Online film and television rental company Netflix launched in the Republic today.
The US-based company's Irish site offers films and TV programmes from a range of studios, including the BBC, Channel 4 and ITV and film-makers Disney, Paramount, and Twentieth Century Fox.
It charges subscribers a monthly fee of €6.99 to access its film and television content. The fee includes a free month’s trial.
The Irish site is Netflix’s first expansion outside North and South America. The company plans to challenge BSkyB's dominance in the premium film channel market in the Republic.
“When you talk about big entertainment businesses, Sky Atlantic and Sky Movies are huge. Our advantage is we are much lower priced than the Sky packages and it is all on demand, click and watch," Netflix chief executive and co-founder Reed Hastings said today.
While the company is promising subscribers “tens of thousands of hours of great film and television” the initial content on the site appears limited, with few new releases available to Irish customers.
Among the films available today are Once, The Expendables and Paul Blart: Mall Cop while television programmes Breaking Bad, 24 and 90210 are available, as are older seasons of The Only Way is Essex, Top Gear and The Inbetweeners.
Netflix was founded in 1997 and established a US market for DVD rental by post.
Over the last two years it has shifted its focus to online delivery. The company is loss-making but its chief executive said it had little choice but to offer online delivery as its primary focus.
"In the long term, internet TV - the idea that you can click and watch anything you want - is such a powerful concept that we are investing heavily," Mr Hastings said.