Apple's iTunes may have upper hand in race for streaming movies still in theaters
Apple's iTunes will probably be a first-choice destination if and when studios and exhibitors finally agree on a window for "premium" video-on-demand -- that is, streaming while a movie is still in theaters, according to a report.
This is because they'd likely rather place their trust in a service they already partner with, sources told Business Insider. iTunes also typically gets the first crack at digital home viewing, including rentals and downloads.
"If an earlier window gets put in place, iTunes would probably have some say in being part of the earlier window," one source commented.
A senior box office analyst with Exhibitor Relations, Jeff Bock, argued that iTunes would be the "logical choice," since "it's what everybody has." He further suggested that Screening Room -- a service founded by Napster creator Sean Parker, with stakeholders like Steven Spielberg, J.J. Abrams, and Peter Jackson -- is liable to be cut out of the PVOD segment "if the price point is right," since nobody automatically needs the company and it will have to play catch-up with infrastructure.
In December a report said that Apple was actively pursuing early-access streaming in talks with studios. Now as then, though, the main issue is when to allow PVOD after a movie's premiere. The minimum is liable to be after the first two weeks, since that's when both studios and exhibitors reap most of a film's revenue.
There are also concerns about increased piracy, and it's possible that PVOD could be relegated to "the dark zone," the period during which movies are out of most first-run theaters but aren't yet on disc or online. As things stand, theaters normally have a 90-day exclusivity on new titles.
Another unresolved problem is pricing. While Screening Room has been angling for $50 -- to be split with studios, distributors, and theaters, and including a bonus pair of theatrical tickets -- Fox and Warner Bros. have reportedly been considering $30, with the downside of a longer 30-day wait. Disney, a close Apple partner, has allegedly been resistant to offering PVOD at all, likely because it owns major franchises such as "Star Wars" and the Marvel films, which often enjoy long theatrical runs.
This is because they'd likely rather place their trust in a service they already partner with, sources told Business Insider. iTunes also typically gets the first crack at digital home viewing, including rentals and downloads.
"If an earlier window gets put in place, iTunes would probably have some say in being part of the earlier window," one source commented.
A senior box office analyst with Exhibitor Relations, Jeff Bock, argued that iTunes would be the "logical choice," since "it's what everybody has." He further suggested that Screening Room -- a service founded by Napster creator Sean Parker, with stakeholders like Steven Spielberg, J.J. Abrams, and Peter Jackson -- is liable to be cut out of the PVOD segment "if the price point is right," since nobody automatically needs the company and it will have to play catch-up with infrastructure.
In December a report said that Apple was actively pursuing early-access streaming in talks with studios. Now as then, though, the main issue is when to allow PVOD after a movie's premiere. The minimum is liable to be after the first two weeks, since that's when both studios and exhibitors reap most of a film's revenue.
There are also concerns about increased piracy, and it's possible that PVOD could be relegated to "the dark zone," the period during which movies are out of most first-run theaters but aren't yet on disc or online. As things stand, theaters normally have a 90-day exclusivity on new titles.
Another unresolved problem is pricing. While Screening Room has been angling for $50 -- to be split with studios, distributors, and theaters, and including a bonus pair of theatrical tickets -- Fox and Warner Bros. have reportedly been considering $30, with the downside of a longer 30-day wait. Disney, a close Apple partner, has allegedly been resistant to offering PVOD at all, likely because it owns major franchises such as "Star Wars" and the Marvel films, which often enjoy long theatrical runs.
Comments
I would pay as much as $30-50, assuming it is within 2 weeks of theatrical release.
For me of course, this would replace my going to the theatre. I wouldn't be seeing any "more" movies than normal. I really hope that by the time The Last Jedi comes out at the end of this year, this will be a thing.
Go onto Netflix or another movie streaming service. Where there are always a few big "seeds", most of the movies are the equivalent of b-movies of the 1950's-1980's - movies made cheaply overseas that are intended to confuse consumers into thinking they're better known movies. This is what the movie industry will become if we go day and date.
Unless you have a multi-million dollar home theatre that looks like Radio City Music Hall, you cannot replicate a quality theater experience in the home (and maybe not even then). You might have an experience that's "good enough", but it's not the same. And then there's the difference between seeing a movie with three people and seeing a movie as a group experience. I would maintain that the original Star Wars would not have been as successful and culturally significant as it was if it hadn't played in large movie theaters (many large 70mm theaters) where many people saw the film with a thousand other people. Certain experiences are meant to be shared. Rock concerts and popcorn movies are among them. If you live in a small town and all you have is a badly run cinder-block movie theater with lousy projection and sound, I can understand why one would prefer to stay home. But if you've got decent facilities, like the large screen formats or a good Dolby Vision theater, that's a far better experience, IMO.
Certainly there's wonderful convenience to being able to watch almost any film at any time for relatively low cost and in quality unattainable 15 years ago. But we shouldn't kill the theatrical industry in the process. Don't like theaters? Then wait a little longer. It's bad enough that windows are already down to 90 days. It wasn't that along ago that home video had to wait a year or more.
Bill
Time for a new model.
However, I don't see why they would price the rental any more over what it costs to see it once at the cinema?
It's ridiculous that is costs around £45 for two adults with popcorn and a drink to see a movie now a days.
They justify the price increase due to the fact that the numbers of people coming to the cinema keeps dropping.
Well no shit, you are a rip off and people know it.
However, if it's too long a delay then I'll just wait until it's available as a regular rental. So if they PVOD date is more than 6 weeks since release there's a high chance I won't pay even $30. I wouldn't say never but more than likely I'll hold out.
Today, to be a music star you have to be able to sing at C over high C, dance complex choreography and be model good looking.
There are no parallels to the music industry in the movie business. Quickly made, cheap, and very bad movies will always be with us, pay per view or not, as they always have. Quality movies are few and far between.
i can remember dinner and a movie for two costing under $20, and the theater itself was a work of, someplace that special. Today theaters are warehouses, with 15 - 20 screens showing the same lungful fighting, half naked girls, foul language, exploding cars, machine gun battles formulas, pushing popcorn at $10 a bucket, where the most expensive cost of producing it is the bucket it comes in. Forget $20 for a night out. Today it's more like $120. Who wants to shell out monies like that to see another car exploding movie?
If Theaters want to thrive, let them reinvent themselves to offer a better overall customer experience, and probably at a lower price. The solution is not to put artificial barriers like a 90-day or even a 1-day exclusivity window. You do realize that any artificially set barrier like this is anti-competitive and restrictive and therefore by definition unfair, right?
And to say that iTunes has destroyed the music business - yeah right. Probably the music business would be better off the way it was in 2002, with loads of piracy, and no one bothering to pay for anything. Again, the music business has reinvented itself in many ways. Large labels are getting irrelevant, because independent music producers now have pretty much a level playing field. The executives of the industry don't call the shots nearly as much as they used to - and the musicians are much more in control of their own destiny. Customers pay for what they want to listen, instead of being forced to pay for crap just to get one song they like!
Personally, I don't buy any junk food at the movie theater. I don't understand people who can't go 2 1/2 hours without eating. But the reason why that popcorn costs $10 is because in the early weeks of a film, most theaters get as little as 5% of the gross on the ticket. And since these days, with windows so short, there are only "early weeks" of a film for most movies, the money has to be made in concessions. Compared to most concert arenas, sports stadiums and convention centers, the food at movie theaters is actually a bargain (although still ridiculous).
There are plenty of great, serious films that are not vulgar and violent. The problem is that most people don't bother to see them. Everyone complains about the comic book and superhero movies and their sequels, but those are the movies that fill the seats. It all has to do with the dumbing down of America and elsewhere. When I was in my 20's, we went to see Truffaut and Woody Allen movies. Movies like that are lucky to generate $200,000 from theatrical distribution today. But they do exist and there are plenty of art houses that play them if you live in a place that supports them. But few go.
There were still a few quality roadshow and movie palace theaters open in the 1970s, but by the 1980's-1990's, the experience for most people was either in run-down old theaters or in ugly cinderblock shopping mall new theaters. I would contend that the best of today's theaters are far superior experiences to that era (except for the best of that era's 70mm theaters) with far better seats, better projection (especially when dual-projector laser is used) and better sound (Dolby Atmos, etc.) than most people experienced in the real world back then. Outside of first run theaters in big cities, most consumers experienced hand-me-down scratched and dirty prints with missing frames and poorly maintained projectors with flutter, weave, out-of-sync shutters, etc. Some theaters even purposely dimmed projection bulbs to save electricity. Even when digital sound came along, theaters that used DTS frequently found that the previous theater didn't bother to include the DTS discs and so they played the film in analog optical. We've become so used to digital projection that we forget that we used to watch films with black specks and roller scratches throughout and an image that jumped around the screen and was usually only focused and bright in the center. Digital projection certainly has some disadvantages over the best of analog, but very few people ever saw the best. Today, at the very least, we get rock-steady, evenly lit, absolutely clean images.
As far as the music business is concerned, while I agree that the overall quality has declined, there's still plenty of good music and to maintain that there hasn't been any good music in decades is ludicrous. What's killed the music business is the decline of quality radio, the return of the single as the dominant format (which was economically unsustainable unless artists returned to recording 3 songs in a four-hour session as they did in the pre-Beatles '60's) and more recently, the decline of even downloads in favor of streaming, which has killed revenue to labels and artists. And also the consumer perception that music has no value and so people are unwilling to pay for it, which is exactly what will happen to movies if we lose the theaters, which we will if the industry selfishly goes day-and-date.