Netflix’s slow PR grind continues, with the announcement of a deal with Beyond Productions that’ll see Australian-specific content on the service, including some content that the US doesn’t currently get.
I’m still sticking to my prediction that Netflix Australia will have less content than Netflix US, and that’s a really easy bet to make, given that services such as Stan and Presto already have “exclusives” on content that sits on the US service.
Still, we’re starting to get more details of what Netflix Australia will offer, with a release this morning touting a deal with Beyond Distribution which will see a number of its titles on the service when it launches in March.
Specifically name checked are comedy specials Carl Barron: A One Ended Stick; Arj Barker: Harvest; Kitty Flanagan: Hello Kitty; Jimeoin: Something Smells Funny, and Umbilical Brothers: The Rehearsal.
On the kids side of things, the Beyond deal will add Lightning Point, the first three seasons of H2O: Just Add Water and the first season of Mako Mermaids. Beyond’s also got the rights to Maya the Bee, Lalaloopsy, and The Hive, so they’ll pop up as well.
One interesting inclusion which has been on US Netflix, but isn’t currently available there is popular science show Mythbusters, although it’ll be interesting to see if we get the US or International narrator on the Australian service.
The release is also slightly more open on the device types Netflix will support; while initially Netflix was a little coy about which devices it would support, the release notes that its titles will be available “for viewing on thousands of Internet-connected devices, including smart TVs, tablets, smartphones, game consoles and other set-top boxes.
It was announced this week that Netflix would be available on local PVR/subscription platform FetchTV, but it seems most likely that Netflix will simply make its existing apps available to Australian consumers once they’ve launched.