Jeff Bewkes, the CEO of Time Warner, has a history of disdain for Redbox, Netflix, and possibly consumers at large. Over the last year, however, Bewkes’ tone has gradually shifted away from the hard line rhetoric of the past and has become more reflective of the realities of today’s home entertainment market.
Case in point: in a recent appearance on Charlie Rose, Bewkes made several comments that hinted at a shifting attitude towards consumers.
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Discussing ways to keep the sales of packaged media such as DVDs and Blu-rays going in the face of kiosk rentals and VOD, Bewkes said the following (very uncharacteristic for him) comment:
“The bad news is [movies] may have to be cheaper,”
Bewkes also said that he still supports the theatrical distribution of movies, but can foresee an end to the traditional months-long gap between theatrical and disc release. The sticking point will be finding common ground between theater owners and content distributors:
“We can to do it in a way that doesn’t undermine the theater experience,”
What do you think “cheaper” means to Bewkes? What price point would DVDs and Blu-rays need to hit in order to reignite consumer interest in physical media?
[via Home Media Magazine]
I stopped renting from cable or satellite years ago, just couldn’t justify the $6.99 per movie in my region, crazy high price compared to all the others. At most movies should be $3.00 in my opinion given the lower cost to deliver through cable or satellite. They must be getting worried now that there is more competition at a much lower price point.
It is all about competition.
Really why, and I mean why pay 5 are 6 bucks are more to see a movie. Just sit tight and when it hits Red Box, get it for a $1 are so.
I really don’t care about the window bit. It can be 30,60, 90 are more days.
No big EE. I don’t care. And most of the movies are crap any way..
The Last Movie I got from RedBox was good and fun TinTin..
I will try the Free Code tomorrow and see a movie.. If the code works?
They need to stream new release movies for a buck.
I don’t think the economics exist any longer for sale of DVD’s, even Blu-Ray ones, except to renters. Fixed costs for the media and channel are not competitive with streaming. Theaters can still snag date nighters and first-runners, but in hard times, there’s such a huge backlog of good stuff available to stream and rent, competing at a starkly lower price point.
Music hard copies, especially before memory devices, were played multiple times after purchase. Movies are just a different beast: you don’t watch it over and over as you might play a music album. Collecting hard copies of movies is even less attractive than hard copy record collecting has become.
If he’s talking “cheaper” in that they still want us to buy, before they give us the option to rent, then the price point would have to be about the same as a current rental.
Since they would never do that, they need to forget this window policy. The Rebox delay was bad enough, buy Warner coming up with the whole “new DVD” coming out to stores and then the “rental DVD” being released at a later date is dumb.
I would not have a problem paying what I used to for a movie (around 11-12 bucks for a DVD with plenty of extras), AS LONG as I KNOW it’s something I’ve seen and know I’ll enjoy it.
Now they release movies (without letting you rent it) and expect you to pay 16-17 bucks for a DVD with little to no extras, or 24-27 for a Blu-Ray. I guess they assume you see every movie at the theater…….or else it’s even worse that they think people will pay these prices blind and just HOPE they like it.
The problem is, they are making movies that are not worth the money you spend to see them! 1. Make better movies. 2. Make bigger movies. if the special effects are so large that they over drive your TV you will want to see them on a bigger screen.
I would say a $8.99 max price point for a new release with extras. $9.99 for a blu-ray. If hollywood would have chosen HD-DVD as the format instead of blu, they could have saved a few bucks each disk in overhead…. but they believed the lie that it would take at least 10 years to break the encryption…..
I think that movies in theater are going to have to be cheaper. In our area we pay around $12 for a movie and I know it in higher in other areas, this is too
much. I don’t mind paying $5 to go see a movie in the theatre, but not much more. I will wait until it comes out on DVD.
As for movie rentals, we only pay a few dollars to rent a movie. It I like the movie and I think it is one I will watch over many times I will purchase it. I prefer to get it under $15, but will pay up to $20 if it comes with multiple formats.
They could do it for $1.00 and most folks would purchase more then one movie a week and they would still make a ton of money.
Most people who buy, will buy a DVD/Blue Ray within a few months once it’s released to buy. $7.99 for DVD $10.99 for Blue Ray and $15.99 if you buy a combo pack, DVD, Blue Ray, and Digital Copy. It’s fair to all, as we all know companies need to make a profit, to renew and improve. One way to do this is stop paying the bloated salaries to all these stars. Yes I understand just as athletes, there’s not a huge casting call for older actors. They need to make the money in younger years. However,after making 1-2 movies at $5-10,000,000 a picture would allow the average Joe, a very comfortable lifestyle and through retirement.
I guess the studios are realizing the average Joe just isn’t made of money.
As someone said here already So many of the movies now days are not Blockbuster material. Some could barely qualify as made for tv. This is just the reason we’re not lining up to pay $10-15 to see mediocre movies at the theaters, or paying bloated prices for discs.
I will pay $24.99 max for Release day 3D Blu-ray + Ultraviolet, I will pay $19.99 max for Release day Blu-ray + Ultraviolet, I will pay $14.99 max for Release day Catalog title. It would be preferred to offer Ultraviolet with. I don’t want/care/need a DVD or non-HD digital copy. Ultraviolet is cloud based and has HD support so I like that for on the go. Now here’s the thing, there’s only some titles worth it. I find myself often waiting for a new release to drop to $14.99 before giving in. For Older films I wait a bit til $9.99. I have release though if I don’t buy something in the first year then I often will get @ $7.99, but there are so many iffy titles that usually I wait for $6 or $5 special deals, it’s just frustrating that as soon as I do that a remastered version comes out.
Wow, I thought dinosaur’s like you were extinct. Who the eff is paying 25 bucks for any movie? And you’re buying more then one copy? Time for you to open the door and walk out into the sunshine instead of just watching it on Blu-ray. Yes – this is your ‘get-a-life’ wake-up call.