"Wouldn't you want your content to be on the platform with the biggest and best content, with the people most likely to pay for it, and being marketed by us?"
In effect Sky knew that Football acts much like an anchor investor in bringing the sheep with them.
I suspect Netflix is betting on a similar thing, if they overpay to ensure Disney exclusivity not only do they get the content, but they get a stronger hand in negotiations with other content owners.
Netflix will be looking to Disney to become the anchor in their negotiations with other content owners, and a very powerful and big anchor they are.
It lends enormous cachet to Netflix to have secured a deal with one of the most shrewd and largest content owners there is.
It seems like a deal like this would be more intended to attract customers of competing services than appease current subscribers (many of whom are overwhelmingly likely to resubscribe by default month after month). I could easily imagine people switching from <Amazon/Hulu/some 2016 subscription service> to Netflix because the former no longer has Disney content and the latter does.
I agree with you on Disney though - I don't really see the logic in it on their part, unless they foresee Netflix being enough of a monopoly in 2016 (possibly due in significant part to this deal itself - maybe they even expect other media titans to join in) that the sales from all competing services combined over whatever time period the deal covers would be less than the lump sum Netflix offered.
But Netflix really got Disney content back... They had Starz which previously owned the rights. But stars raised their rates and no longer are on the service. Now a big piece of what Starz brought Netflix just took.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/04/entertainment-us-n...
For Disney, it seems a ridiculous move -- why not offer multiple channels? It seems very shortsighted to sign these exclusive contracts when the marketplace is so immature. Why not get money for every channel that's willing to pay you?