IP Democracy: For Movies, the Web is Not a Mass Medium

It’s early days and getting consumers to buy movies over the Internet is still a hard-sell. That was one basic message that flowed from a group of top Internet entertainment executives speaking today at an audio event hosted by IP Media Monitor/Emerging Media Dynamics. (Disclosure: my publication/my company).

“I think we’re seeing real experimentation and excitement in the ad-supported delivery of television,” over the Internet, Jim Ramo, CEO of studio-backed consortium Movielink, said. “That’s not the case with movies, which are tending to take on a store or purchase approach.”

“It’s sort of ironic. The Internet, which today primarily talks to PCs, is still not yet a mass market product because the PC is the primary display and that’s still constraining long-form video on the web,” Ramo added. “Clearly it’s not a mass market product until you get it to the TV.”

“Right now we are in the very nascent stages in tools and products available to consumers to access Internet content. There aren’t a large number of devices where consumers can enjoy Internet content,” Roman Arzhintar, VP of Strategic Development and General Counsel of Guba.com, said.

The Internet as a movie distribution medium will only take off once content delivered over the web is viewable on a TV set, Josh Freeman, AOL Video Strategy VP, said. “After you get that, I think you’ll get an increase in consumption by consumers.” The studios, which until recently were only reluctantly pursuing web distribution of films, will become more willing Internet merchants once the content is easily transferred to the TV. “The studios will start unlocking more value,” he said, referring to the limited amount of high-value content the studios put on the Internet.

The studios are, not surprisingly, moving slowly in getting web-based movie distribution off the ground, although they are a lot more eager to experiment with the Internet than they ever have been. “It’s not easy to deal with the Hollywood studios,” Ramo said. “They each have their own individual different desires and strategic initiatives and plans as to what they’re going to do. Fundamentally they all want do business and they all want to license their movies and they have people to do that. But those people are relatively few and they’re worldwide and they’re very busy.”

But the motion picture guys can’t escape the Internet and have come around to viewing the web as another marketplace. “It’s gotten easier. The job we had this year was significantly easier than the job Jim [Ramo] had several years ago [when Movielink launched],” Freeman said.

“The studios have a strong interest in controlling the outlets for their content. They are going to be less conservative going forward but not be completely anarchistic about it,” Arzhintar said. Still, the studios aren’t going to get trapped into relying on only a handful of web-based companies to distribute their products either.

“I think the studios are going to be very careful about anointing one category killer the way we’ve seen in music or in cable with HBO or retailers with DVDs,” Ramo said.

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on October 4, 2006 4:21 PM to IP Democracy