Mere weeks after announcing that its DVD rental business would be spun off under the name Qwikster,Netflixhas today announced that it’s backtracking on the decision. In ablog posttoday, CEO Reed Hastings says “It is clear that for many of our members two websites would make things more difficult, so we are going to keep Netflix as one place to go for streaming and DVDs. This means no change: one website, one account, one password… in other words, no Qwikster....

Netflix has much garbage on it that I often spend more time searching for shows than actually watching them. Nowadays, I frequently give up hunting and do something more productive instead, like reading or collecting lint from my belly button. But doomscrolling through Netflix’s catalog is no longer the only way to find those rare nuggets of gold. After years of testing, the streaming behemoth has finally launched a shuffle button that lets analgorithmdo the digging instead....

Starz hasannouncedthat it will not renew its contract with Netflix to provide streaming content from its Starz and Encore brands. Netflix shares were down 7% on news of the cancellation.Updated with statement from Netflix. Starz Entertainment said that it has ended contract renewal negotiations with Netflix and when their current contract is up in February of 2012, it will cease to distribute its content on the Netflix platfrom. Starz says that it is doing this to ‘protect the premium nature’ of its brand by preserving the pricing and packaging of its content....

Tomorrow, the Internet media giant Netflix, is the topic of a meeting in Ottawa where industry players will discuss whether or not Netflix will be required to pay online broadcaster fees in Canada. According to our sources, the Canadian Media Production Assiociation (CMPA) is suggesting that the CRTC (Canadian Radio-Television Commission) should be charging Netflix because it’s “undermining the Canadian broadcasters’ revenue model”. In other words, it’s too cheap. In Canada, broadcasters and content providers (Rogers, Bell) are hit with a local content production fee that until now, Netflix has not been asked to pay....

It’s been clear for a while that gaming subscriptions are some of the next big things in tech, but no one has quite cornered that market just yet. Now it seems all but certain that Netflix is planning to throw its hat in a ring that’s already been populated by the likes of Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Nvidia. Over the last few days, several reports have emerged concerning Netflix’s gaming ambitions, including ones fromThe Information,Reuters, andAxios....