When you are a company the size of Netflix you are going to have some days where you have nothing but good news and some days where the bad news piles on. Most of the times those days will closely follow one another. Last week, Netflix suffered a bit of a letdown when HBO announced that they would no longer be selling DVDs of their programs to the video rental giant at a discount. 

Of course, as far as knockout blows go, that wasn't exactly a haymaker. Netflix quickly announced that it would simply buy the DVDs from other sources at full price, allowing them to continue showing popular programs like “The Sopranos” and “Boardwalk Empire”.

Now Netflix can balance out that bad news with an announcement they've been waiting to make for quite a while now. Netflix has been eyeing a launch in the UK and Ireland for the last couple of months and today, the service has announced that it is officially live. Customers in those two countries can sign up for the service immediately and receive their first month for free. After the trial period runs out, they will pay £5.99 or €6.99 ($8.87) depending on the plan they choose.

There doesn't appear to be a limitation to the number of shows and movies that British and Irish customers can watch compared to those in the United States. Netflix even cut deals with major broadcasting houses such as BBC, Miramax and Lionsgate in order to make sure the company is offering content customers across the pond from their North American base would be interested in.

This particular launch is a direct challenge to Amazon's own LoveFilms which until today had really cornered the market when it came to streaming movies and television shows for a monthly fee. LoveFilms has seen this move coming for quite a while now and because of that they have managed to acquire even more licenses. Netflix's move into the UK and Ireland does make it look as though the company is gearing up for a bit of a shootout with its closest competitor.

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