Archive for October, 2009
SW Virginia To Soon See Its First Tourist
Friday, October 30th, 2009‘You Lied!’
Friday, October 30th, 2009The Die Is Cast
Friday, October 30th, 2009Don’t Let Them Fool You
Friday, October 30th, 2009What Are They Afraid Of?
Friday, October 30th, 2009Internet Rehab Complete - the come back
Thursday, October 29th, 2009SRB of Ares 1-x Suffers Dent on Splashdown
Thursday, October 29th, 2009Ares 1 x Off the Pad
Thursday, October 29th, 2009Are You Willing To Risk Your Children’s Future?
Thursday, October 29th, 2009The Law Of Unintended Consequences
Thursday, October 29th, 2009We’re Not Asking For a Freaking Ph.D Dissertation, Barry
Thursday, October 29th, 2009They Blame Rush
Thursday, October 29th, 2009‘May No Soldier Go Unloved’
Thursday, October 29th, 2009Quote of the Day
Thursday, October 29th, 2009Economics 101
Thursday, October 29th, 2009It’s That Time of Year
Wednesday, October 28th, 2009In the Race for the 6th District
Wednesday, October 28th, 2009Movie studios: We don’t want to rent movies
Wednesday, October 28th, 2009An interesting fight is brewing between the movie studios and the movie rental outfits. And as usual, it is upstarts like Netflix and other Internet movies on demand outfits that are causing the problem.
For the movie studios, selling DVDs is extremely profitable. Renting, not so much, because they sell a few copies to a Blockbuster or a Netflix, and the rental company gets all the rental revenue. Until Netflix got a toehold, the studios were not too worried about the rental business because video stores also sold a lot of DVDs. Who has bought a DVD from Netflix? Answer: nobody. And the whole movies on demand via the Internet is making things worse.
Why spend $20 to buy a DVD you might only watch two or three times over the next year? If you can pay Netflix one monthly flat fee and watch the movie on demand as many times as you want at no extra charge, why buy? And that's the rub. The Internet is killing the DVD business. Movies are not much like music. The iTunes store sells millions of songs every day, because a) you can listen to music while doing something else, and b) most of us will listen to a song many times. Movies require a dedicated block of time, and there are few movies anybody wants to watch more than once.
The traditional movie and TV business is collapsing under the weight of an obsolete business model. The studios and content owners, instead of adjusting their business models to fit the new dynamic, are engaged in an ultimately futile attempt to hold back the tide. Their answer to sagging DVD sales? "We won't let you rent movies--we're going to force you to buy them." The plan is to not allow movie rentals for at least a month or two after the DVD is released for sale, on the theory that people just can't wait, and will buy it. There may be a few movie fans that will go for that, but the rest of us will just wait.