Charter CEO Tom Rutledge Says Netflix Effort To Limit Password Sharing Is “A Point We’ve Been Trying To Make For Years”

deadline.com:

Charter CEO Tom Rutledge says Netflix’s recently announced plan to limit password sharing is “a point we’ve been trying to make for years.”Asked by an analyst during the company’s first-quarter earnings call if he wanted to say “I told you so,” he replied, “Yeah, well I did tell you so.” Charter has indeed been known for taking a strict stance on the matter.Netflix recently launched tests in three markets outside of the U.S.

of a fee system that allows password sharing but at a cost. The effort could help recapture forfeited subscription revenue from the estimates 100 million households watching Netflix on someone else’s dime.“We knew it’s a problem,” Rutledge said. “It’s not just a problem for the company that’s not controlling its passwords.

It’s a problem for everybody in the industry because all of that content that’s used without anybody paying for it affects the supply and demand of all content, not just the provider that’s selling the content, which diminishes the value of content for everybody.

That’s the point we’ve been trying to make for years.”The exec’s comments followed Charter’s report of its first-quarter results.