As usual, the company has refused to comment on its plans or on reports that it has been meeting with representatives of Australian media companies to negotiate rights to local content.

Reports published in The Australian and The Australian Financial Review suggest that the talks have not gone well for Netflix, and that local content owners are holding out for high prices for their content. In any case, it may all be rather academic, because Netflix has left its run rather late. It risks being overtaken by events.

The local streaming market is already very crowded – services are now available from Quickflix and newer rival Ezyflix, Telstra (Big Pond Movies), Optus (via Fetch), Apple (iTunes through Apple TV), and Foxtel (Presto). TV Networks Nine (which has just bought a stake in Quickflix) and Seven are also planning streaming services.

Vast amounts of high quality content is also now available on YouTube and other Internet streaming sites, with TV access made easy by Internet TVs and Google’s Chromecast dongle. YouTube is no longer only for amateurs and short clips – full movies, concerts and TV shows are now commonplace.

Many Australians – estimates range up to 200,000 – are already accessing Netflix, bypassing geoblocking restrictions through ‘geo-dodging’ techniques. And many more – probably millions - are illegally downloading content for viewing at their leisure, in part because of geoblocking and bundling restrictions imposed by content owners’ ‘digital rights management’ systems.