Link This | Email this | Blog This | Comments (0)

Writers shouldn't write off DVD
December 7, 2007

Note to the Writers Guild: you wrote off DVD too soon.

Hollywood's writers continue to negotiate with the motion picture and TV producers weeks after going on strike. Before the strike even started, however, the writers caved on the issue of going after larger DVD residuals, in the face of dauting studio opposition. Most of the negotiating now centers around "new media" issues such as who gets paid what for both original and repurposed content distributed over the Internet.

The studios say they don't make any money in new media, but the writers believe otherwise, having been convinced so by studio happy talk about downloads and the like pumped out at investor and new media conferences across the universe.
 
Whether the studios make money in Internet distribution or not is not really the point-- since any money they do make is miniscule compared to the $15 billion-plus that represents U.S. DVD sales to consumers each year.  

Even with a flat DVD market and pretty steep Internet growth, digital revenues aren't like to approach packaged media until the writers renegotiate with the studios--two more times!

At this point, it's even unclear how studios will make money from the Internet--pay-per-view? subscriptions? advertising? Several studios right now are even experimenting with delivering digital copies of movies on DVD--something that may only be a bridge system--but a perfect example of why betting on DVD is still safer than betting on new media.

Posted by Marcy Magiera on December 7, 2007 | Comments (0)