Netflix Subscribers Get Unlimited Streaming Video

Netflix customers can now rent as many movies and television shows as they want.

The company announced Monday that its 7 million unlimited rental subscribers can stream as many movies and television shows as they want, with no additional charge. The unlimited rental plans start at $8.99 a month.

Netflix offers more than 6,000 titles for streaming. Last year, the company expanded its rental service to allow streaming video on PCs. Until now, subscribers could view an hour a month of free streaming on their PCs for every dollar spent on their subscriptions.

"Unlimited has always been a very powerful selling point with our subscribers and a large part of what set us apart in the marketplace," Leslie Kilgore, the company's chief marketing officer, said in a prepared statement. "In talking with members about our streaming feature during the past year, it became clear that, as with DVDs, the idea of streaming unlimited movies and TV episodes on a PC resonated quite strongly. And we're now in a good position to offer that."

The company rents more than 90,000 DVD titles. Netflix said it continues to expand its libraries.

In the first year of streaming video, hit TV series Heroes, The Office, and 30 Rock proved the most popular, along with the following full-length movies: The Sum Of All Fears and The Italian Job and Academy Award winners Pan's Labyrinth and Letters From Iwo Jima.

Subscribers who pay for just two DVDs a month, at a rate of $4.99, will have access to two hours of streaming video for free.

While Netflix is expanding its services, the video-streaming business model has not been profitable for its competitors. Wal-Mart last month decided to discontinue its video download-only merchant store services because the market for paid video downloads did not perform "as expected."

Download sales equaled about 1% of the $24.5 billion in DVD and home video sales and rentals in 2006, but industry experts expect downloads to grow to 10% within a decade.