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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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