Warners stops selling movies to Blockbuster in dispute

[MrsJrotax101]

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Warner Bros. has stopped selling its new releases to Blockbuster in an attempt to force the chain to accept a 28-day rental window. Warners wants Blockbuster to wait that long before renting out DVDs or Blu-rays, the way Netflix and Redbox do.

The once giant rental chain is resisting, however, and bought copies of "Horrible Bosses" and "The Green Lantern" from outside sources, rather than the studio, for rental.

Those two movies are the first that Warner released on Ultra Violet-enabled discs, which let people store the movies in an internet "cloud" and watch them on a variety of devices.

Warners Bros. confirmed the standoff, reported in the Financial Times on Wednesday, but declined further comment. Blockbuster also declined to comment.

The report also suggested that the latest standoff may be a precursor to renewed windows battles between the studio and Netflix and Redbox in coming months.

With DVD and Blu-ray sales slumping badly and rentals on the rise, studios are scrambling to boost purchases of discs and digital copies.

Blockbuster, bought out of bankruptcy by Dish Network earlier this year, recently launched a subscription service designed to compete with Netflix.

Warner Bros. home entertainment president Kevin Tsujihara told the FT that Blockbuster "felt it was important to continue to offer day and date rental, so rather than work with us, they went around us."

Tsujihara told the FT that the studio would like to make that waiting period longer -- and that deals with Netflix and Redbox both end at the end of the year.

The next agreement likely will include longer windows.

Article from: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/27/us-blockbuster-idUSTRE79Q05720111027

 

[webby]

"Redbox Realizing That Caving To Hollywood On 28-Day Delay Was A Bad Idea"

We were pretty surprised when Redbox caved in to the Hollywood studios, and agreed to annoy its customers with a ridiculous 28-day delay. We had many commenters say that people wouldn't care and it wasn't much of a big deal. However, the company is now admitting that the 28-day delay resulted in much lower holiday rentals than it had expected. Meanwhile, the only studio that has publicly released information about how its experiments with the 28-day delay went, Paramount, has said that such delays are bad for business, as it doesn't increase sales of DVDs, and that allowing Redbox to rent movies sooner actually helped the studio (and Redbox) make more money. So why do we still have those delays?

directv -
Many releases are available almost a month earlier than you can get them from Redbox® or Netflix. This unbelievable feature also comes with instant access to more than 6,000 past shows and movies, including cinema favorites, cult classics, and more, with no extra cost.
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a report from a month ago claimed the wait times will potentially increase for movies

Soon, You’ll Have to Wait Even Longer for Movies Via Netflix or Redbox


Increasingly, consumers just aren’t buying movies: DVD sales weredown 18.3% in the first half of 2011, and 2010 marked the third year in a row of declining sales. Sales are down even as the studios have forced Netflix, Redbox, and other movie rental outfits todelay availability of films for 28 daysafter they can first be purchased—with the idea that if you (or your spouse or child) really want to see the movie, you’ll pony up the cash and buy it. Frustrated with the sales slowdown, and facing a future in which more streaming is likely to be paired with an even sharper decrease in outright purchases, movie studios are eager to find new ways of getting more money out of consumers.

TheLos Angeles Timesexplores how an increasingly “post-DVD” world will play out for movie enthusiasts. The gist is that while inexpensive movie rentals will probably be around down the line, consumers should get used to the idea of waiting longer—months, or even years longer—than they currently do to see them for cheap:

By next year, consumers may have to wait two months or longer after a movie goes on sale before they can get it in a Redbox kiosk or Netflix envelope. Those who want to stream films online for a flat monthly fee from Netflix, Amazon or Blockbuster will in many cases wait years until those titles have completed their runs on cable networks like HBO.​

Consumers who want to watch a film sooner would have to cough up more cash one way or another, either by catching the movie in the theaters (duh), or buying it when it’s first released—a few weeks before it’s available at Redbox, and before the sales price inevitably drops in half—or perhaps electing to pay $30 or so for a special on-demand viewing in one’s house a couple months after the theater release.

What’s developing is a very clear-cut test in delayed gratification, in which those willing to wait to watch a movie will pay a fraction of the amount paid by those who can’t.