Independent NDM case study: Up-to-the-minute web research
The third research task for your New/Digital Media independent case study is find recent online articles about your institution and industry that give you up-to-the-minute examples, statistics and quotes.
- According to the British Video Association, the market for
legal downloads of films more than doubled from £35m to £78m in 2010, while
rental-style digital services grew in value by £5m to £205m last year
- The film industry's hope is that the growing number of legal
sites offering affordable (and even free) downloading and streaming of movies
will mean consumers will abandon dodgy filesharing sources, which still account
for the vast majority of downloads.
- Two giant North American cinema chains have decided to disrupt tradition by allowing Paramount Studios to offer a couple of trial titles to home viewers a few weeks after they appear in theatres.
- Exhibitors normally insist on a lengthy window between cinema and home viewing. The perceived wisdom is that people are less likely to go to the cinema if a film is available to watch at home. It’s thought that the rise of VOD services like Netflix has increased viewer expectations about faster availability of home-entertainment titles, an idea that’s caused consternation among exhibitors.
- Netflix’s content acquisition boss Ted Sarandos is a proponent of “day-and-date” releases for independent titles, a system by which films are released on streaming services on the same day as they appear in theatres. Netflix, which recently expanded into film production, will release their homegrown titles using this model.
- Paramount are planning to approach other cinema chains to see if they are willing to take the two films on similar terms. In return, exhibitors will get a cut of the rental revenue for 90 days after the films’ theatrical release.
- “Consumers know theatrical movies from their ‘gotta see it now’ exclusive releases in theaters, but every movie is different, and a one-size-fits-all business model has never made sense,” he said.
- YouTube has reached a deal to screen films from Paramount
Pictures in the US and Canada, meaning the web channel now has agreements with
all six major Hollywood studios bar Twentieth Century Fox.
- The contract means users of the channel will be able to
stream more than 9,000 Paramount titles.
- The channel is seen as a competitor to services such as
Netflix and LoveFilm, along with YouTube, in Britain.
- "Paramount Pictures is one of the biggest movie studios
on the planet,"
- YouTube also has agreements with Sony Pictures
Entertainment, Warner Bros, Universal Pictures and Walt Disney Studios in North
America. The deal with Paramount is all the more remarkable because of the
studio's attempt last October to revive a long-standing $1bn legal battle with
YouTube over allegedly unauthorised clips from TV shows shown on the website.
No verdict has yet been delivered in the case.
- Where once it was eyed suspiciously by the film industry,
YouTube has increasingly been seen as a potential business partner for studios
looking to increase revenue from streaming services, in stark contrast with
file sharing sites.
- The movie industry excels in selling dreams. But since the
dawn of the digital revolution, there is one narrative they've consistently and
conspicuously failed to sell: that piracy is theft and consumers who indulge
ought to feel guilty about it. Recent research by Ipsos suggests that almost
30% of the UK population is active in some form of piracy, either through
streaming content online or buying counterfeit DVDs. Such theft costs the UK
audiovisual industries about £500m a year.
- A study by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) has declared that the market for DVDs and Blu-ray is quickly declining, with the slack taken up by increasingly popular on-demand streaming services like Netflix – which will also overtake cinema box office revenues in the coming years.
- The study says that revenue from electronic home video (ie streaming and downloading films) will outstrip physical media in 2016, and that the market for physical media will drop from $12.2bn now to $8.7bn in 2018. They also predict that in 2017 electronic home video will overtake the traditional cinema as the biggest contributor to total film revenue in the US, reaching a total of $17bn the following year – double the $8.5bn the sector currently generates.
- That's not to say the multiplex is under threat – PwC predict a 16% increase in ticket sales over the next five years. "People still want to go to the movies, especially the big tentpole films," said Cindy McKenzie, managing director of PwC's entertainment, media and communications arm. She also pointed to the cheap and easy distribution allowed by digital media as being a major cost saving: "The amount of money that you're making per transaction may not be the same, but it is cheaper to distribute things digitally."
- Netflix, Amazon Instant Video and the popular US streaming service Hulu are funnelling their growth into ambitious production projects: all have quickly made the jump from mere middlemen to creators of original content, with hits like House of Cards and Arrested Development. Netflix's revenue rose an astonishing 24% in the first quarter of 2014.
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