Paramount flicks to see Blu-ray purchase, DVD rental availability ahead of DVD sale date
By Richard Lawler 
posted July 31st 2009 4:27AM
posted July 31st 2009 4:27AM
posted July 31st 2009 4:27AM
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With only 8% of sales due to Blu-ray vs. DVD, according to this week's Home Media Magazine report, won't this just piss people off that prefer DVDs? I think that this tactic will backfire.
Not according to this weeks HMM report:
http://www.homemediamagazine.com/
Blu-ray did 16% and $35.21 Million in revenue. Up 471% from the same week last year.
The Watchmen did 36%
JDS considering that the revenue generated from Blu-ray is $5-10 more per unit sold the revenue numbers are unreliable for true sales numbers, which is units, a number the industry doesn't want to get out, especially when its comparing Blu-ray to DVD. That $35.21m is only equal to about 1.4-1.8m units, in comparison to DVD which averages about 10-15 times that a week at $15, that week your quoting DVD sold about 12m units, that means Blu-ray was at about 11%, which is high for Blu-ray. You might want to double check the Watchmen numbers also, the number crunchers trying to fluff Blu-ray up often ignore single disc editions and only compare like editions (in this case the Director's Cut editions). It may have averaged about 36% against the DVD version of the same edition but many people aren't willing to drop $20-25 on that edition of the DVD when all they want is the movie they saw in the theater.
What this all comes down to is Paramount is trying to increase it's profits from the home video market mainly in the Blu-ray and DVD rentals which are far more profitable than DVD purchases anymore because Blu-ray is extremely marked up and people are renting DVD more than buying now due to lack of interest in owning disc formats anymore. Last time I check Blu-ray is now just slightly more costly than DVD is to produce, but it is still marked up by 10-20% over DVD's SRP.
I understand WHY they're doing it I just don't see how they think it'll have any sort of impact when they test it on movies like this.
It will make an impact because they did this before in the DVD era... You could get the DVD's before VHS was available for sale. It did help in making a push towards people buying a DVD player over VHS. Also it also signifies finality in a sense.
If people start believing that studios are "sort of" leaving DVD behind, they might decide to upgrade to Blu.
I personally think that it won't make the same difference then because DVD and Blu-ray are different from what VHS and DVD were.
And besides, true movie lovers most likely already have blu-ray, will probably just rent the dvd, or wait till the DVD is released if they really need it.
Though why they chose a movie like Dance Flick is beyond me... I can see if they chose a movie like Star Trek, Terminator: Salvation, or Xmen: Wolverine that would really cause a shock to dvd owners and maybe make them think about going blu.
@HC - Yeah, that's what I was trying to say. We all know they are doing it in the hopes to get people to buy blu-ray. For some reason they don't understand that it's the amazing movies they have to do it with.
Take Star Trek for instance. Chances are that people who are even remotely on the fence about going blu-ray and really loved this movie (which would be just about anyone who saw it) would do it because they wouldn't want to wait two months for the DVD release.
Granted, people who don't plan on changing will be ticked but guess what...2 months when it comes out on DVD they'd still buy it so the studio wouldn't really lose out much at all in my opinion. The average person would be ticked but not boycott a studio or even refuse to buy a movie they liked because of it.
That's a sucker move for me. Why alienate the 90% of movie watchers who still use DVD.
Blu ray should be sold on its own merits rather than pushing it down people's throats.
that's kinda what i was thinking about to get a bd drive for my htpc but still if the format is that great then why not let it do it's thing and people will come around when they can afford/want to.
That is why they are using non popular movies. How many people care to go out and buy Dance Flick on DVD VS just renting it to see it? If they were doing that with oh lets say, Star Trek, they would be total morons.
This is another stupid move by an arrogant studio. If they really want to test the market to see if this works, why would they choose this movie? Who honestly really cares about this movie that they would get a blu ray player for it?
I honestly hope people do not fall for this. Usually I don't say this, but I feel that DVD has not yet run it's course and that studios/companies are trying to force blu ray on us too hard just to make a buck and that we need to stop them. How many times do we need to change formats? As soon as blu ray becomes mainstream you know it's going to change again - more towards downloadable, which I hope never takes off because I want to have my physical copy. Downloadable is just going to come with insane amounts of DRM which would allow a stuido to pull the plug on you being able to watch it anytime they want. Forget that.
If you view the site non-mobile on the iPhone, the title of the movie looks different. The LI in Flick look like a U. I had to do a double take.
I don't think that is by accident...
Actually, they did this with DVD when the format was young. For the longest time, a new movie would come out on DVD for sale, and rental only for VHS. While it did piss some of those people off, it also gave many of them the nudge they needed to upgrade.
Really, if you're that psyched about Dance Flick or Snow White, Wal-Mart's got a $98 BD Player that's probably perfect for you...
Actually the VHS continued to be shipped for sale back at the time you're stating, stores stopped carrying them because people weren't buying them and the shelf space was more valuable than the VHS consumers, whom mostly rented by the time it seemed like this happened to VHS, even Wal-mart cut back on the shelf space they allotted for VHS movies because the consumers just weren't buying them anymore. Where as right now more shelf space is allotted to DVD than was ever given to VHS, and Blu-ray is usually limited to a few shelves.
Sounds great! I'm not sure about the 4-8 weeks timeline, though. I think one or two weeks would be sufficient for now. I want BD to take off, but 2 months is a terrible way to treat loyal DVD users.
I've felt they should have been doing this since the format war STARTED. The one sure way to push a new format on people is to release the older format LATER. Those who are such suckers for buying a movie on disc the moment it comes out WILL move to the new format. I think they should drop standalone DVD sales completely, and just release every title on Blu-ray, with a DVD copy and a digital copy included. It's truly the ONLY way they are going to boost Blu-ray sales to the point that people stop saying Blu-ray is doomed because of download.
All this is going to do is encourage even more people to use bittorrent to get their movies for free. Downloading movies for free is just way too easy and carries no repercussions.
LOL! They're trying to boost sales of Dance Flick by staggering the release dates!? If they gave it away for free, I would take it as a paperweight. Maybe.
And this whole strategy is mildly retarded: instead of rewarding people that upgraded to BD with better special features, they're punishing people that stuck with DVD with late release dates! Dumbasses.
I agree with DavidB, both camps in the format war should have been doing this as soon as it was feasible. That is to say when disc production yields were predictable and player prices were no longer obscene.
It's important to keep in mind that this isn't about us (the consumer), it's about the studios maximizing their profit. They make more selling BD/DVD rental copies and BD retail than DVD retail, so as long as they can make more off the former while holding back the latter they'll do it. I'm sure they've got a bunch of marketing pros working out just where the sweet spot is timing wise.
And as I as I'm concerned, their Blu-ray can sit on the shelves. I'm not buying into their blackmail!
This latest earnings report from Paramount would seem to indicate that Blu-ray sales are down, not up. Both Warner Bros and Disney reported similar losses, but the Paramount report was interesting in that it mentioned losses for Blu-ray explicitly.
From Studio Briefing news:
A flood of quarterly earnings reports from the major media conglomerates is beginning to roll in, and none of them is likely to attract much investor interest. Viacom's hit early today, a bleak report indicating a 32-percent plunge in profit from the comparable quarter a year ago. Its Paramount unit was responsible for the lion's share of that figure as it reported a loss of $25 million, versus a profit of $86 million in last year's quarter. DVD and Blu-ray sales were down 29 percent.
Considering how few movies are actually worth buying, this rental only DVD launch should save people some money.
I think they just want you to rent and rip it
This kind of tactic worked for VHS vs DVD for two reasons:
1. VHS was objectively worse in every way to DVD (DVD was more reliable, had a higher quality picture, and was cheaper to make than VHS. Only the higher quality part is true for BD),
2. Broadband Internet barely existed.
How do you make sure a movie is widely pirated in 2009? Answer: you make it unavailable for the vast majority of people who want to buy it, while making it possible for a minority to buy copies in a different format, rip it, and distribute it either over the Internet or via the various networks of dubious pirate DVD pressing groups.
This isn't going to increase sales of Blu-ray so much as it's going to increase piracy. Great idea Paramount, great idea.
What a bunch of A-holes.
It's only a month or two later. The people that absolutely have to buy it sooner probably already own a BD player.
The problem I see is that this splits up the marketing. It's tough to market just the BD, any money spent marketing that ahead of DVD would be money taken from the combined release of BD/DVD/iTunes/etc. I just don't see this as a marketing win.
Wow – they are resurrecting rent-though and sell-through pricing, like ole-VHS.
Even MORE incentive to get Netflix and Burn-yer-own.
Nice move, just like expected, media studios use draconian methods and do not understand the marketplace.
The future is NOT on a disk… its convenience. Didn’t Apple with iTunes success teach them anything?
PS – Yes, I have a 1080P system with HDMI (audio & Video) & blu-ray. I also have a 4 terabyte media server. To date I think I’ve plucked in 4 blu-ray movies to watch. Give me a 720p or 1080p rip any-day.
Here is my setup
http://www.shagnow.com/pics/Photos/x360/cabinet1.jpg
I rent mine at blu ray rental blu ray rental