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demand through PCs
Backed by Disney and Sony and their libraries
By David Everitt
The collapse of all those dot.coms lately hasn’t really helped the whole idea of the PC as an entertainment device, as an alternative to your TV.
Still, some entertainment people haven’t quite given up on the concept. And they intend to use that idea to compete with the cable industry.
Cable operators keep talking about video on demand--VOD--as their next big thing. But Sony Pictures isn’t so sure about that.
Rather than feed the cable-VOD pipeline with its valuable inventory of movies and TV shows, the studio plans to deliver its content, on demand, over the internet to people’s computers.
Disney has also talked about bypassing cable in this way. Together, these two Hollywood powerhouses control an awful lot of material that the public would want to see, but is this really the way people want to see it?
Disney hasn’t elaborated much on what it intends to do in this area. Sony has also been pretty vague, but it should start its internet-VOD project some time this year, according to Don Levy, vice president of marketing and communications at Sony Pictures Digital Entertainment.
"We recognize," says Levy, "that there is an audience on the internet that has expressed an interest in accessing entertainment on the web, and they will increasingly access entertainment media. We’re interested in offering consumers that opportunity."
People can already see Sony products like "Charlie’s Angels" and "Dawson’s Creek" on TV or on tape and DVD.
Are they ready to shift over to their computers to see this stuff?
Some analysts have their doubts. Darren von Behren of Hoak Breedlove says that the potential of video on demand over PCs is "pretty limited."
One issue is technical.
"Broadband right now is offering 300 kilobits, and you need 700 kilobits or more to access this type of entertainment product. Once broadband gets into megabit and above, there can be a market there, but still it will probably be dwarfed by cable."
He points out that, in five years, digital cable could be reaching 33 million households, opening the door to a large potential market for cable VOD. He adds that even 10 to 20 million digital-cable households could be enough to make video on demand a significant cable revenue source.
Josh Wise, digital media analyst for Allied Business Intelligence, stresses that the problem with VOD on the computer "is one of aesthetics. A small, 17-inch computer monitor is not the best way to watch this sort of thing. I don’t think most consumers are going to gather around the computer with popcorn to watch a movie."
Levy answers this concern by drawing an analogy to the business of music over the web, something that many observers were skeptical about two or three years ago.
"But there is a substantial audience that has turned the PC into their primary listening device," he says.
One difference though: the trend for music-playing devices has been to make them more compact, so it makes sense to incorporate music-listening into PCs, but the trend in home-movie watching has been to make the equipment bigger and more theater-like.
The other side of this whole issue is the effect that these computer-VOD ventures will have on the rollout of cable video on demand.
If cable operators can’t get hold of hit movies from major studios like Sony and Disney, then consumers might not be so eager to pay for this kind of service.
"Yeah, it will slow down cable video on demand," Wise says. "It will cause some confusion, some nuisance. But it probably will be more like a thorn in the side, a little speedbump."
Von Behren believes the effect will only be temporary, because he thinks Sony’s reluctance to play along with cable might not last long.
"I think you’ll see that change," he says. "Sony will come aboard eventually. For the time being, they’re just worried that there might be a business model out there that might make them more money, that might be more direct."
May 10, 2001 © 2001 Media Life
-David Everitt writes about television from Huntington, New York.
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