News

Online DVD rental company Quickflix has made a deal with ninemsn to help it reach more customers, but whether it has joined or replaced Homescreen as ninemsn's official partner is unclear.

Quickflix CEO Stephen Langsford believes ninemsn's seven million visitors per month will help dramatically increase his own subscriber base.

According to Langsford, the new deal will replace Homescreen as ninemsn's integrated DVD rental partner.

"DVD advertisers could still be involved on the site, but Quickflix will be replacing all the integrated links," he said.

However, ninemsn would not confirm this.

"The specifics of the deal have not been finalised," said spokesperson for ninemsn, Kate Beddoe. "Both Homescreen and Quickflix will be advertising clients of ours."

Homescreen's vice president of content acquisition, Paul Gutierrez, insisted the company was not in a bidding war with Quickflix, and was not being booted from the ninemsn space.

"The value of integration has tapered off for us, so we're weighing our options on what other kind of placements we can enter," said Gutierrez. "If we leave, we leave."

The new deal will take advantage of Quickflix and ninemsn's existing .Net platforms.

Quickflix also has distribution partnerships with Fairfax, Optus and Wishlist.