Anne Thompson on Pricing Digital Movies
Anne Thompson of The Hollywood Reporter writes about how studios might price digital movies in the future, selling through merchants like iTunes, Amazon.com, Guba, CinemaNow, etc.
The piece also mentions that Amazon's DVD sales represent about 5% of the studios' total DVD sales, and Wal-Mart represents about 35%. "...But Amazon's share is growing fast," Thompson observes. "With the potential for an enormous inventory, Amazon could wind up being the long tail that wags the movie-download dog."
She quotes Sony executive Ben Feingold, who runs worldwide home entertainment. He seems to be saying that studios are fond of the idea of charging the same price for a digital download as a DVD: "Currently there is basic parity in the electronic or physical landscape. That's what makes sense at this particular time," Feingold says.
And on high-definition downloads, Thompson writes:
What is the right price for a high-resolution movie download? $5? $15? "The studios don't want to figure that out yet," one studio digital executive says, "not until digital downloads make real money, or Wal-Mart wants to get into that business."
The piece also mentions that Amazon's DVD sales represent about 5% of the studios' total DVD sales, and Wal-Mart represents about 35%. "...But Amazon's share is growing fast," Thompson observes. "With the potential for an enormous inventory, Amazon could wind up being the long tail that wags the movie-download dog."
posted by Scott Kirsner at
6:10 PM
1 Comments:
I agree, just not to as frothing a degree, with the above poster - of COURSE the studios want them to be priced equitably, but that is irrational on multiple counts. The ONLY advantages to downloads are the "gimme now" pseudo-instant gratification of not leaving the house but still waiting hours for the movie, and the possible portability of it (laptops). But the deficits are large:
-worse quality than DVD
-no extras
-DRM that limits devices you can watch it on
-the consumer pays the the Internet connection and the storage media for the movie
-and probably more that I'm not even thinking of.
But price parity is NUTS - the digital should cost considerably less.
In much the same way that a purchased iTunes song isn't nearly a match for CD in terms of quality and flexibility, the same arguments apply to downloadable movies.
-mike of hdforindies
By
Mike Curtis, at 10:46 PM
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