There’s a cooling of consumer interest in purchasing films online, hitting the industry’s hopes that digital sales could eventually replace plummeting DVD revenues. DVDs were Hollywood’s most important revenue stream for most of the past decade, generating more than $20 billion a year. But sales of DVDs have collapsed, falling more than 25 per cent […]
Hulu expects its number of paid subscribers to top one million by summer’s end, earlier than previously forecast, says its chief executive Jason Kilar. He added the company remains on track for $500 million revenue this year. The service currently has about 875,000 subs and this is already over one million if you count those […]
Internet movie subscription service Netflix is to expand to 43 countries throughout Latin America and the Caribbean later this year, offering unlimited TV shows and movies streaming instantly over the Internet to TVs and computers for one monthly subscription price. Netflix has been streaming to US members since 2007, adding the service in Canada in […]
Australian telco Telstra is to axe its BigPond movies rental service. Telstra says the service will end in September. In BigPond’s place comes Quickflix, an Australia-based service, which has acquired BigPond’s library of “DVDs, Blu-Ray discs and equipment”. Telstra will also refer BigPond clients who want to rent online movies to Quickflix. Quickflix Founder and […]
Bulgarian operator M-Tel has expanded its IPTV portfolio with the addition of a movie rental service. Renting a movie for a 24-hour period costs from BGN 1.99 per film. A total of 50 titles are currently available, with M-Tel planning to add 600 new titles a year . All customers who subscribe to M-Tel’s IPTV […]
China’s Youku has agreed with Warner Bros Entertainment’s local joint venture to offer pay per view movies on its newly launched online paid content platform. Under a three-year agreement with Warner Bros, Youku will add between 400 to 450 Warner Bros movies to its Youku Premium library. Youku Premium, which was officially this week, began […]
As promised BT Vision customers can now watch BBC shows on demand, using the new BBC iPlayer through their TVs. The launch of BBC’s on demand service gives BT Vision customers the opportunity to access more than 400 hours of BBC programming. This replaces the smaller selection of BBC programmes previously available on BT Vision’s […]
Sony movies have been pulled from Netflix’s online streaming service as a result of what Netflix describes as a “temporary contract issue” between Sony Corp. and its pay-TV distributor, Starz. Pauline Fischer, VP of Content Acquisition, said June 17th in a blog post to subscribers that the “two valued partners” were working through their differences. […]
Senior execs have used the NCTA in Chicago to play down the cord cutting threat that Netflix poses. “Our industry has always been about new content. Netflix is primarily a service that provides library programming,” said Philippe Dauman, chief executive of Viacom. Robert Marcus, chief operating officer of Time Warner Cable was even more bullish, […]
Best Buy is bringing its CinemaNow online video download service to Canada later this summer, offering users the ability to buy or rent movies online and adding another competitor to Canada’s growing digital media market. Best Buy and Future Shop intend to launch the service sometime in August with a library of more than 10,000 […]