Communication
Premium Movie Channel Paradigm Could Soon Face Extinction by Terry Mitchell
(Contd. from page 3...)
If nothing else, all of these developments should compel cable companies to offer a much more competitive form of VOD. Comcast, one of the leading cable providers and a partner with Sony in its recent purchase of the MGM movie library, is now in the process of rolling out its advanced VOD platform. The other cable companies are sure to be following suit real soon.
Meanwhile, the premium services have still been slogging along. The premium channel paradigm has long outlived its original usefulness and has only been able to hang around because of the lack of a good VOD system thus far. The only thing really going for the premiums right now is their award-winning original programming; including series’ like “The Sopranos”, “Dead Like Me”, and “Six Feet Under.” Perhaps the premium services could morph into original-programming-only services in order to survive. However, they’d have to seriously increase the number of series’ (and the number of episodes of each) they produce. Perhaps they could also carry longer and/or alternative versions of programs already aired on broadcast television and basic cable. In addition, they would have to find a way to lower their subscription rates. I’m not sure all of that would be feasible. One thing I do know for sure is that people would not continue to subscribe to the premium channels for their movie content once they could conveniently pull up virtually any movie or TV show they wanted, any time they wanted.