NETFLIX GIVING AWAY ALMOST-FREE MOVIE TICKETS

Netflix apparently believes the best way to entice potential customers

to subscribe to its movie streaming service is to give them tickets to a real movie theater for doing so. The company has launched a promotion via Google Offers offering nonsubscribers two movie ticket vouchers worth $13 each for signing up for a free one-month trial and paying just $1.00. But there’s “a catch,” wrote BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield on Wednesday. The new subscribers will also be required to stream at least three movies or TV programs during the trial period before they can receive their tickets. Greenfield said that the offer intrigued him “because Netflix is clearly targeting movie theater going consumers and showing them the benefits of an at-home subscription movie and television service. We continue to believe the increasing amounts of digital in-home entertainment options (such as Netflix) will continue to negatively impact movie theater attendance trends – the hurdle rate to “get up and go” to the movies is moving ever higher, particularly given the pricing of a movie ticket relative to new forms of home entertainment.” The promotion apparently was timed to coincide with the release of a Google Offers App for the iPhone.