mine hasn’t stopped to buffer not once. Netflix library is full of B rated movies, ones that go straight to DVD.
Signed up recently, pretty good for me, im able to catch up on a plethora of tv series i havent seen yet. Films indeed are meh, but will improve im sure. Only problem Ive had is lip syncing out with audio on a few episodes, and films such as Donnie Brasco and The Mist. 3 stars out of 5 for the moment.
Signed up as soon as they opened but cancelled after the first month. UI great, streaming great but content rubbish.
I had been waiting for so long for Netflix UK but when I compare it to the US version it is really third rate. The film are nearly all way to old (and not enough of them) and the TV is mostly the crap that I did not watch first time around.
If they sort out the content I will be back but not until they give me a way to have a look at the full content and not just a few picks in each cat.
So nobody has changed their ps3/xbox DNS settings to access the US content? much better content, and the only reason i’m still keeping my account. the iphone and ipad apps are better than lovefilm (as I can only get it to work if I have headphones in)
Just cancelled my account. Been a member since day one, but I’ve watched pretty much everything decent on it (Not that there was much there) and there’s no new, quality shows, so I’m out.
Gonna try Lovefilm again.