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Studios Tout Varied Window Dressing

12 Aug, 2010 By: Stephanie Prange

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It’s been the Wild Wild West of windows so far this year from the studios, and the freewheeling ways show no signs of stopping.

In last week’s issue, Warner chief Jeff Bewkes said his studio’s later windows for Netflix and Redbox were boosting digital and disc sales, while Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman said Paramount’s decision to offer those outlets discs at the same time as others had little effect on its fortunes.

This week, Lionsgate co-COO Steve Beeks reiterated his studio’s plan not to window Redbox releases. When asked if the studio would hold back the high-profile actioner The Expendables from Redbox later this year, Beeks said he doubted it. But the decision was far from definitive.

“Right now we are planning on selling [Expendables] to Redbox, but we do have some flexibility on that deal if things look differently in the future,” Beeks said.

Meanwhile, Lionsgate execs said offering digital in the same window as disc had little effect on disc sales while adding to the bottom line.

In this week’s issue, Disney chief Bob Iger says the studio is looking into releasing titles in advance of packaged media and digital at premium VOD pricing.

“There are people, we believe, who like to see movies sooner rather than later and would pay a premium price to do that,” Iger said.

On the digital side, he said that when renewing Disney’s third-party movie distribution agreement with Starz it agreed to the cable provider licensing streaming content to Netflix.

“We could actually benefit through Netflix growth through that deal,” he said, adding that by Netflix reaching certain revenue “thresholds,” Disney generates additional incremental revenue.

This varied window dressing points to one conclusion: The jury’s still out on the most profitable release schedule for sellthrough and rental of disc and digital. Each studio seems to be choosing their windows differently, perhaps based on the particular appeal of their product. Iger, for instance, noted that Pixar titles still sell well on disc, despite the challenging economic environment.

My guess is it will take many more financial quarters and a return to more stable economic times for the most profitable window pattern to emerge.

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