Home Media Magazine

Sony’s Style Stays Blu

I’ll say this for Sony: It puts its format where its mouth is.

Responding to a last-minute invite to attend the grand opening of a Sony Style store inside The Americana at Brand shopping center in Glendale, Calif., I wasn’t interested in the Sony pitch for the evening; they were all pumped up about something called the Sony Reader Digital Book. I had the same reaction I had when I heard about Amazon’s Kindle: yawn.

Instead, I wanted to see how Sony was treating high-def in its own line of boutique stores, four of which are now in the Los Angeles area.

I can best compare Sony Style stores to Apple’s line of shops, albeit better looking and more fun to shop in. Anything and everything Sony is here, from headphones to cameras to giant HDTVs. A corner is dedicated solely to PlayStation, and advertisements for upcoming Sony films are prevalent. The store begs customers to sit and stay awhile, with couches, benches and a “go ahead, manhandle the merchandise” attitude. There are enough employees on hand to answer everyone’s questions, and they actually know what they’re talking about (I’m glaring at you, Wal-Mart employees). These stores even have concierge desks. All they need are popcorn machines.

Most importantly, at every corner of the store, Blu-ray Disc is showcased. Not a single DVD player is hooked up to the 20 or so HDTVs for sale; most have a Sony Blu-ray player on display. Sure, you can buy a Sony upscaling DVD player if that’s what you’re here for … it’s collecting dust in a dark corner toward the back of the store. Blu-ray signage, Blu-ray reading material, especially Blu-ray Discs, all draw attention to the format. I counted a half-dozen spots where Blu-ray Discs were for sale, and while Sony Pictures Home Entertainment product got first billing, Blu-rays from other studios could also be found. And just try to find the few DVDs for sale in this store.

Dennis Syracuse, Sony’s SVP of retail, told me Sony Style stores are a gateway for first-time Blu-ray owners, with Sony offering discounts for those who walk away with new players and new HDTVs. He added that his company isn’t catering to those looking for marked-down, out-of-date merchandise, and proudly.

“We don’t sit next to Radio Shack. We sit next to Tiffany’s. We sit next to Gucci,” he said. “Ultimately what draws people here is the selection … you want to see what Blu-ray is all about, we’ll tell you. We incorporate Blu-ray into all of our displays.”

It’s not surprising Sony would push its own format in its own stores, but it did leave me wondering: How much better might Blu-ray product do this holiday season if other electronics retailers were to take the same tact?
 

Blogue From Prague: Round Two

The supply chain has been hit again at the Entertainment Supply Chain Academy Europe conference in Prague. After several bags went missing, the morning the supply chain for hot water took a hit. Are the supply chain gods trying to prove a point?

Still, attendees were braced for some interesting panels, including one on digital delivery.

Futuresource projects digital delivery will be 14% of annual video revenue by 2012. Right now, hardware-linked services such as iTunes and Xbox Live dominate the pay business, with Sony’s PlayStation 3 poised to be a key player, said Futuresource analyst Alison Casey. On the ad-supported front, studio-backed Hulu has been surprisingly popular, she said, generating 100 million streams in July. That compares to only 7.3 million paid downloads for iTunes.

“A lot of people are willing to sit through the commercials if they can get content for free,” Casey said.

Most of the ad-supported content is TV content, she conceded, with movies more dominant in the pay arena.

One panelist noted that in talking about electronic delivery revenue growth, the industry needs to take profitability into account as well.

I couldn’t agree more. Entertainment content can’t just be a means to help Apple sell iPods or Microsoft sell Xbox 360s. It’s got to offer profit for the content suppliers and creators.

Also, electronic delivery may prove a draw for rentals, but the electronic sellthrough model seems more problematic, especially for movies. Once consumers download movies, where will they store them? On a fragile hard drive or in the Internet cloud where they’ve got no direct control?

I still think the disc is the most stable, convenient storage device for high quality video. When hard drives don’t break every couple of years, maybe I’ll change my mind.
 

 Editor in chief Stephanie Prange, in track suit, hosting a panel at ESCA Europe.

DVD Resilient in Tough Times

Could the economy get any worse? After a summer of sky-high gasoline prices and a nationwide mortgage meltdown, we are experiencing an economic crisis the likes of which haven’t been seen since the days leading up to the Great Depression. Bank failures, crashing stock prices — it appears to be 1929 all over again, and the entire nation is clearly, and justifiably, on edge.

Entertainment has traditionally been resilient in tough economic times, and there’s no reason to believe otherwise this time around. Home entertainment, in particular, should ride out the current economic storm remarkably well, with renting or even buying a DVD a most affordable alternative to a night out on the town — or a night at the movies.

The only variable this time around is that we are in the midst of a format transition, and tough economic times might make switching from standard DVD to Blu-ray Disc something of a hard sell, since transitioning consumers have to buy not just a new player, but also a new TV to fully enjoy the high-def wonders of the Blu tide.

But if budget-conscious consumers are wary about making the switch to Blu-ray, we still have a healthy DVD business to fall back on, and it is my belief that any DVD sales slowdown we might have been experiencing these last few years will flatten out and possibly even reverse itself in the weeks leading up to the holidays.

There’s a ton of great product in the pipeline, and while the studios are aggressively pushing Blu-ray Disc, they certainly are not dropping the ball on DVD. The usual crop of high-profile theatricals coming to disc in the fourth quarter is complemented by a dazzling array of rich catalog product, movie collections and TV DVD compilations, and the penny-watching public is sure to take note, thanks to well-orchestrated marketing and advertising campaigns already in the works.

Each year the fourth quarter is make-it-or-break-it time for studios looking to finish the year in the black. And this year we will likely see the Hollywood number crunchers focus not just on tentpole year-end theatrical releases, but also on the studios’ home entertainment divisions.

We may not be in the driver’s seat, but we’re certainly in the hot seat. Here’s hoping no one will get burned.

Blogue From Prague

I’m at Prague’s Hotel Don Giovanni attending the ESCA Europe conference, at which panelists are discussing many supply chain challenges. My most immediate supply chain challenge involves no supply of luggage. Thus, I moderated my panel this morning in a tracksuit.

But that has really been the only snag in this conference in beautiful Prague. It’s interesting to hear a perspective of the business outside of the bubble of Southern California and the United States. While domestically we’ve taken for granted the enormous Blu-ray Disc push that retailers and studios mounted in the past few months, analysts commenting on the European market wish retailers here would do more.

Europe is looking to America to take the lead, and will surely follow if Blu-ray takes off in the United States, as we all expect it will. Retailers such as Blockbuster, Wal-Mart and Target are helping to make that happen.

Meanwhile, certain European territories are still trying to figure out DVD. In perhaps one of the most under-developed regions in the video industry, the Czech Republic is having trouble generating a video specialty market. Much of the pricing in the country is undercut by extremely low-priced vanilla discs of Czech films sold at local newsstands (they call them “kiosks”). The rest of the market is dominated by grocers and other non-video specialists. It’s hard to make a profit, Czech suppliers say, when the populace thinks DVD is worth so little. While we may have our low-price leaders, I think retailers such as Blockbuster and Netflix help maintain an excitement and value for a category that can be sold next to toilet paper at other retailers.

Where Europe may be more aggressive than the United States is in fighting peer-to-peer piracy. There are several laws and government actions in the works that involve tracking and warning alleged pirates. I don’t think that sort of stuff would go over in the good ol’ USA. Heck, the American people are ready to play chicken with a possible Great Depression, rather than give the government more control.

While Hollywood leads the video pack, it’s a global business that we are in, with a variety of challenges and triumphs that may or may not match those in the United States.
 

Riding on the Back of ‘Iron Man’

The retailers were out in full force this week with enough Iron Man exclusives to drive a collector mad. At least eight chains were offering some sort of exclusive with the film, which Paramount already was offering in three versions anyway: a single-DVD edition, a two-DVD special edition and the Blu-ray Disc version.

Costco offered the two-DVD special edition with three bobble heads. Trans World-operated FYE and Suncoast stores had the special edition in steelbook packaging. Borders offered a sketchbook of “Iron Man” comic book covers. Circuit City offered access to six digital comics with purchase of the special edition or Blu-ray Disc of the movie. Kmart and Sears offered a $5 discount with a $25 Craftsman purchase.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Circuit City's digital comics

If sorting through those weren’t enough, the big three of Target, Wal-Mart and Best Buy checked in with more than enough packaging variants of their own.

Best Buy offered a lithograph with purchase of Iron Man, and also had a DVD gift set that included an Iron Man bust and a $50 Sideshow Collectibles gift card. Sideshow, which created the Iron Man bust, specializes in statues and high-quality action figures based on pop-culture franchises. The upcoming Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Best Buy exclusive will offer a similar arrangement.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Best Buy's Iron Man bust

Best Buy also was exclusively selling a DVD (from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment) of the 1998 TV movie Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., starring David Hasselhoff as Fury. The Fury character cameos in the Iron Man film, with Samuel L. Jackson playing the role (Jackson inspired a re-design of the character in 2002 for Marvel’s “Ultimates” comic books, hence the racial change).

Wal-Mart certainly didn’t do collector’s any favors, either, offering collectors a choice of the single-disc version with a bonus disc containing an episode of the upcoming “Iron Man” animated series, or the two-DVD set with an exclusive mini-comic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wal-Mart's exclusive mini-comic

Target offered the two-DVD and Blu-ray versions in special packaging molded like Iron Man’s mask. The mask opens to reveal the discs. Curiously, Target isn’t offering the regular versions of either as an alternative, just the collectible version.

Target’s approach here isn’t too different from what it did with its exclusive Transformers DVD packaging. Last year, Target offered a transforming Optimus Prime case with the two-DVD special edition of Transformers, and this year, to coincide with the Blu-ray release of the film, also offered an Optimus Prime mask package and a Megatron package (equal time, I guess).

Pictures of all the Iron Man exclusives can be found (www.movieweb.com/news/NE6KDa79FWfl9a).

And if you don’t think this is out of hand, wait until The Dark Knight hits Dec. 9.
 

Two Retailers That Weathered Change

In our latest issue, we recognize significant anniversaries for two important retailers in the video industry, Best Buy and Hastings Entertainment.

Best Buy was an important player in the rise of video sellthrough and DVD. Now on the 25th anniversary of its name change and expansion into video from its Sound of Music origin, Best Buy is helping to transition the industry to Blu-ray Disc through both hardware and software initiatives.

Hastings Entertainment, which has embraced an a la carte entertainment concept now being championed by the likes of Blockbuster Inc., has weathered the difficulties of the music and video industries for decades, outlasting such venerable institutions as Tower Records and Video.

Much has been made of new digital players, such as iTunes and Netflix, but Best Buy and Hastings deserve a round of applause for riding the many waves of change in a business that seems to reshuffle the deck every few years.

When I first joined what was then Video Store Magazine in the early 1990s, the industry was primarily a rental business of VHS videocassettes (I don’t quite date back to Betamax, but I do vaguely remember it). By the late 1990s, direct deals and complex copy-depth models dominated the rental business, flooding shelves with copies of the hits.

But a new format, DVD, appeared on the horizon to shake up the business once more. The little disc turned out to be a video collector’s dream, but it also offered a low price for rental dealers that made copy-depth a snap. It also opened up a whole new business for used discs. Suddenly, by-mail concepts such as Netflix took off, as did rental kiosks. Those concepts would not have been viable with clunky VHS cassettes.

And now we are transitioning to yet another format in Blu-ray Disc, which both Best Buy and Hastings are embracing, as they have embraced and adapted to the other changes in the business.

It’s not easy to keep abreast of the video wave, and retailers such as Best Buy (on its 25th) and Hastings (on its 40th) deserve kudos for their savvy business practices.

EAA’s Wine & Wisdom Brings Together the Industry

For such a sobering cause, the people running the Entertainment AIDS Alliance sure know how to make fundraising a festive affair.

The annual Wine & Wisdom and Visionary Honors events are two of my favorite of the year, where the industry shows it has heart (EAA has raised roughly $4 million for various AIDS foundations) and offers one-of-a-kind networking opportunities.

The Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills was host to this year’s Visionary event, where Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment and Target were honored for their support of the organization. WDSHE North American GM Lori MacPherson and Target’s Darrell Tucker, VP of merchandise, entertainment group, accepted the honors.

Last year, at my first Visionary dinner, I knew few in this industry, and when introduced, I didn’t really have a first name. It was usually “Oh, you’re Ralph Tribbey’s kid.” There are two replies to this: if you’re on good terms with him, “Yes, I am.” If not, “No, we disowned each other years ago.”

This year, it’s like the closing minutes of that old children’s series “Romper Room,” though instead of a magic mirror, I’ve got my camera: I can see Leslie McClure and Matt Lasorsa. There’s Steve Nickerson and Sandy Friedman. Gaby Vizcaino and Maria LaMagra. Tom Chen and a newlywed Fritz Friedman. Rich Marty and I debate the holiday SRPs for Blu-ray Disc players. Brenda Ciccone and I talk about marketing for Kung Fu Panda. Paula Tait reminds me we need to do dinner. In addition to mingling with familiar people, I also get to meet those I only know by name or email.

Networking over cocktails and hors d’oeuvres is the highlight of my event, but the auctions are a close second. Last year Steve Feldstein outbid me on the one thing I bid on. I’m determined to not let this happen again. I get into a minor bidding war with EAA Secretary Vicki Greenleaf over two tickets to Santana, a really neat trick on her part, considering she’s at home with the flu.

My name’s called for winning two auctions; everyone starts to suspect a fix might be in when it comes time for the evening’s raffle. My father (or that old guy with the same last name, depending on who’s reading) wins a DreamWorks gift basket. The very next draw comes up with my lucky number, for a Panasonic Blu-ray player. My magazine coworkers and the EAA crew look at me with disbelief. I have a tough time winning coin flips, much less two auctions and a raffle in one night.

Memo to the EAA: You really didn’t have to bribe Ralph and I … we would have written nice things about you anyway.

 

Editor in chief Stephanie Prange and senior reporter Chris Tribbey at EAA's Wine & Wisdom.

Beyond the Glass Ceiling

In our current issue, Home Media Magazine honors the women of home entertainment, a smart and savvy group of executives who are leading our industry at a time when we are at a critical crossroads.

DVD, the format that led our industry to unprecedented growth over the past 11 years, is now mature, and sales have leveled. Blu-ray Disc, the format that will likely allow packaged media to survive, and even thrive, in an increasingly digital world, isn’t “there” yet. Sales are climbing impressively, but the format is still a good year or two away from mainstream adoption.

As our industry buckles down to weather the transition, we find a significant percentage of top industry executives are women. We decided to profile some of them in this issue, and as I edited senior reporter Chris Tribbey’s nearly 6,000-word report on the women of home entertainment, I found some similarities among the honorees. Specifically, they are well-educated, well-rounded and in positions of increasing importance, both at their own company and within our industry. While there is just one worldwide president of a major studio’s home entertainment division — Kelley Avery of Paramount — there are more than a half-dozen other business and marketing leaders who essentially call the shots at their respective studios, from developing and implementing an overall Blu-ray Disc strategy and overseeing every stage in the product distribution cycle to acquisitions, packaging, sales and marketing, and fulfillment.

The import of women isn’t limited to the studio system. Amy Jo Smith, executive director of DEG: The Digital Entertainment Group, is now taking the lead in promoting awareness of Blu-ray Disc to the world at large. Jill Hamburger at Best Buy is a trendsetting retail executive whose empire happens to be one of the country’s biggest sellers of DVD software. And there are several other women who run, or have founded, independent DVD suppliers — entrepreneurial mavens who have been taking pot shots at the proverbial glass ceiling for years.

So congratulations to all the women of home entertainment. And lest I forget, let me also give kudos to the women of Home Media Magazine: Stephanie Prange, Angelique Flores, Kyra Kudick, Renee Rosado, Julie Savant, Joni Wu, Kristina Kronenberg, Kaitlyn DeWaard, Jennifer Evans, Brady Gallardo and Jennifer Guerena. Hey, that’s more than half the staff …
 

TV DVD Is the Way for Me

As various digital outlets such as iTunes tout watching an episode online to catch up on a TV series, I am finding that watching a TV show one episode at a time is most inefficient and annoying.

I am a power watcher, a TV DVD binger, if you will.

I will watch an entire season in a weekend, often viewing it over again with commentary.

I hate cliffhangers, and thus I watch series with ongoing plots, such as “Lost” and more recently “Mad Men,” in seasons, rather than by episode.

I don’t need to be up-to-date on the latest happenings in “Mad Men.” In fact it frustrates me to watch it in episode form at all. I’d rather wait until the season ends and watch it in one long session.

I have no idea what happened on the last season of “Lost.” I’m waiting for the TV DVD season set to catch up.
I know others like to record episodes on their DVRs, but for me that still doesn’t match the convenience of watching the entire season at once with commentary on TV DVD.

In fact — and this will no doubt irritate TV executives — if I catch a TV episode of a series I like on cable or broadcast TV, I’m apt to turn it off and wait for the TV DVD set. I see these ongoing plots as a very long feature, best watched in one, almost continuous, sitting.

While many have commented on the anywhere, anytime nature of short-video Internet viewing, I also must extol the virtues of full-season viewing, which often can’t be had on the Internet or DVR in as convenient a form as on DVD.

Episodic TV grew out of a need in the broadcast business to keep viewers over time and to sell advertising. It didn’t grow out of viewers’ entertainment consumption preferences. Some of our best novels first appeared in episodic form, but we don’t read them that way today.

While Web outlets such as iTunes may be breaking viewers’ slavery to the clock, they still offer shows in episodic snippets without commentary and other extras that allow a viewer to savor a series. TV DVD is the ideal medium for this purpose, and the most-definitive statement on a TV show. Who says everyone must watch a TV show in half-hour or hour increments? I don’t.

Few Quibbles With This Year’s Emmys

Usually I find myself watching awards shows and wondering exactly how voters could honestly come to the collective decisions they often do (the clean sweep of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King for the 2003 Oscars comes to mind). Sometimes awards are granted for career achievement. Other times they are granted as a result of old-fashioned politicking.

Whether or not these awards carry any credibility beyond serving as a Hollywood marketing tool is open to debate. But it’s not uncommon to see a slate of awards handed out that doesn’t seem to make sense based on the merits of the nominees.

So I kind of found myself looking over the Emmy announcements as they came in and finding myself mostly in agreement with them, especially in the major awards.

“John Adams” won almost everything for which it was nominated in the miniseries category, taking 13 statuettes to set an Emmy record. This is a fantastic miniseries based on David McCullough’s Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of America’s second president. It’s hands down the top nominee in the miniseries category, and the acting awards for Paul Giamatti, Laura Linney and Tom Wilkinson are well deserved. If you haven’t had a chance to pick up the three-DVD set from HBO Video, you really should check it out, especially in this election year. It’s an excellent depiction of the founding of the United States and really serves as a reminder of the ideals on which this country was founded.

From early American history to recent events, HBO’s Recount, a great fictionalized recap of the 2000 election dispute in Florida, won best TV movie, and features some great performances as well.

Considering HBO’s great successes in the TV movie and miniseries categories over the years, it’s really no surprise to see it practically sweep the categories this year.

I’m also glad to see “30 Rock” take another award for best comedy series. The landscape of half-hour television comedy has changed a lot in the past decade, with some of the better shows using the single-camera format made popular by “Sex and the City” (of the five comedy nominees this year, only one, “Two and a Half Men,” could be considered a traditional sitcom). “30 Rock” doesn’t get the ratings it probably should, but it’s really a funny show and one of the few half-hour comedies currently on the air I make it a point to catch each week. The cast is excellent, and I was happy to see Alec Baldwin win for his role on the show.

Seeing Jean Smart win for best supporting actress in a comedy series was a pleasant surprise. Some pundits are calling this an upset, but quite frankly the field was weak, and she’s excellent in her role as Christina Applegate’s mother on “Samantha Who?” In retrospect, this one’s a no-brainer.

Don’t think that Emmy is completely off the hook with me, however. As far as I’m concerned, Hugh Laurie should have picked up his fourth Emmy for his transcendent role on “House.” So far, he has none (and inexplicably wasn’t even nominated in the show’s second year, arguably his best).

Jeremy Piven is always great on “Entourage,” so I won’t begrudge him his Emmy. But it’s a safe pick. Kevin Dillon’s Johnny Drama has been increasingly driving the show over the past season. Go ahead and pick up the recently released fourth-season DVD set and see for yourself.

And the idea that “Battlestar Galactica” continues to be shut out of the major categories is unfathomable to me. It’s not that surprising, considering the television and film academies’ long-standing and well-known biases against sci-fi. Still, “Galactica” managed to score writing nominations the past few years (though it didn’t win), which is probably the most the television academy is willing to concede for this outstanding series. You can check it out on DVD from Universal Studios Home Entertainment (I’m sure the Blu-ray versions will be along soon).

As for some of those acceptance speeches from the other night, well, that’s another story …