Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Great News: Online Video To Surprise Physical Sales and Rentals

Source:  Engadget, Bloomberg.

You want to know what disruption is like on a huge earthquakesque style?  Revenue from downloads like iTunes and Google Play and streaming services like Netflix and Amazon will surpass sales generated from DVD sales and rentals.  You can be sure the studios as well as any stores, brick-and-mortars or online stores, knew this was coming.   Perhaps, they did not think it would happen this fast.

Only in the last year have I noticed significantly more dicounts and bundles of online movies.  It's typical for Google to offer discounts on select movies but hardly on iTunes. And this year, I'm noticing more price cuts.  I'm guess DVD sales have slowed an Blu-ray has not delivered the content developers and studios to the promised land.

This is significant as we should see more parity in terms of prices and offerings between online versions and physical versions of movies and televison shows.  This will be in part to draw attention to the ease of downloading or streaming videos and not having to go to the stores to pick up a movie or wait for the UPS guy to deliver it. 

To make matters worse, or better depending on who you are, online revenue will also surprise box-office takes by 2017.  This is also signficant largely because skyrocketing prices of movie tickets.  Consider that a ticket will probably cost $15 each, or $20 (maybe more) if you watch it in IMAX or 3D, versus waiting a few months, sometimes weeks, to download and own it and watch it in the comfort of your home entertainment studio for about the same price. 

Does this mean we will be able to watch the next Avengers movie with family and friends on your 80" 4K setup?  Not even close.  The studios will have some foks with really good spreadsheet kung fu who will figure out how best for the studios to maximize their profits in light of tech changes and social movie watching behaviors.  It's possible some movies will be available for streaming or purchase the day it hits the theater.  I've often seen indie movies go that route.  This is especially true if there are limited releases. 

However, we never want to say never.  Let's just the studios will listen to their Silicon Valley partners and understand that the best way for us to part with our money is value and convenience. 

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