Starz deal adds more streamed movies to Netflix

The world's largest online movie rental service and Starz, a subsidiary of conglomerate Liberty Media Corp., were planning to announce Wednesday that Starz titles were being added to the "Watch Instantly" feature of Netflix's Web site.

The new content will beef up the more than 12,000 movies and TV shows Netflix already makes instantly watchable over the Internet through its streaming service. While this is just a fraction of the 100,000 titles Netflix has available on DVDs, Netflix says it continues to grow both numbers and eventually hopes to close the gap between them.

In doing this, the company may be ensuring it remains relevant once people migrate from renting DVDs to watching movies over their high-speed Internet connections--just as they switched from watching VHS tapes to DVDs.

The addition of the Starz movies means Netflix viewers will have access to streaming movies from studios like Sony and Disney earlier than they would otherwise. Because movie distribution rights are tied up years in advance, "Spider-Man 3," for example, would not have been available for streaming for at least nine years, said Bill Myers, Starz's president and chief operating officer.

Ted Sarandos, chief content officer at Netflix, said the deal is unique because Starz "would have been an eventual competitor." In August, Starz pulled the plug on its Vongo movie-download service in favor of letting Verizon Communications Inc. and other companies market a similar service.