Australian movie streaming service Ozflix to launch on Australia Day
New streaming movie service Ozflix will finally launch in Australia next week more than a year after going public on the project and more than six years after its creators first started talking about it.
Ozflix: Launching on Australia Day
Ozflix, which will offer a pay-per-view service of a large catalogue of Australian made films is the brainchild of producers Ron V Brown and Alan Finney. It will launch at 6pm on January 26, Australia Day.
Brown first began pitching the idea more than six years ago.
Anyone offering odds on when this fails?
Fantastic, finally I will be able to watch all the Australian films that I have been trying so hard to get my hands on all these years.
Hope it works, but I suspect many would prefer a subscription.
$6.79 and $3.79.. really?? Would love to know the bizarre thinking behind those two obscure figures.
The big question is will it be GEO blocked??
Can I subscribe outside the bloody county?
18 months. At best. Unless they like losing money.
What these folks are missing is , generally speaking Australian films are dreadful. Yes there are a handful of gems (which are all featured in the aweful promo), but beneath that it’s a critical mass of government funded rubbish that lost a ton of money, and that very few people want to watch. These films bombed at the cinema (the few that actually saw a release) made next to nothing on home video, and are barely seen on broadcast TV. Why all of a sudden will people seek them out on VOD?
One of the issues I think this service will face is the quality of the material itself. Can’t blame OzFlix for this, the issue is entirely a studio / rights holder one.
Many Australian titles have never gone a beyond DVD transfer. Bluray? Forget it. Looking for Alibrandi is one of the poorest quality DVD transfers I’ve seen. If that went onto a streaming service as is, I’d want a refund.
Unless the studios have agreed to supply new masters, I’m worrried this will be SD material at HD prices. And that’ll be disappointing.
I can only think of at best 20 movies I would watch.
Most of them can be found on other services using a subscription vendor of by free download.
You’re a bit late to market with your price strategy… we have moved on from pay per item view.
As an infrequent watcher of films I rather like the pay per view option.
If they can keep their overheads down and they only have to pay for content on a per view basis I would have thought this business model would be quite sustainable. The hardest thing is getting these deals done to get the content on the platform. If they can keep themselves Top Of Mind without a huge marketing budget then I think there is a place for this.
I must admit that I personally would prefer to subscribe and pay a monthly fee. Perhaps they will make subscription as an option at some point in the future.
Thanks for your support. We at Ozflix appreciate the goodwill and positive energy that is coming from all quarters of our industry.
We will launch with 250 films, and will build to a few thousand over the first few years. We are adding around 20 films a week at this time. Many are hard to find.
Our market research revealed that a vast majority of Australians would prefer a pay-per-view model over a monthly subscription, possibly because folks forget how many bloody great Aussie movies there are out there. As for the pricing, we’d have to kill you if we told you. haha.
Unfortunately subscribers were in the minority when we conducted market research on this. However, as a value proposition, ou will be able to rent weekly special bundles of 5 movies for only $5.79, around a buck a movie, excellent value.
The majority of films ARE geo-blocked as we launch, around 10 per cent are global, but we are steadily working with overseas distributors to free up those rights so we can make everything available everywhere.
Thanks for your support. Sorry you hated the promo, we’ll do better next time. Meanwhile when you bother to look there are hundreds of brilliant Australian films, many forgotten. All creative industries have quality variables, not all songs, books, paintings or dances are great, but that doesn’t argue for not trying, does it? As for government funding, we are not relying on it, we a a fully privately funded service. And cinema releases, well if you realise that the cinema exhibition sector is controlled by Hollywood in Australia you will understand why our films only last a week or two. t’s not because they are not good, it’s because we are only given short “windows” as the Hollywood films are all pre-booked.
We are rescanning and digitizing in higher quality wherever we can. Some films are only available in original formats, but we are seeking solutions where we can. The studios are in many cases rescanning in HD for Ozflix, they have that faith in the service, for which we are very grateful.
Hi Anyonymous, if that’s really your name! Most people can only think of 20 Australian films they can recall, which is exactly why Ozflix is so valuable, it will remind people of the great collection of Aussie movies we have made over the past 110 years. As for pricing, we set our pay-per-view strategy and pricing based on extensive market research with anonymous respondents just like you! Amazing but the majority of Australians want Ozflix as a pay-per-view service.
So Excited for this! Will you have “The interview” I’ve been trying to find that film for years!
Yeah very disappointed there is no subscription options. I was very excited about Ozflix…but this has finished that for me. Sigh…won’t be supporting this type of payment system.
This is a great idea.
I’m excited for Ozflix and will be supporting it. But I’m concerned by the way they seem to be ignoring/shutting down constant comments by people about having a subscription service. It’s been a constant narrative all year. Users are in charge, they need to take notice and offer both pay per view or subscription.
Astonished by the negativity of some of the comments above. I’m not Australian, I’m British, but since I’ve lived in Oz I’ve seen some sensationally good movies that I would never have seen if I was still in UK (that’s another issue, of course).
$5.79 for 5 x movies is awesome value, however i’d prefer if that was extended to over a month (e.g. approx 1 x a week, rather than cramming 5 x movies into a week’s viewing).
Great initiative. This is not just good for the viewers, but for the confidence of our own local industry itself. This is turn will indirectly lead to more great Australian films over time.
It’s free on SbS on demand!
“Our market research revealed that a vast majority of Australians would prefer a pay-per-view model over a monthly subscription”
Did you really do market research or are you just making it up?
“Our market research revealed that a vast majority of Australians would prefer a pay-per-view model over a monthly subscription”
Did you really do market research or are you just making it up?
Sounds like alternative facts to me.