Warner Brothers Looking to Extend DVD Rental Window to 56 Days
Warner Brothers was the first studio to push Netflix, Redbox, and Blockbuster into agreements requiring a 28 day window on rentals from the date that DVDs go on sale. When Netflix, the first domino to fall, signed on, Netflix claimed that Warner Brothers would be providing better streaming options in return. How well this worked out is debatable, but there won’t be any such justifications this time as Warner Brothers is not planning on offering anyone anything in exchange for signing on to a new agreement except a 56 day rental window. Warner Brothers and the other studios have argued that the rental window is necessary to protect DVD sales. Given that the 28 day window hasn’t done much to improve DVD sales, one has to wonder how doubling the window is going to help. As it is, I expect most people who rent rather than buy have long since stopped paying attention to the retail release date altogether.
The move is part of Hollywood’s ongoing campaign to bolster flagging DVD sales, and sources tell me the new deal is supposed to be announced at next week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Warner Brothers executives have already talked publicly about extending the current window.
AllThingsD
I’m part of the group
I’m part of the group mentioned that completely ignores the release date. Unless I get a new release the week it comes out via NetFlix, I usually end up on a waiting list that could delay getting the movie for up to two months. Another 28 days isn’t going to make me want to go out and buy a hard copy of any movie on disc. The current 28-day delay has had zero imapct on my rental activities. I just wait until a title becomes available and then push it to the top of my queue. The whole reason I rent is so I don’t have to deal with a physical library of DVDs or BD discs that take up a lot of space.
+1I have never bought a disc
+1
I have never bought a disc because I couldn’t rent it. In fact, I usually only buy the movie after renting it to make sure it’s not a POS.
This is one of those
This is one of those decisions which are made by people in upper management positions which have no clue about how their business, let alone their customer, operates.
“I have an idea for bringing in more money. Let’s LIMIT who, where, and how our product can be purchased!”
“Great idea, boss!”
skirge01 wrote:
This is one
[quote=skirge01]
This is one of those decisions which are made by people in upper management positions which have no clue about how their business, let alone their customer, operates.
“I have an idea for bringing in more money. Let’s LIMIT who, where, and how our product can be purchased!”
“Great idea, boss!”
[/quote]
You nailed it. …and that mentality isn’t limited to the entertainment bussiness either, it’s everywhere.
If you’ve looked at their
If you’ve looked at their business results, the disc release window did increase their sales. Remember, it only takes a small percentage of consumers buying at the higher margin initial release prices to make this worthwhile. Of course, if you’re talking mass market running in to buy, it’s not happening/going to happen, but that’s not the point.
Aaron Ledger wrote:If you’ve
[quote=Aaron Ledger]
If you’ve looked at their business results, the disc release window did increase their sales. Remember, it only takes a small percentage of consumers buying at the higher margin initial release prices to make this worthwhile. Of course, if you’re talking mass market running in to buy, it’s not happening/going to happen, but that’s not the point.
[/quote]
I admit, I haven’t looked at their sales results. But, my question is exactly WHERE did they see an increase in sales? Who was doing the purchasing? Was it the consumer? Or, was it Netflix, Redbox, or other outfits which were impacted (positively or negatively) by the 28 day delay? It’s possible Redbox and Netflix purchased a bunch up front, to be ready for the potential demand. Also, wasn’t Blockbuster allowed to rent during these 28 days? In theory, wouldn’t that mean that there would be more demand for these releases from Blockbuster customers, thereby causing Blockbuster to purchase more for rentals?
Unless they’ve actually seen that actual consumers like us are purchasing more during these 28 days, this is a failure.
I stopped going to movie
I stopped going to movie theaters because of the price difference between 1 ticket vs 1 month of Netflix Blu-rays. Other than a few big bodda-boom films that look awesome on bigger screens, my home theater works for everything I want to see. As a result, I don’t even pay attention to release dates for theaters, yet alone discs.
As for the new longer window, there isn’t any law forcing Netflix, Redbox, etc to wait to these extra days. If the wait period becomes less valuable than than paying slightly more per disc from other sources, WB might lose even their current 28 day window. It’s unlikely Netflix would drop the deal, just because they want to move to streaming and will likely use the extra wait deal to leverage more for that. But I could see Redbox killing the wait period entirely.