In a move to restore the growth of one of their most lucrative businesses, Hollywood studios are considering renting films to cable television subscribers and Internet users on the same day they are released on DVD.
That is something that would have been unthinkable even two years ago. Major movie studios have resisted such a move, fearing that offering an inexpensive movie rental on the DVD release day would undercut the already-stagnant DVD sales.
They also feared that such an action would invite retaliation from powerful retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores, the single largest seller of DVDs in the United States, according to a recent report by the Los Angeles Times.
But studios now want a change of the strategy. Warner Bros. earlier said its tests with two cable television operators proved worries about DVD sales unfounded, and 20th Century Fox said it will release certain films simultaneously on DVD and for rental via cable and online.
At the same time, Disney and Universal Studios are shortening the period between a film's release on DVD and its availability for rental on cable or the Internet. Disney last year shortened the gap to 15 days from 45 days for selected films such as "National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets," while Universal cut the lag to 29 days from 45 days.
Such experimentation is part of a series of studio initiatives to pump up revenue from movies after they have left the theater, at a time when double-digit growth of DVD sales has become a thing of the past.
DVD sales and rentals account for more than half of Hollywood's revenue, but the home-video market in the country peaked in 2004 and has declined every year since. Industry analysts project that revenue will fall 500 million U.S. dollars this year to 23.6 billion dollars.
Meanwhile, Hollywood is also looking for the next top home-entertainment model, as some studios now want to open a new window for business -- offering high-definition version of movies for rental viewing in the home ahead of their DVD release, if in-home copying could be prevented legally.
Studios are banking on a combination of new technologies, including video on demand, digital downloads and next-generation DVDs, to supplant their traditional DVD cash cow.
Earlier this year Warner Bros. dropped its long-time support for Toshiba's HD DVD disc and converted to Sony's Blu-ray disc, virtually bringing an end to the lingering war of future high-definition video format.
The entertainment industry's decision to unite behind a single standard, together with the availability of less expensive Blu-ray players this month, should help to reverse declining DVD sales this year and return them to growth by 2009, studios executives said.
Analysts estimate that the high-definition Blu-ray disc will partially replace the traditional DVD and account for more than half of an estimated 26-billion-dollar home video market in the United States within four years.
Source: Xinhua
|
Comment
Tell A Friend
Print Format
Save Article