last100 » Lionsgate

More to the story: Apple announces new movies available for purchase from all major studios

Daniel Langendorf — Fri, 02 May 2008 06:14:07 +0000

Less than 24 hours later, we find that there’s more to the new-release movies-on-iTunes story.

Today Apple announced that new movie releases from major film studios are available for purchase on the iTunes Store the same day as their DVD release.

The day before, Jeff Bewkes, the Time Warner chief executive, let slip on a conference call that Warner Brothers studio will now release movies for video-on-demand systems the same day they are released on DVD.

Joining Warner Brothers are 20th Century Fox, The Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Lionsgate, Image Entertainment, and First Look Studios.

Movies purchased from iTunes cost $14.99, with most library titles at $9.99. They can be viewed on an iPod with video, iPhone, Mac or PC computers, or a widescreen television with Apple TV. New releases now available include “Juno”, “Cloverfield,” and “There Will Be Blood.”

Privately-held CinemaNow and Blockbuster’s Movielink already offer similar services, but new-release movies on iTunes are expected to expand the digital download market.

“Apple will increase awareness of digital downloads and it’s clearly a good thing for the studios who want to offer viable digital alternatives,” Craig Kornblau, president of Universal Studios Home Entertainment, told Reuters. “This is a game changer.”

Of course the Web is now abuzz about what this means. “The obvious loser here is the DVD format,” wrote Wired in a post headlined, “Apple Loves Digital Distribution; Blockbuster, Neflix Aren’t So Sure.” On its Apple 2.0 blog, Fortune wonders if Apple’s Hollywood deal is the “Death of the DVD?”

Not yet. Movies purchased via the Internet represent only 1.2 percent of the $36 billion movie industry market, but that’s expected to grow to 4.2 percent of a projected $40 billion market by the end of 2009, according to industry estimates (via Reuters).

What will push digital downloads is the availability to rent movies via the Web the same day they are available for purchase and rental as physical DVDs. That day isn’t here yet, but it’s coming.

“This is actually a big deal because when they [Apple] were able to get parity [with the music industry on CD release dates] on the music side, they were able to drive music sales,” analyst Shannon Cross of Cross Research told Reuters.

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Report: Blockbuster in talks to join Hollywood Video-On-Demand joint venture

Steve O'Hear — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 16:51:48 +0000

“We’re exploring our options, so it’s not surprising there are rumors out there”, says a Blockbuster spokeswoman.

The latest rumor, as reported by the Wall Street Journal, is that the company best known for its ‘bricks and mortar’ video rental business wants to join the recently announced Hollywood joint venture, led by Viacom, to create a new premium TV channel and Video-On-Demand (VOD) service. The other existing partners are Paramount, MGM and Lionsgate.

In return for investing, Blockbuster would get digital rights to the new channel’s programming, “people familiar with the situation” told the WSJ.

Blockbuster is an obvious possible partner. It used to be owned by Viacom, whose executives know its business well. Blockbuster also has been casting its net wide for new partners as it attempts to spruce up its video-rental business model with new digital ventures. Last year, it acquired Internet movie provider Movielink to offer video-download services to customers, and it has focused on forging exclusive content deals for its various services.

Ironically, the Viacom-led joint venture is already being compared negatively to the original Movielink service, which started life in 2002 as a joint venture between Paramount, Sony, Universal, Warner Bros. and MGM, but failed to resonate with users. Last August Movielink was acquired by Blockbuster.

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Viacom, Paramount, MGM and Lionsgate form ‘game changing’ joint venture

Steve O'Hear — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 13:27:54 +0000

If you were going to announce a new ‘game changing’ joint venture involving four leading Hollywood studios, you wouldn’t choose to do it on a Sunday, right? Because that’s precisely what Viacom, Paramount, MGM and Lionsgate have done, with their newly formed premium TV channel and VOD service, which will be rolled out in the fall of 2009.

While details given in the press release are thin on the ground, plastered over by a very generous helping of hyperbole, the yet-to-be named “Innovative Premium Entertainment Service” will offer new and classic feature films and original TV programing from each of the studios involved, and in what looks like a major shake up of the traditional U.S. pay TV market (lookout HBO, Showtime and Starz), the joint venture will have first access to upcoming films such as “Iron Man,” “Star Trek,” “The Pink Panther 2,” “Cloverfield” and “Robocop.” The combined back catalog will also cover classic hits such as “Dirty Dancing,” “Reservoir Dogs,” “Crash,” “Braveheart,” “Forrest Gump,” the “Godfather” series and the Rocky and James Bond franchises, notes Hollywood Reporter.

However, of more significance to last100, the new joint venture will have a strong online component, according to an interview given to paidContent by Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman: “As we go forward and make further announcements, you will see that this will be oriented toward the consumer. It will also meet the needs of varying distributors and take advantage of online distribution…innovative both in presenting the content and in distributing it.” Dauman says that the joint venture will enable the studios involved to have greater control over their own destiny compared to traditional distribution deals, in terms of what they can and can’t offer online during competing release windows. This suggests to me that we may see paid-for downloads of premium content offered at the same time as pay TV.

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