13 Movie Online Services is WAY too many. (PPV Part 2)

Netflix  vs. Google TV 2.0 PPV (powered by Honeycomb 3.1)  vs. YouTube rentals  vs. iTunes  vs cable PPV vs  VUDU  vs. Blockbuster OnDemand  vs  Facebook OnDemand  vs BigStar Movies  vs  CinemaNow OnDemand  vs. Alphaline ( Sears/Roxio) vs. Redbox (due 2011) vs.  Flixster via Warner Bros. vs  anyone else ?

What happens when the airlines have a fare war? You know, you can fly from NY to L.A. for $xx.xx and then the next thing you know, another airline tops that price by $ 20.00? Or gives you a free bag to carry on board? All of a sudden 5 or more airlines have the same special going on. Who do you fly with? Decisions, decisions…  It all begins to seem and look the same to you. You get to the same destination, same approximate times, using the same type of transportation, in the air for just about the same money. Who suffers? Ultimately the carriers do.

Meet the carriers. Not the airlines, but the carriers of movies online.   I count thirteen (13) of them – eleven (11) of them are live as we speak.  All boasting the same movies for the most part for the same prices.  All rentable at the same time for about the same amount of time.   And I’m not even counting Redbox as an online rentable service…yet.  What’s a consumer to do – who do you choose? And why. Do you ‘subscribe’ to a Netflix monthly or do you pick off a film on a one-off basis from another provider.  More importantly, how do all of these guys begin to differentiate themselves from each other?  How and where do they market themselves? Netflix is clearly the 900lb gorilla today. I guess iTunes is # 2. But beyond them, I can’t really tell who’s in third place. But more importantly, do I really care? Do I need3 or 5 or 7 similar services?  On top of all this, I have Verizon’s FIOS cable service at home with thousands of movies to choose from to watch on any given day/hour.

I have licensed movies before from each of the studios and it was no easy task. Number one, its VERY expensive. Figure an upfront fee to be paid to play, maybe between $500k-$1m. That’s just for starters. Then there are the guarantees against each title licensed. Therefore as a provider of online fare, you’ve got to re-coup that fee with a certain number of minimum rentals or turns of the gate so to speak. With nearly 13 services out there plus cable choices, I’m going to take a guess here a few will not make it.  Not only must you guarantee upfront cash, you also must explain how you are going to market the studios films, how you will digitally protect them from piracy ( good luck on that one) and how you will separate yourself from the rest of the online movie ‘noise’. All of this and then compete with the new ‘premium’ $30.00 a pop cable TV onDemand offering ( not that I think that’s going to be too successful – it’s the least of these companies problems).

However, the one issue I have with all these services is this:  I am unable to save ANYTHING I purchase or rent for viewing later on a rainy day. If I had a ‘digital’ locker – someplace to hold what I spend my money on to see so I can view it later (more than 24hrs later), that might sway me to use that service ALL THE TIME.

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