Our earlier post was so popular that it almost crashed our servers. As a follow up to our rant about Hollywood we have decided to provide the next steps for Hollywood to move forward and make the simultaneous release across mediums happen.

For a simultaneous release to truly occur I propose a summit of key leaders throughout the entertainment industry is in order. Key attendees should include Jeff Bezos, Rupert Murdoch, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Mark Cuban, Stephen Spielberg, Oliver Stone, Reed Hastings, Sergey and Larry, Mark Zuckerburg and Eric Schmidt to name a few. I am happy to attend as well along with a select set of consumers This summit should focus less on competition, rather how they could work together to iron out the details and challenges of simultaneously releasing a movie.

Key Challenges for Simultaneously Releasing a Movie
Exclusivity. Don’t even think of using this approach as part of the simultaneous release strategy. Giving exclusive rights to a distribution partner limits your distribution and your revenue potential. The goal is to make the movie as accessible as possible to your customer base not the complete opposite. As an example, the iPhone has been very successful but Apple’s decision to partner with AT&T has caused a lot of consumers to complain.

International and Domestic Rights. Depending on what music and unions are involved there would have to be a lot of up front negotiations and deals in place to appease all of the collecting societies, artists, and other parties representing the people across the value chain that created the movie in the first place. This may truly be one of the biggest obstacles to achieving a simultaneous release so start planning and staffing for it now.

Platforms and format. Ultimately consumers should not be forced to choose a particular medium nor location to consume the movie. So the actual platforms and formats should be broad and widely accepted. This includes but is not limited to iTunes, YouTube, PPV, VOD, mobile, DVDs and Torrents.

Revenue Model. Typically, movies are released in movie theaters first and then months later via dvds and eventually digitally. This old model front loads revenue to the studios as they take the majority of revenues amidst opening box offices. The industry needs to experiment with how they charge. Specifically, revenue sharing, regional and dynamic pricing should be deployed in real-time and adjusted accordingly based on the yield. Studios know how much it cost to produce and market a movie so this can all be tied back for an ROI by platform and distribution model.

Analytics. With such a new and burgeoning concept studios will want to have accurate ways to measure the success or failure of all aspects of the simultaneous movie release. This component will need to incorporate online and offline data to cover the broad spectrum of distribution methods and revenue models.
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Tags   dvd  future  hollywood  simultaneous release  vod