Sixty dollars for a new Hollywood movie on your home TV? Cinemark, National Amusements, and other theater chain owners, you had nothing to worry about.
The fact that Universal wanted to
sell the movie "Tower Heist" three weeks after it opened theatrically under a so-called "premium video on demand" window, would have done little to discourage viewers looking to watch it on the big
screen.
No matter. After weeks of threatening talks from theater chain executives, Universal pulled the
test, which was to run in a few Comcast cable markets. Comcast is the majority owner of Universal Studios.
Theater owners should have looked at the research: Where is the consumer rush
here for this movie? Sure, it stars a big cast of well-known male actors, including Ben Stiller, Matthew Broderick, Eddie Murphy, and others. But, c'mon. This is no big glossy "Avatar."
Scores
of theatrical movies seem to come and go. Protesting theater owners feel this is a line in the sand; they want to make it an issue.
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But in anyone's estimation, the so-called premium VOD window
-- one that would give TV viewers the chance of seeing new stuff only a few weeks after it opens in theaters -- doesn't make sense in the real TV time-shifting world, with scores of individual pieces
of content already waiting for viewers to see.
Promoters of premium VOD would tell you a that $60 price tag isn't for the regular consumer, but more for the higher income ones that
can easily afford such perhaps-not-crucial viewing entertainment. Theater owners, these are not your bread-and-butter customers.
Mind you, there's a strong likelihood this won't bring much
more to studios either. How is the studio going to tell the consumer that this is not just a movie -- but a "premium home VOD movie"?
Where was the marketing effort for this? Print ads
in upscale magazines like Vanity Fair? I don't think so. Carving out a new pay TV window is movie studio’s ultimate goal, especially with the collapse of the regular rental and
sell-through DVD home entertainment window.
Movie studios don't spend all that much more when it comes to marketing of DVD releases, instead counting on theatrical marketing, some three months
before. Premium VOD will gain more from theatrical marketing. But odds are it won't be enough.
The nearest to this experiment in TV entertainment is perhaps the $40 to $50 charged for
pay-per-view wrestling events or boxing matches. But at least those are -- in theory -- exclusive entertainment you can't get anywhere else.
One more thing: That big price tag of $60 for a VOD
would have helped traditional theater owners this way: It would have shown what a relative steal a $12 or $13 price tag is for the usual swill movie producers are coming up with.