Marcy Magiera

InDemand touts day-and-date VOD

I conveyed in a piece last week the position of some studios that VOD, not Redbox, provides the ultimate in consumer convenience, at a price not that much higher than the average kiosk rental.

I was quickly corrected by an email from a loyal retail reader, who pointed out that in his market, Comcast charges $4.99 for VOD, not the $3 to $4 I had tossed out. Maybe that’s why VOD isn’t taking off, he wrote.

Pricing certainly has something to do with demand for VOD, as does the fact, that cable operators don’t market VOD very well. While this may be good news for physical rental stores, it’s frustrating to studios who would like to see more rentals go digital.

This industry discussion must be burning the ears of some VOD execs, if a new press release from InDemand is any indication.

The PPV and VOD provider blasted out a message about the “hit” movies that in September will bow on VOD the same day as DVD, among them State of Play (Universal), Next Day Air (Summit), Observe and Report (Warner), Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (Warner), The Brothers Bloom (Summit) and Away We Go (Universal). Hit being a relative term, of course.

It also named the titles coming to VOD in September, but not on the same day as DVD, and other recent major movies that have been on VOD.

Certainly some marketing effort being put in here.

In addition, VOD providers and cable systems have more to market than in the past—InDemand estimates that more than 100 titles will be day-and-date with physical media this year, up a third from 73 simultaneous releases in 2008. In 2007, only 15 titles were on VOD and DVD at the same time, the company said.

More than 40 million digital cable subscribers had access to VOD at the start of 2009, InDemand said, citing Leichtman Research Group.

That still leaves tens of millions of homes without VOD. Good thing those people can get movies, from Netflix, Redbox, Blockbuster, a local store or via the Internet.

It’s an increasingly fragmented world in terms of movie delivery to consumers. Redbox’s growth doesn’t sit well with everybody. Neither does the growth of VOD. But that’s complexity of the expanded “home entertainment window.”

Posted by Marcy Magiera on August 27, 2009 | Comments (1)