Video on demand has caused a fair amount of trepidation among content providers.
While Yankee Group analyst Adi Kishore says industry concerns as to whether studios would want to license their content for on-demand services largely have been quelled, the issues have not evaporated.
For example, Lynne Elander, vice president of video product development at Cox Commun-ications Inc., notes major movie studios Disney and Paramount still are unwilling to license their content for video on demand, which gives subscribers VCR-like control of content and the ability to view that content multiple times over a short period of time.
Meanwhile, HBO, Showtime and Starz, which themselves license content from studios, have been trying to figure out the rights issues and their strategies surrounding video on demand, she says. However, adds Elander, these premium cable programmers all have robust VoD offerings.
Still, the VoD community could miss out on the excitement -- and thus some of the revenue -- generated by the hottest VoD content: new releases of big feature films.
Kishore explains these releases currently are available on-demand via cable 45 to 52 days after Blockbuster rental stores receive them. That's because Blockbuster makes most of its money from new releases in the first 20 to 25 days of their availability, he says.
