Netflix has been under fire from all sides in the past year. Consumers were stung by the price hikes and that Qwikster fiasco, investors sold off their stock and networks and cable companies raised their prices to stream content, or extended their DVD rental windows.

Why? All these companies look at Netflix as a competitor. Netflix is eating some of their pie. The pie they worked so hard to make, and sell, is being chomped up. Why sell streaming rights to Netflix when you can, uhh, hmm … can someone tell me what these networks and studios are up to? Oh, oh yeah: when you can keep the status quo and sell physical media while expanding digital rentals and purchases through avenues like iTunes and Amazon Instant.

CBS doesn’t look at it like that. America’s most watched network instead looks at Netflix as a deliver method. As a buyer. Not a competitor. Hey, what a thought! Netflix as a rental movie company.

The network wants to take it one step further though, saying that they’re in talks with Netflix to produce original content for them. This is interesting because CEO Moonves says that Netflix doesn’t do 22 hours of premium content a week, so they aren’t a competitor. But, they have their first original show in Lilyhammer (which sucks, so maybe it’s not premium?), and they’ll have David Fincher and Kevin Spacey’s House of Cards, as well as a new season of Arrested Development, plus a CBS show? That’s 4 hours of content a week, Les. 18 more and you’ve got a competitor.

As long as Netflix queues around the world are stacked with good content, it’s a good thing either way. [The Wrap]

cbs, netflix