Communication
Premium Movie Channel Paradigm Could Soon Face Extinction by Terry Mitchell
(Contd. from page 1...)
During the mid-1990’s, as satellite services such as Directv and Dish Network debuted, the premium services began offering “multiplexed” channels, i.e., multiple channels of HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, The Movie Channel, and Starz-Encore for the price of one. Unfortunately, the number of movie choices didn’t increase. Those services just began to air their same libraries of movies at different times on their various multiplexed channels. There are hundreds of movies at local video stores that have never played (and will never play) on the premium channels while there are a comparatively small number of others that have played on these channels thousands of times. That has always been the major weakness of the premium services. Multiplexing did not fix this problem.
Several market tests of VOD were conducted during the 1980’s and the early 1990’s but, because the technology was rather primitive, it did not catch on with consumers. By the late 1990’s, it finally seemed ready and lots of promises were made about the brave new world of VOD. The cable companies were talking about veritable online video stores, which were going to put Blockbuster, et al, out of business. Unfortunately, the reality of VOD has never lived up to its hype. The stuff the cable companies are currently passing off as VOD is nothing more than a glorified version of pay-per-view or a DVR. For the most part, their VOD offerings aren’t any different from the stuff currently playing on the premium channels and/or on pay-per-view. This is what I call “faux VOD.” How lame!