• Los Angeles Times, Tuesday, February 6, 2007 12 PM

Wal-Mart today becomes the first major retailer to offer downloadable digital movies from all the major Hollywood studios. As the nation's top seller of movies and music--with about 40% of the DVD business--it has the leverage to extract concessions from the studios on products and pricing.

Wal-Mart's online movie store emulates the no-frills atmosphere and pricing of its stores. It undercuts rivals on price, selling downloads of new movie releases for $12.88 to $19.88 and older titles for $7.50. Downloads of TV shows sell for $1.96 an episode.

The store, at http://www.walmart.com/videodownloads, will compete with Apple Inc.'s iTunes store, online retailer Amazon.com's Unbox, premium cable operator Starz Entertainment Media Group's Vongo and lesser-known download services, such as Movielink and CinemaNow. These services are still struggling to find a mainstream audience.

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