Mark Cuban: Let's Make The Customer King...
Mark Cuban has written an interesting article on how to completely reinvent the movie business. This is only part of it:
Why not price a DVD or the PPV at a significant premium for day and date delivery? It’s $29.95 retail if you want to wait 4 to 6 months. If you want to see it the same day its released in theaters, its $39.95 retail. Plus, if we are smart, we will provide a $10 or $15 mail-in rebate against that price if you provide a ticketstub for the movie and a receipt for the PPV or DVD.
The system is obviously broken and he wants is doing something about it. There are some radical ideas in the story, but this guy has the money to try it.
via Slate.
I live in Dallas so I hear something from/about Mark several times a week since he is very visible. The guy has some crazy ideas but when he gets behind something he throws everything at it and works on it until it is done. I love having him as a Mavericks owner.Wait another 10 years and see what he does with HDnet.
Posted by: Evan | October 28, 2005 at 08:57 AM
with DRM coming onstream there will be a welcome change.
what they have found is no one wants to buy a dvd, and even dvd rentals are a falling market.
When I decide to watch something I want to watch it now. Fiber optic (eight mb per second) is already in the market in many metros. mine costs $35 month. that is a full dvd in 4 hours, much faster than Netflix.
Estimates for DRM viewing are a graduated scale equivelent to $1.00 to 0.75 at the equivlent timescale of dvd release. right now you pay Netflix or BBI about $2.00 per disk (average 8/$18) and the studios average about $0.40 per viewing return from netflix/BBI for premium dvd's. so the studios get more money, the customer wuld pay less and get the film faster. Give it three to five years.
Posted by: | October 28, 2005 at 02:24 PM
With or without DRM, I'm not convinced that the studios are ready and willing to sell VOD to the general public on terms equivalent to what we pay Netflix now. They seem more inclined to market it as a premium service for theatre-like prices rather than as a mass-market service. We'll have to wait and see. And while the cost is dropping, network distribution of multi-gigabyte files is still expensive compared to USPS shipping of discs, so they distribution cost advantage is not there yet.
I think what DRM is most likely to do is kill the market for BUYING high-definition DVDs as opposed to renting them. If the piece of plastic they give you only works as long as some web-site lets it, what are you really "buying"?
Posted by: Hunter McDaniel | October 28, 2005 at 05:14 PM
I love his idea; especially for those who have home theater systems. Pay $40 for a DVD, and have 5 or more buddies to watch it. Very worth it if you want the peace of mind of no bratty kids, cell phones, and you get to control the atmosphere. I'd go for this option. Of course, the Video on Demand option is intriguing. I'll be getting a 10Mbps cable modem next week (moving from 3Mbps DSL) and I'm excited at the prospect of downloading a whole bunch of media superfast. I hope it comes online soon!
Posted by: LaWilson | October 28, 2005 at 10:32 PM
A DVD from BestBuy is faster than VOD -- for now. Pretty soon it will all be VOD and the DVD market will be left for afficionados and collectors. As long as VOD is cheap enough (subscribe, like at Netflix) people won't have an issue with not "owning" the content (even if its DRM'd appropriately). I only own about 10% of what I watch anyways. That is, I watch more TV than DVDs I own.
Posted by: Jason | October 29, 2005 at 08:58 AM
DRM = death of freedom. Anyone who buys it is short-sighted and foolish. Save your money. Do not buy into the entertainment industry's lame model of perpetual-lease content delivery. It is no bargain and the price will NEVER come to a reasonable level. The second poster is just a shill living in fantasy land. $0.75 to $1.00 my ass. Try 3-4 times that, minimum. Look how long it took the price of movie rentals to get to a reasonable level. Studios used to charge $80-100 for new movies. (after arguing that the VCR would put them out of business.) It is laughable to think they will sell VOD at a lower price, with less restrictions than online DVD rentals. Get real. They will set the price at the highest level rich suckres will pay. You'll be limited to like 24 hours to watch. If you're lucky, that time starts when you start watching. If you're unlucky, it starts as soon as the file is downloaded, or as soon as downloading begins.
Posted by: | October 29, 2005 at 02:14 PM
"As long as VOD is cheap enough (subscribe, like at Netflix) people won't have an issue with not "owning" the content (even if its DRM'd appropriately)"
We will have a problem even if it's free, as SOME of us are not just mindless consumers - we like being able to MANIPULATE content and remix it and sample it. DRM makes such acts illegal if not technically impossible. Those who don't fear DRM are empty-headed.
Posted by: | October 29, 2005 at 02:18 PM
Keep throttling those customers with unadulterated truth.
Posted by: | November 01, 2005 at 03:18 AM
WTF are you talking about throttling for?
Posted by: | November 01, 2005 at 11:40 AM