• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, February 12, 2007

In an age of new digital video venues, the almost forgotten TV business -- pay-per-view -- is finally getting two things it has always wanted: attention from movie studios and an even playing field.

Comcast Corp. has convinced five of the six major studios to allow it to test the waters in debuting PPV movies on the same day DVDs are available at video stores.

Typically cable operators had to wait from 30 to 60 days after DVDs went on sale to begin offering PPV movies. For decades operators claimed this delayed TV window was an unfair advantage, as DVD store retailers always had a leg up.

The studios now have changed their minds -- at least for Comcast's two-city test in Denver and Pittsburgh. It is not because they are suddenly good guys. It's because the movie studios' DVD rental business -- once a major force -- is now limping along.

DVD retailers like Blockbuster Video aren't grumbling yet. Still, for Blockbuster and others the future is coming, and they are already looking to shift gears -- going after companies like Netflix that send videos by mail directly to consumers and, in the future, will send them to consumers through electronic means.

It's not that TV consumers don't like to stomp around in real stores. Increasingly customers are looking to buy, not rent, DVDs. That means going to general market retailers such as Wal-Mart and Target. This business (though leveling off a bit last year) continues to climb against the DVD rental business.

Movie studios are still big money-making machines. But progressively more of this money comes from increasing ticket prices against fewer tent-pole movies. Studios are more dependent on the home video market than ever before.

Movie studios seem to be on the same track as TV networks were a year ago -- cautiously looking to perhaps alter the financial relationship of their longtime business partners, home video retailers and theater owners.

TV networks have already figured out their new future media plan: cut their affiliates, their stations, into new digital platform deals. What will movie studios do?