• Bloomberg, Tuesday, August 17, 2010 3:40 PM

HBO is standing in the way of Netflix's plan to offer a broad slate of streaming movies, reports Bloomberg. HBO co-President Eric Kessler tells Bloomberg that the pay-television channel -- home to shows including the "The Sopranos" and "True Blood" -- holds cable and Internet rights to films from Warner Bros., Twentieth Century Fox and Universal Pictures, and is unlikely to make a deal with Netflix.

"There is value in exclusivity," Kessler says. Consumers "are willing to pay a premium for high quality, exclusive content." Last week, Netflix agreed to pay the Epix cable channel more than $900 million over five years for online rights to films from Paramount Pictures, Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said he plans to spend more to build the service, which offers DVDs by mail and online viewing for $8.99 a month, and has said he wants HBO as a supplier. Yet, HBO's resistance will prevent Netflix from gaining online access to titles from all of the major studios.

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