Netflix Offering $100k for TV Episodes

Netflix is making an aggressive play for in-season episodes of hit TV shows to expand its Web streaming service. Apparently, the company is in talks with studios about gaining access to current episodes of primetime shows and is willing to pay between $70,000 and $100,000 per episode.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has made no secret of his desire to move beyond movie rentals and beef up TV offerings. While the company has added a number of shows, they are mostly episodes from previous seasons. Just last month, Netflix won a groundbreaking deal with NBC Universal to stream comedy show "Saturday Night Live" the day after it airs on the broadcast network. With Netflix ready to put its money where its mouth is -- and a host of rivals such as Apple and Google's YouTube also in the hunt -- a war is breaking out over who controls streaming rights to current episodes. The studios that supply the networks with shows argue they own the streaming rights to in-season shows. But the broadcast networks that make a profit from repeats -- and stand to lose audiences, ad dollars and syndication revenue if viewers can see those same episodes on Netflix -- argue they control the rights.