Everybody knew this was coming, but today it’s official: the nation’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart, is now a major seller of downloadable movies through a pact with all six major Hollywood studios, the first online film merchant to land all the majors. The discount chain giant is selling as of now via its web site films and TV shows from Disney, Warner Brothers, Paramount, Sony, 20th Century Fox and Universal.
Although it’s going up against a bevy of competitors, including Apple, CinemaNow, MovieLink, Guba and at least a dozen other online film retailers (with Apple dominating the market with a 76% market share this year, according to my calculations), Wal-Mart has a library of 3,000 choices and is offering the downloads at a slight discount when compared to other sites ($14.88 for “Superman Returns” compared to $14.95 for the same film at CinemaNow.)
Moreover, the company hopes to bundle the downloads with DVD sales, potentially garnering more net revenue per customer. Most other web video download sites don’t offer this two-fer option.
Like most of its competitors, Wal-Mart is offering the downloads for viewing on PCs — and the site doesn’t list an option for burning the videos to DVD. Until online film distributors offer users the option of watching feature-length films somewhere else aside from their desktops or laptops, don’t expect this to be a big business for Wal-Mart or any other online film seller.
Cynthia Brumfield at 8:03 AM|Comments(0)
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