For the first time in the history of the format, a major studio has released a film to VOD before the DVD release date. A few days before they dropped on DVD, Warner Home Video premiered Observe and Report and Ghosts of Girlfriends Past in the Atlanta area on Comcast VOD.
Warner is trying to walk a fine line here. VOD brings in a larger share of rental revenue than DVDs do, and the studio is trying to help the format gain traction without impacting already ailing DVD sales.
In the Atlanta test, the studio promoted the releases to customers, by saying, “Watch on video-on-demand now and buy it Tuesday” on disc, WHV spokesman Jim Noonan said.
Warner has been releasing movies simultaneously on DVD and VOD for two years, but it is the first studio to offer the consumer a “try before you buy” option between the two formats.
While still playing it safe, it appears at least one studio is interested in exploring expanded distribution options and time frames.
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Is this a blip, RedHeads, or an indicator of things to come?
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[via Video Business]
Boy do you maybe think this has something to do with it?????????????????????
$1 Redbox DVD rentals could pinch Internet video services, study finds
September 4, 2009 | 9:00 am
Apparently there’s more to fear in Redbox’s $1 DVD rentals than meets the eye.
The leading DVD kiosk vendor has done deals with half of the Hollywood studios (Lions Gate Entertainment, Sony Corp. and Paramount Pictures), while the other half (News Corp’s 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros. and NBC Universal) have sought a waiting period to protect sales of movies new on DVD.
A study from SNL Kagan finds that online video-on-demand services like Apple Inc.’s iTunes could suffer if consumers start to think $1 is the right price for a movie rental.
Kagan examined the cost of delivering online video at six levels of quality, based on assumptions about the average Internet speed, movie length and delivery cost.
Only in the two lowest-quality instances (known as standard definition) did Internet on-demand services come out ahead when rentals cost $1. After subtracting delivery costs and the studio’s cut of 70 cents, the profit could be measured in pennies: 8 to 19 cents.
But at $3.99, every flavor of Internet video, including high-definition, delivers a profit, Kagan found.
The implications of the rental-for-a-buck are ominous.
“It could just have earth-shattering consequences to these services hoping to reach people through the Internet,” said Wade Holden, the Kagan entertainment industry analyst who crunched the numbers.
Holden said Internet delivery costs could take years to come down enough (through more-efficient video compression and higher bandwidth rates) to make 1-dollar on-demand rentals economically feasible.
A going rate of $1 would gut the rental market, which Kagan projects at about $8 billion this year for 1.74 billion rentals.
“It would be a colossal shift for the rental market to go from $8.03 billion to $1.74 billion — a change studios are likely not to get on board with,” Holden wrote in a report issued Aug. 31. “If that were to happen, revenue sharing would most likely not be an option and VOD providers would have to pay massive licensing fees to studios looking to maintain their revenue streams.”
–Dawn C. Chmielewski
So you’re saying that we’ll have to stay with Redbox because VOD will not cut it?
Great!!!
I don’t think these Execs get it. VOD is still anywhere from $4 – $6 depending on the format for just a one day ‘rental’. I wouldn’t mind paying a little more, maybe $6 – $8 for VOD if they let me store it on my DVR indefinitely. The studio would not have to create the disc, box w/art, and ship it. They pass those savings to us and you have two happy campers. They could charge less for the one day VOD ‘rental’, maybe $3. If they do that, I would consider VOD more than driving a couple of miles to my nearest redbox.