This post from tnl.net, entitled Where the hits are streaming in 2011 was a real eye-opener, and one that I first heard on TWiT 336.

For each movie of the top 100 movies at the box office, I pulled data on for stream­ing info on Net­flix, Ama­zon on Demand, iTunes, and Vudu. I also pulled up avail­abil­ity of DVDs to use as a yard­stick in terms of over­all movie avail­abil­ity.

Only 4 of the top 50, and 5 of the top 100 movies of last year are on Netflix. That statistic blew my mind. I’m not sure why I had the perception of Netflix that I did, but with a huge disparity in a ~$8 subscription model versus the on-demand, per-movie pricing that Amazon, iTunes and Vudu offer, it becomes a “well, duh” moment.

It might well be because of the reports and blog posts that constantly float out hailing Netflix as the reason movie piracy is diminishing, when in fact it’s these Hollywood blockbuster movies that are the ones being heavily pirated.

Amazon, iTunes and Vudu are pretty much on par with each other, with DVDs still getting the most love, obviously. It’s so cute to see the studios still trying to hold on to their soon to be archaic formats.

What is interesting, as the author mentions in the comments, is that the DVD numbers are actually from Netflix, making the disparity even more jarring. It also potentially adds some credence to their ill-fated decision and back flip on breaking out their DVD and streaming services as two separate businesses.

I don’t know what’s happened to Spotify as of late, but it seems like they made subscription-based music mainstream, and I’m *guessing* if a similar analysis was done on the top 100 albums of last year, there wouldn’t be a huge disparity between their model, and the likes of iTunes, Amazon, and CD sales.

Is it just a delayed timeframe for these movies making it onto Netflix? The author says he’ll look into which of the 2010 top 100 is now on Netflix, which’ll be interesting to see.

Who knows how long it’ll take for the subscription model to catch up with movies, re: catalogue.