Ron Sanders Ideal for New Warner Role

This past January, Kevin Tsujihara was catapulted into the CEO slot at Warner Bros. largely because he is a very smart man with a history of making good choices.

Yesterday, he made another one of those good choices when he announced the elevation of Ron Sanders from president of Warner Home Video to president of Warner Bros. Worldwide Home Entertainment Distribution. The new role gives Sanders expanded oversight of the global digital transactional business as well as the global distribution activities of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment.

In selecting Sanders, Tsujihara — widely considered one of the most promising executives in Hollywood — chose someone much like himself. As I said in a previous column, during Tsujihara’s run as head of the Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group he not only stood out from the home entertainment pack, he stood out ahead of it.

Under Tsujihara’s watch, Warner was consistently in the lead when it came to innovation, creativity and vision. And Sanders was right there by his side, keeping the machinery of the home video operation running smoothly — Warner consistently held the No. 1 market share spot among the major Hollywood studios — while working alongside his boss in crafting a strategy for the future.

Sanders, like his boss, also represents a new breed of executive we’re beginning to see more and more of in the Hollywood studio leadership ranks: Sensible, reasonable, even affable — a far cry from the desk-pounding tyrants of Hollywood lore. Anyone who knows Ron Sanders, who has worked alongside him, knows how incredibly hard it is to dislike him. When he says something, he means it. When he makes a promise, he follows through. He looks you in the eyes when he speaks to you; he is passionate about the industry, about Warner Bros., about business, about life.

Sanders joined Warner Home Video in 1991 and grew up in the business during the Warren Lieberfarb years, a particularly creative and productive era that saw the development of DVD, which ranks up there with the iPhone and the iPad as one of the most successful consumer electronics product launches ever. He ran Warner’s rental business during the tumultuous mid-1990s period of consolidation and copy-depth incentives; he subsequently moved across the aisle to sellthrough sales just as the floodgates opened and then was sent to London as managing director of the United Kingdom and Ireland divisions. He did so well that he was promoted to head of the entire EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) region, overseeing Warner’s home video operations in 28 territories. He returned to the United States in 2002 and was appointed president of the division in October 2005.

A veteran journalist, after interviewing Sanders some years back, quipped, “I wish there were more home video presidents like Ron Sanders.” That quote has stuck with me ever since, and I believe is a testament to his integrity and foresight, his passion and his vision. He’s a good man — and the right man for his new job.

UltraViolet Key to Electronic Sellthrough Future

The DEG numbers released May 1 were a pleasant surprise. Not only was total consumer spending on home entertainment up a solid 5% in the first quarter of this year, but spending on packaged media — Blu-ray Discs and DVD combined — was up as well from the same period last year, by more than 2%.

That’s significant because, for the first time since the format was introduced, Blu-ray Disc sales were strong enough to offset the continued decline in DVD sales and put the disc business back into positive territory.

I was also thrilled to see that electronic sellthrough (EST) posted a huge increase of 51%, comparing the first quarter of 2013 to the first quarter of last year. The actual dollar amount, $231 million, is still relatively small potatoes, but multiply by four and you’re getting close to 20th Century Fox chief Mike Dunn’s prediction several years back that once EST hits $1 billion in annual sales, “you’ve got a viable business.”

I can’t help but think that EST’s sharp gains were due at least in part to excitement over UltraViolet, the digital rights authentication and licensing system, based in the cloud, that lets consumers who buy content access that content anywhere, at any time, on any device. Currently, UltraViolet is available primarily to purchasers of Blu-ray Discs, but ultimately it will apply to digital purchases as well.

In the meantime, it’s a useful tool for transitioning consumers to the concept of owning something digitally — a tough nut to crack, particularly for oldsters like me who still like to get something they can touch and look at if they plunk down $15 or $20 for a movie.

Regardless, UltraViolet is certainly a wonderful concept, even if the execution still has some kinks in it — namely, an arduous registration process and a proliferation of proprietary websites instead of a one-portal-for-all that appeals to today’s “one-click” generation.

But that’s all in the works, and already UltraViolet has found a growing legion of fans. Indeed, it’s a fair assumption that the surge in online movie sales is due largely to the fact that Apple iTunes is no longer the only player in the game, even though it still dominates (65%, according to a study by The NPD Group that was released last month).

Looking at the overall increase, iTunes is certainly selling more movies than ever before, but so, too, are competitors such as Microsoft’s Xbox Video and Amazon’s Instant Video, both of which are aimed at consumers outside the Apple ecosystem.

And, again, UltraViolet is likely driving EST sales as well, simply by making people comfortable with the idea of digital ownership by tying it in with a disc purchase, a process with which they are all too familiar.

Once UltraViolet streamlines its process to the point where the one-click generation can actually watch a movie on a smartphone or tablet as easily as they can watch a disc on their home theater set-up, the studios would be wise to launch a major consumer outreach campaign, perhaps one that involves Blu-ray disc as well.

The studios are great at marketing individual titles, but could use a little help in coming together for a massive joint effort — even though the benefits, to me, are so obvious.

The Times They Are a-Changin’

I was looking at our website today and the top four headlines, in order, were “Dish Launches $1 Billion Bond Offering,” “Canadian Cabler Launches Rovi TV Removes,” “Epix Launches App for PlayStation 3” and “Popcornflix Bows on Xbox 360.”

It struck me that had a Rip Van Winkle-type fallen asleep 10 years ago, five years ago — heck, even a couple years ago — he would be scratching his head and wondering what exactly it is that he's reading.

Years ago, we were talking about convergence. Entertainment existed in silos, but there were signs different channels might converge at some point down the road.

Now, they have — in ways we never imagined possible. Pay-TV and home entertainment used to be bitter enemies. Now, they're part of the same food chain — not just coexisting, but intermingling.

Digital movies you could watch on your computer? They had to be bootlegs, pirated copies ripped off someone's disc. Now, a digital copy of a movie is a key component of virtually every DVD and Blu-ray Disc you buy.

Retailers screamed bloody murder any time studios handed over a movie to a cable pay-per-view service within 30 days of its home video release. Now, window staging is a critical part of our business, with most observers saying the exposure on PPV might actually help boost disc sales because it builds awareness.

Dish, the satellite service, used to be seen as The Enemy, cannibalizing home video sales and rentals. Now Dish owns Blockbuster.

The times not only have changed, but they keep changing — so much so that many of us who have been in the business for years have trouble keeping up with all the latest developments.

We remember when YouTube was launched and studios cracked down on video clips from their movies. Now, YouTube is an essential part of every movie's marketing campaign.

We remember when movies came out for the PSP and we thought it was the neatest thing ever — true mobility, at last.

We remember when words like “prebook,” “turns-per-copy,” “depth of copy” and “late fees” were on everyone's tongues, much like apps, UltraViolet and “combo pack” are today.
What will the future bring? What will the headlines on the Home Media Magazine website look like a year from now, two years from now, five years from now?

We shall have to wait and see …
 

Discs Here to Stay Amid Hulu Tug-of-War

Hulu’s uncertain future illustrates the conundrum that so often surrounds “flavor of the month” home entertainment options: One day they’re The Next Big Thing; a short time later, they’re on the ropes.

It’s a conundrum that in itself reflects the fluid nature of digital delivery, and the fact that for all its knocks and reports of imminent extinction, packaged media has shown surprising resiliency.

And why not? When the computer crashes and the iPad’s out of battery power, when the Internet’s down or there’s no Wi-Fi, the physical disc works just fine on any TV, on any Blu-ray player.

Indeed, one reason I believe the disc will stick around a lot longer than many futurists think is that in this ever-changing world of streaming, downloading and new and supposedly better ways to consume entertainment, the optical disc has become something of a comfort food, a dependable, reliable standby that never disappoints or lets you down.

Back to Hulu, for a minute: According to a recent report published in the Wall Street Journal, two of the video-streaming service’s three big corporate owners — News Corp. and Disney – have begun discussing possible next steps in the wake of the imminent departure of CEO Jason Kilar and chief technology officer Rich Tom.

There’s a bit of a tug-of-war going on, the Journal says: News Corp. wants Hulu to focus on its subscription service, while Disney prefers the free ad-supported business model. Hulu currently juggles both a free service and a subscription business, Hulu Plus, which has more than 3 million subscribers.

Hulu is tiny compared to Netflix, which has 27 million subscribers, just in the United States. It mostly streams shows from its parent companies’ TV networks and in the past has had a competitive advantage due to special access to content from Disney and News Corp. – but now they’ve got deals in place with Netflix, as well.

Hulu has invested in original programming, but faces intense competition from Netflix, Amazon and, of course, YouTube, where everything’s still free.

The big buzz among young people that surrounded Hulu since its late-2007 launch — and was generating quite a clash as recently as last year — seems to be gone now, as far as I can tell. The kids have moved on, as they inevitably do, with Netflix and YouTube on the tip of everyone’s tongue – and bookmarked on everyone’s computer.

Meanwhile, those old-fashioned discs are still seeing plenty of action, at least in households with which I’m familiar ...

Keeping It Simple

Our home entertainment industry finished 2012 on a quite robust note — consumer spending was up for the first time in five years — and yet a dark cloud of uncertainty continues to hang over us.

One home executive in December smiled and said, “Well, we’ve had a pretty good year. I hope we can stick around for another one.”

She was only half-joking — our industry has frequently been in periods of transition in the past, but never before has transition been a perpetual state, as it is now. We’ve seen our industry go from VHS to DVD, from rental to sellthrough, from DVD to Blu-ray Disc.

But in the rapidly changing times in which we live, with consumers embracing multiple devices, multiple formats and multiple electronic delivery mechanisms — on top of that old standby, packaged media — it’s anyone’s guess what our home entertainment landscape will look like a year from now, much less five years down the road.

I was mulling things over the other day with a good friend who works in a senior position at a major studio. We agreed that our vision of an ideal scenario would be some sort of “one click” or “one tap” mechanism that would make consuming entertainment as easy as, say, opening the refrigerator — or turning on the TV.

Imagine a world where I can start watching a movie on my home theater system in the evening, but it gets too late and I need to turn the movie off and go to bed. The next morning, I tap my smartphone or iPad against my TV, and I’m able to pick up the movie at the exact spot I left off the night before. I watch a few minutes over breakfast, then drive to work. I’m really eager to watch the rest of the movie, so I tap my smartphone to my computer and the movie instantly appears on my monitor, so I can finish watching it while I pretend to work.

The movie’s done; I liked it so much I call my wife, who’s out of town visiting her mother, and tell her she’s got to see it, as well. I click once on my smartphone, and all of a sudden it’s on her smartphone, for easy viewing or a simple one-tap transfer to the TV in her mother’s house.

From a consumer standpoint, movie consumption would be so easy, so simple, so quick, that I’m sure the end result would be we’d all watch more movies. And that’s a big win for the studios, as well, since the more we watch, the more we buy or rent or stream.

The only way I can see us getting to this point is through UltraViolet. The concept of a digital storage locker, up in the cloud, that gives consumers instant access to purchased content anywhere, at any time, on any device is probably one of Hollywood’s brightest ideas, ever.

But we still have a ways to go. We still don’t have all studios participating, we still have too many different websites and pass codes, and we still have too many things to click, press and type in. So let’s streamline and simplify, and get everyone on board. Only then will that nasty cloud go away.
 

Blockbusted: The Fall of a Video Icon

I hate to be a downer here, but the writing’s clearly on the wall. Blockbuster, an icon of the home video industry since the early days of rental, is not going to survive much longer.

Dish Network, which bought the ailing rental chain out of bankruptcy in April 2011, announced it is closing an additional 300 U.S. stores, either ones with expiring leases or exceptionally poor performance. A year ago Dish announced the shuttering of 500 domestic Blockbuster stores. The latest closure leaves Blockbuster with maybe 500 locations throughout the country — a far cry even from 2009, when Blockbuster still had more than 3,600 U.S. stores.

Blockbuster has been earmarked for the grave for quite some time. Blockbuster made 24/7 Wall Street’s “Ten Brands That Will Disappear” list in both 2010 and 2011. Blockbuster defied the odds and managed to survive, but the latest round of closures suggests even Dish realizes now it made a bad investment. At the time buying the Blockbuster brand seemed like a good idea because everyone thought Blockbuster was associated with movies, but looking back, the Blockbuster brand merely reminded consumers of the hassles they had to go through back when renting a movie from a physical store was their only option — exorbitant late fees, return trips and not finding the movie they wanted.

Blockbuster made more than a few missteps throughout the years, but I think the biggest one was not jumping headfirst into sellthrough in the early days of DVD and thus allowing the mass merchants to take over that segment of the business. Another was taking a dismissive view of Netflix, and then belatedly trying to compete only after it became clear that the subscription model had caught on. Heck, back in 2000 Blockbuster even passed on several offers to buy Netflix for just $50 million, opting instead to sign a 20-year deal with a subsidiary of Enron (!) to deliver on-demand movies to consumer homes.

Blockbuster has managed to hang on for a lot longer than most observers thought, but its day of reckoning, I fear, is coming up. Even the proverbial cat with nine lives eventually runs out of time.

My Post-CES Wishlist

I read somewhere on a tech blog that only about half the products displayed at CES ever make it to market. That's a .500 batting average in the "promises kept" department, and quite truthfully I'm fine with that.

Part of technology's innovation process is separating the wheat from the chaff, and there's really no better way than throwing stuff out at CES and seeing how people react. Think of CES as one giant focus group, albeit one that's quite a bit more tech-savvy than the general public.

If something fails to excite the CES crowd, so the thinking goes, it doesn't stand a chance in the mainstream market. (Of course, lots of things excite the CES crowd that Joe Consumer couldn't care beans about, but that's a whole other issue.)

Walking through the show floor, here's a brief list of things I'd like to see materialize, drawn from a vast parade of products I either saw or didn't see and various press conferences touting, of course, The Next Big Thing.

• A website where I can get any movie I want, to watch on any device I want, in any format — so I can either stream it or download it right there, or order it on Blu-ray Disc, either to rent or to buy. Everyone's got bits and pieces; I crave the whole enchilada.

• A 3D TV that's simple to use — and one for which glasses are readily available, unlike the Panasonic I have hanging in my bedroom.

• A TV that won't be obsolete next year at this time.

• Universal studio support for UltraViolet. As we've seen with DVD and Blu-ray Disc, eventually everyone comes around. But for UltraViolet to really capitalize on its momentum and reach its full potential, we need everyone on board — now.

• Computers with Blu-ray Disc drives. My camcorder shoots in beautiful high-definition; to transfer it to disc I have to compress the files because my computer only burns DVDs.

• An iPad/iPhone with a removable battery (by me, not someone in Cupertino).

• A Blu-ray Disc player for my car (even though it's taken so long nobody watches DVDs in the car anymore; the kids all have their own tablets and UltraViolet accounts).

A Forecast for the Industry in 2013

With the year rapidly coming to a close, my annual year-end analysis, which will appear on this site shortly, offers all sorts of interesting observations, discussions and dialog from industry leaders on the state of the home entertainment business and how we got here. The story ends with a look ahead, with projections on what 2013 may bring.

In this edition of T.K.’s Take, I’m going to add my voice to the chorus and share some of my own personal thoughts on where our business is heading — along with a handful of obstacles I think we need to fix or at least address, post haste.

I believe the bump in overall consumer spending we saw in 2012 will either lead to another slight uptick in 2013 or level out — but in any case, I don’t see any declines, at least not for a while.

On the physical side, disc prices are low enough that consumers are going to step up buying discs, particularly those who want the best-possible quality of both picture and sound and don’t want to mess with the logistics of downloading or streaming. I know, I know, digital is so easy that watching a movie is just a click away — but for a large percentage of the population, that’s one click too many.

And on the electronic side, the more options consumers have of watching movies, the more likely they will take advantage of those options. That’s why universal support of UltraViolet — the best value-proposition I think I’ve ever heard of — is critical at this juncture. So is studio support of Netflix and Redbox, both of which have proven themselves mighty fine little innovators capable of thinking beyond the physical disc. Stop fighting and make it work — and in the end, we’re all going to benefit.

I also see a return of young eyeballs to the movies. At this point everyone younger than 21 is still enthralled with YouTube and goofy clips and Web series. But inevitably the novelty’s going to wear off and I believe we’re going to see an uptick at the box office — provided, of course, that Hollywood continues to make good movies, as it’s done this fall with titles such as Argo, Skyfall, Flight and Lincoln.

So, yes, I’m feeling quite bullish right now — and yet, there are several areas of concern that could prove flies in the proverbial ointment:

• Pricing. The days of commanding a premium for Blu-ray Discs is over. Consumers need to be able to buy BDs for the same prices as DVDs, even new releases. The message two-tiered pricing sends is that DVDs are inferior and BDs are elite, so too often consumers end up buying neither. In the early days of the format it made sense, but no longer.

• 3D. It’s still too cumbersome and confusing. I have a Panasonic 3D TV, and a 3D Blu-ray player. I tried buying glasses for the TV but the guys at Best Buy gave me the wrong pair; when I went to return them and told them the model of my TV they said they don’t carry those glasses any longer. To top it off, I slipped Pirates of the Caribbean into the BD player and the screen said the player doesn’t recognize it as being 3D. I give up.

• Combo units: Our side of the business has done a great job with combo backs, allowing consumers to get a DVD and a BD in the same pack. Pity the CE industry hasn’t followed suit. I have yet to see a TV with a built-in BD player at Best Buy or Walmart, and am still waiting for a Blu-ray Disc player for my car.

• United we stand. When DVD was launched, not everyone was on board. When BD was launched, we found ourselves in a bitter and divisive format war. Now we’ve got UltraViolet. Can we all get in the same sandbox, for once?

That said, here’s wishing you a merry Christmas, and a happy new year, on behalf of the entire staff of Home Media Magazine.

Holiday Spending Shows Packaged Media is Far From Dead

Our industry is learning a lot about consumer habits this fourth quarter. With less than three weeks before Christmas, a few observations can be made that may impact how studios and retailers do business in the coming months.

For starters, the old debate about whether consumers are price sensitive when it comes to purchasing Blu-ray Discs and DVDs appears to have been settled, once and for all. The answer, judging from shopping carts filled to the brim with deep-discounted discs on Black Friday, is a resounding yes. Price it cheap enough, and consumers will buy.

Concerns about the “race to the bottom” that dominated studio boardrooms just a few years ago need to be put aside as we realize that in the new economy, it’s all about bargains. Keep in mind that consumers can rent discs for a buck at Redbox, stream movies for not much more over the Internet and access all sorts of free, or almost free, entertainment on sites ranging from YouTube to Hulu. They’re going to think twice about spending more than $10 to buy a movie, particularly one that’s been out for a while.

My conclusion: Price discs cheap enough and you’ll more wind up with more than enough additional sales to compensate. Would you rather sell 1 million discs at $8 each or 200,000 at $15? That’s what I thought.

Secondly, like sharks, consumers tend to enjoy feeding frenzies. The more the merrier is what we’ve seen this fourth quarter, with the most successful titles coming out a week or two before Thanksgiving and then being widely available, at a lower price, in time for Black Friday. Dating is still important, but go out too early or too late and you may miss your carriage.

December, in particular, is one of those months that used to be quite good for our business. But now, consumers bought so many discs over the extended Black Friday sales period that they need a few weeks to digest — although we don’t yet know whether we’ll see a rebound as Christmas draws closer, fueled by impulse buyers and last-minute gift shoppers.

The third lesson we’ve learned is one that some marketers, particularly the folks at Warner, have known for some time. There’s a vibrant and, perhaps, growing market for elaborate Blu-ray Disc and DVD gift sets, and this market isn’t price sensitive at all. Indeed, package the right movie or movies with a carefully selected batch of extras — both trinkets and content. Aim your marketing at the fan base, reaching out to them wherever they may be. Produce a limited quantity and make sure the fans know this. And, bingo, you’re going to score.

Packaged media is far from dead.  We just have to keep tabs on what consumers want and give it them.
 

Workers of Walmart, Grow Up!

I’m writing this a few days before Black Friday, so I have no idea whether a threatened strike at Walmart stores will materialize or not.

But I will say that the negativity I see expressed toward America’s No. 1 retail chain — both in articles in the press and from various “friends” on my own Facebook wall — astounds and disgusts me.

I tend to shy away from political discourse in my columns, focusing on industry issues, trends and developments. But in this case politics and the home entertainment business intersect — a strike could hurt Walmart’s Black Friday business, and that could have a detrimental effect on DVD and Blu-ray Disc sales.

So here goes: I’m already not happy with the entitlement wave that’s sweeping our country — the belief that our government, our employer, owes us something.

I believe in hard work and personal responsibility. I’m happy to pay my fair share in taxes, and I’m more than willing to help people who through no fault of their own are in in trouble — people who have lost their jobs, people who can’t find jobs, families that are struggling to put food on the table.
But I have absolutely no sympathy for the Walmart employees who are complaining that they don’t get paid enough, or that they don’t get benefits, or that Walmart stores are opening too early on Thanksgiving Day, or various other aspects of the company’s labor practices.

If you don’t like working for Walmart, no one’s forcing you to work for Walmart. And I believe most workers understand this: They are grateful to have a job. If they want a better job, no one’s stopping them from advancing their lot in life, either at Walmart or somewhere else. They merely need to show some initiative.

But I don’t think worker discontent really is the factor here. The Black Friday protests — and earlier rallies — are instigated by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, which has long had a bug up its you-know-what that Walmart is a non-union shop.

The American people owe unions a tremendous debt of gratitude. Unions revolutionized the workplace and are behind all sorts of labor laws that protect our workers. But throughout the years, unions in large part have become bloated bureaucracies that have lost sight of their original intent — to protect the worker — and are now out to increase their own power and might through forced payroll deductions and other onerous tactics, including riling up workers at non-union companies like Walmart.

I’m not saying Walmart employees don’t have any legitimate gripes. All of us who work for someone else do, from time to time. But there are ways to address their concerns, and pitching a fit by refusing to go to work and, instead, marching outside stores with signs and angry epithets strikes me as, well, childish.

As long as Walmart is complying with the law, there’s no cause for this hurtful, hateful disruption. Workers of the world, grow up.