Warner To Focus On Blu-ray Over Theatrical releases

[chelsea.tone]

President and CEO of Time Warner Inc, Jeff Bewkes, commented that his studio would release fewer theatrical film and begin to focus more on building wider consumer adoption of Blu-ray. While the movie studio has seen success, the profits being generated by its home media arm have trumped all box office take.

Warner Brothers is already a leader in Blu-ray releases, has released more classic films than any other studio. Their increased support of Blu-ray should hopefully not only increase the number of quality Blu-ray titles on the market, but also decrease the number of theatrical bombs (and their eventual Blu-ray releases) from tainting movie-goers minds.

Source Not Allowed

[rickyroma]

so that just means more straight to blu-ray stuff like the lost boys 2 right ?

[chelsea.tone]

Guess it means what it says.

[Leynos]

Dear Warner,

Hurry up with The Maltese Falcon already.

Kind regards,

Leynos.

[Bald Monkey]

A slightly Blu tinted view of the actual comments... no surprise there from ILuvBlu.com then.. The site where the news comes from... literally..

The actual interview is here.

Speaking to investors at the Deutsche Bank Media & Telecommunications Conference in New York, Bewkes said pressure to improve revenue and cash flow growth from its $1 billion filmed-entertainment division meant taking a step back and making more out of less.

“Our motivation is to improve our return on capital,” Bewkes said. “Doing that we believe we can move profit up.”

To accomplish this, the CEO said the studio will focus on building wider consumer adoption of Blu-ray, expanding cable video-on-demand simultaneously with standard DVD (Bewkes said cable VOD generated more than three times the margins of DVD rental) and other electronic distribution.

and also important the "elimination" of new line studios..

Bewkes said the elimination of New Line Pictures, which he characterized as a redundant infrastructure, would result in ongoing overhead improvements as well.

And towards the end he made this comment..

Bewkes said expansion of Blu-ray, VOD and related improvements in electronic distribution by moving away from physical DVD would help grow filmed entertainment

Make of that what you wish.

[Pecker]

So a new SD DVD costs you maybe £10.

If they sell you a download for £7.50, they make more money, for obvious reasons.

The only way to make as much money off a disc as off a download is if the disc is more expensive, and people won't pay more than £10 for an SD DVD, so they offer cheap downloads or expensive Blu-ray Discs.

There was this old conspiracy theory that MS were only putting up HD DVD in the format war to prolong it, andthus leave the door open for downloads.

I'll offer an alternative.

Warners dumped HD DVD because they knew it was nearer the consumers' price bracket, and that if they only supported the more expensive format it'd be sure to fail on price - thus leaving the door open for downloads.

Downloads are less convenient for the consumer, but more profitable for the studios, which suits them just fine.

A daft theory, but not any more daft than the MS one.

Steve W

[Bald Monkey]

I like daft theories steve.. It's nice to know at least someone is interested in the future of home movies.

I Don't think they want BR to fail.

I'd just written a few more of my theories.. but I'll see what others have to say first.

[eiren]

My ISP sends me warnings every month that I've gone over my 15GB download limited, mainly because I download all the PS3 movie trailers and demos.

So there's no way I'll be downloading a full high definition movie any time soon, plus I don't want to.

[Bald Monkey]

Originally Posted by eiren

So there's no way I'll be downloading a full high definition movie any time soon, plus I don't want to.

To be fair Eiren the biggest growth in 'non-physical' movie purchase and rental seems to be Video On Demand (VOD) not downloads (DL), there's more choice in the states but in the UK that means things like Virgin Cable VOD and SKY VOD. Niether of which are slow..

In the states NetFlix have recently released a set-top box that allows you to watch movies and films, it is an internet DL product, linked direct to your TV. I'm not sure of the tech details, but if it can work in the states I'm sure it's possible we'll see it over here.. and according to reports it's selling far better than expected.. although at only $100 I'm not surprised!

VOD and DL doesn't have to be HD for it to have a massive effect on the HD market IMHO.

[eiren]

We already have that... it's called Sky Box Office & Sky Anytime... and I've probably only used it once in all the years it's been running