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EventReview
iHollywood Forum -"Video on Demand and Pay per View: Making Money from
On-Demand Content"
West Hollywood, CA
May 30, 2002
[itvt] Issue 4.52 6/4/02
By Astrid Edwards
Last Thursday evening, [itvt] attended an iHollywood Forum event,
entitled "Video on Demand and Pay per View: Making Money from
On-Demand Content," at the Wyndham Bel Age Hotel in West
Hollywood, Calif. Speakers represented Charter, NASCAR, Playboy,
TVN Entertainment, Blue Falcon, and Starz Encore (the event's main
sponsor). The audience seemed to consist of a mixture of ITV people
and traditional broadcasters.
The evening's proceedings began with a keynote presentation by
Stephan Shelanski, SVP of programming at Starz Encore. He explained
why his company believes that the subscription (i.e. SVOD) rather than
the transactional (i.e. per-per-view VOD) model will eventually dominate
the on-demand environment, and why it believes movies will continue to
constitute the bulk of the content on offer. Among the key points of his
presentation:
- consumers like predictable, monthly bills. In fact, because of this, even
some video stores are now starting to move to a subscription model;
- movies have a built-in advantage over other on-demand content as
they benefit from all the publicity work that goes into their theatrical release;
- surveys show that even movie-sated DBS customers would like more
movie choices;
- the highest level of interest in SVOD comes from current subscribers to
pay-TV movie channels;
- in all its deals with its "movie partners," Starz Encore insists on acquiring
full and exclusive SVOD rights for 6 to 9 years, with price protection against VOD;
- whereas usage of linear channels "spikes" only at prime time, SVOD
services enjoy spikes throughout the day: one very noticeable spike
consistently occurs mid-afternoon, presumably because children are
returning from school at that time.
In response to questions from the audience, Shelanski said that Starz
Encore's on-demand subscriber numbers are "in the tens of thousands,"
and that the company is working with cable operators to educate consumers
about SVOD. He was unable to provide figures on SVOD and VOD
churn rates, and said that the company has no plans to pursue other
content besides movies (though he did mention in his presentation that
it supplements its on-demand movie offerings with behind-the-scenes
footage, DVD bonus material, and other movie-related content).
The 2nd half of the event featured moderator, Michael Stroud
(iHollywood's founder) and 6 panelists: 1) Jeffrey Pollack, managing
director of new media at NASCAR; 2) Greg DePrez, VP of SVOD for
Starz Encore; 3) Jay Haynes, CEO of Blue Falcon Networks; 4) Tom
Schaeffer, SVP of operations, Western Region, at Charter; 5) Bill
Furrelle, VP, eastern division, at Playboy Entertainment Group; and
6) Ian Aaron, CEO of TVN Entertainment.
Among the observations made by the panelists:
- Jeffrey Pollack argued that while VOD has enormous potential,
the importance of live broadcast to sports programming cannot be
overlooked ("free TV is NASCAR's killer app"). However, he stressed
that NASCAR, while convinced that linear TV will always be essential
to its business model, is interested in repurposing its content for on-demand
environments ("the more media we create for our audience, the more they
consume").
- Greg DePrez observed that, even in an 'everything-on-demand' TV
universe, linear channels will still have an important role to play in
promoting on-demand offerings. He argued that sponsors and the
advertising industry will eventually come to terms with VOD--while
their ads will reach fewer viewers in an everything-on-demand environment,
those viewers will be (presumably thanks to emerging ad-targeting and
customization technologies) "the right viewers." He also cited focus-group
surveys that show that viewers feel Starz' SVOD offerings increase the
value of its movie packages by 40-60%, and said that it will eventually be
possible to price those offerings to fully reflect this perceived value.
- Jay Haynes said that the "window" system which currently governs
the licensing of movie content is likely to undergo dramatic change, noting
that a million copies of the latest Star Wars movie were downloaded on the
Internet even before its theatrical release. He observed that content providers
would have to come to terms with a recent ruling from the Dutch supreme
court which found that the file-sharing system, Kazaa, is legal--the ruling, he
argued, would likely lead to a rapid growth of such distributed systems (under
Dutch jurisdiction but globally accessible). In response to a question from the
moderator about the efficacy of offering on-demand content over the PC, he
pointed out that a key demographic--college students--is more likely to own
a PC than a television, and that home gateways will allow other viewers to
watch on-demand content from the Internet on their TV sets.
- Tom Schaeffer said that "diversification"--i.e. other content than just
movies--will be key to the success of VOD, and that the medium will open
up considerable "opportunity for creativity," as increased server capacity "will
allow us to put on anything our customers want." Like DePrez, he argued that
advertisers will have to come to terms with on-demand technologies ("They are
going to have to get more creative--they can't rely on captive audiences any
more").
- Bill Furrelle said that Playboy had been approached by several MSO's who
would "like us to turn off our linear offerings and go entirely to on-demand."
He said he saw a point, perhaps 7 years down the road, when Playboy might
migrate entirely to an on-demand model.
- Ian Aaron stressed that well-branded virtual channels which showcase
niche-oriented content (such as "UNION* The Boardriding Channel," TVN's
joint project with boarding apparel manufacturer, Quiksilver) will play an
important role in the development of VOD. He also questioned whether
consumers will feel any need to purchase DVR devices as more and more
of their favorite content becomes available on-demand (24 basic cable
networks are planning to offer their content on-demand by the end of the
year).
Overall, the event presented a pretty good overview of a large and complex
topic in 2 hours. A substantial portion of the audience left before the end, but
that probably had more to do with the uncomfortable seating than with any
deficiency in the program itself. Similar events are planned in San Francisco
and New York over the next few weeks.
***
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