Netflix suffers temporary website outage today, permanent Dexter outage this summer

The bad news is that our bulging tips box reports Netflix’s website and Watch Instantly streaming service have been mostly inaccessible for the last couple of hours. Those lucky enough to have the page open from earlier may still have access, and devices based on older UIs are up and running while the newer HTML5 based frontends seem to be down for the count. The worse news is Crain’s New York Business reported today that a new licensing deal with Showtime will not renew streaming access to older seasons of currently airing shows like Dexter and Californication when they expire this summer. Instead, their arrangement will cover shows that are off the air like The Tudors and Sleeper Cell . Showtime has decided to hold the fresher stuff back for its TV Everywhere portals accessible by pay-TV subscribers despite Netflix’s best efforts to pitch itself as a friend to the premium networks, which could also explain its plan to start offering original content of its own next year . Wide, prolonged outages like this have been relatively rare on the service and while we’ll just keep an eye on the @NetflixHelps Twitter until it’s back up, there’s no telling what other blank spaces we might find in our instant streaming queues in the future. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in] Netflix suffers temporary website outage today, permanent Dexter outage this summer originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 22 Mar 2011 22:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink