• The New York Times, Monday, December 13, 2010 1:45 PM

Reports detailing the rise of Netflix have been greatly exaggerated, or so top media executives tell The New York Times. "It's a little bit like, is the Albanian army going to take over the world?" Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes tells The Times. "I don't think so."

For its part, The Times characterizes Time Warner as one a many "companies that make the shows and movies that Netflix delivers ... whose stocks have not enjoyed the same frothy rise, and whose chief executives have not won the same accolades," and who are now "pushing back, arguing that the company is overhyped, and vowing to charge much more to license their content." Indeed, The Times predicts the relationship between Netflix and the media companies will change "drastically," "beginning next year when a deal between the company and Starz, the pay-TV channel, to stream movies from Sony and Disney expires." Richard Greenfield, an analyst at BTIG research, estimated that the cost of the deal could go up from $25 million a year to more than $250 million a year.

Read the whole story at The New York Times »