Netflix, Masterfully Steering Through the Digital Entertainment Storms

Kevin Maney writes: Hats off to Netflix CEO Reed Hastings. Over and over, he seems to make smart tweeks to the company's tactics at the right times. And in his highly competitive, rapidly-shifting business of providing content for the home, Netflix once again reported growing earnings. It's not exactly exploding like Google, but revenue for the second quarter were up 11%; profits, up 4%.

The thing about Hastings is that he's patient. While others did early experiments with selling movies on line, Hastings realized that most people were still more comfortable sliding a DVD into a player -- so he's continued to focus on snail-mail delivery.

But now you see Netflix offering its own set-top box with Roku -- and critics are saying it's a winner. If Roku, as promised, can pump more than Netflix movies through the box (which connects to broadband Internet), the day might not be far off when certain consumers wonder why they're paying $110 a month to a cable company to get a whole lot of channels they never watch.

Here's what would make me happy: A Netflix/Roku box that can deliver all the local live sports I care about (Capitals, Redskins, DC United) plus plug me into both Hulu and Joost so I can pull down Family Guy episodes anytime I want. At that point, it's bye-bye Cox Cable.