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 Video on Demand
Disney and NewsCorp team up
December 2001 - January 2002
By Tony Morbin
Walt Disney Company and News Corporation plan to establish a joint venture company to launch a broadband entertainment content on-demand service called Movies.com. The service will be available to US consumers who have enhanced cable systems with on-demand capabilities, as well as to those with broadband Internet access. Disney and News Corp expect 10 million US homes to have suitable cable or internet connections by next year, when the service will be launched.

The joint venture will enter into video-on-demand (VOD) distribution agreements with The Walt Disney Studios, Twentieth Century Fox and Miramax Films. New releases from these studios will then be made available to Movies.com on an exclusive basis for a limited time ahead of the traditional pay-per-view window.

In addition, the service will offer movies from the Disney and Fox film libraries.

Movies.com currently is a Disney-operated motion picture information site. The new service is expected to launch at the same Web address in early 2002.

The September Disney and Fox announcement came less than a month after the other five major film studios revealed their own plans for a VOD movie service.

It was August 16 when Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Universal Studios and Warner Bros said they would set up a joint venture to digitally deliver recently released films, as well as content from their video libraries, to broadband Internet users in the United States.