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Fan on Fox plan
March 20, 2009

Check out this consumer take, from the University of Pittsburth's Pittnews.com on Fox's plan for separate rental and sell-through skews.

Writer Tom VanBuren makes the case that not only is Fox making consumers unhappy by stripping bonus features from rentals, the studio might be hurting its own business. "One of the only reasons someone opts to rent a DVD instead of downloading a movie is to see the special features that might not be available online — without them, the incentive to rent is gone, and Fox is pushing its luck if it thinks people are willing to buy its DVDs just for the features," he writes. "The other reason is that DVDs are the most viable option for watching a movie on your TV, but Apple TV and Xbox Live are making strides in the availability of digital HD media for televisions — once it’s as popular as downloading for computers, both retail and rental outlets are in trouble."

Fox, in fact, is hoping that people will buys its DVDs for the features, Tom. And, for that matter, buy them new, rather than used, because the rental discs sold cheap as used won't be equal to the features-laden new copies. (Used disc $ primarily benefit the retailer, while new DVD $ go mostly to Fox).

As for the idea that the studio's move weakens rental's competitive position with downloads, that might well be part of the plan. Fox isn't the only studio that wouldn't mind pushing the rental biz to cable and the Internet, since there's said to be a bigger margin for the studio there.



 

Posted by Marcy Magiera on March 20, 2009 | Comments (0)