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Finding An Audience: Distribution Notes for 6/11/08
(Note: Finding An Audience is an occasional column that looks at the ways that the distribution of films to the audience since this is the culmination of the marketing efforts studios undertake.) Netflix CEO Reed Hastings expressed his belief that the rental-by-mail business model has about five years worth of life left in it. The key […]

(Note: Finding An Audience is an occasional column that looks at the ways that the distribution of films to the audience since this is the culmination of the marketing efforts studios undertake.)

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings expressed his belief that the rental-by-mail business model has about five years worth of life left in it. The key competitor is, of course, going to be that in that time streaming video is going to get nothing but faster at the same time presentation quality is increasing. Other models like free-standing rental kiosks will also be a challenge. Once Netflix is fully into the streaming business Hastings predicts his company will have upwards of 20 million subscribers.

Speaking of free-standing kiosks, Blockbuster appears to be planning something along those lines. It's launched a pilot program of in-store kiosks that will allow for movies to be downloaded to portable devices. Content deals are still to be signed so the titles will be limited at first and download times are still north of 30 seconds.

Meanwhile, Disney CEO Robert Iger told an audience of industry execs that their reluctance to embrace video-on-demand for all their content means they're essentially ignoring a vast swath of their potential audience. He stressed that VOD releases have to be day-and-date with DVD releases, something Disney is already testing out, as have others. At about the same time as Iger's pronouncement, Disney announced a deal with TiVo that would let people, via service provider CinemaNow, rent movies straight to their set-top box for a 24 hour period.

Disney later announced it would be making certain movies available for streaming a week after they were broadcast on TV as part of ABC's Wonderful World of Disney.

It turns out when Warner Bros. said they'd eventually be releasing all their movies day-and-date on VOD and DVD it didn't actually mean ALL their movies and now say around 75 percent of titles will get simultaneous releases.

BusinessWeek has a story about independent films, specifically documentaries, and how they're working to target their niche audience with groundswell-esque tactics like targeted email reminders and word-of-mouth buzz to try and achieve success. They're even taking matters - meaning distribution rights - into their own hands and not signing traditional distribution deals at festivals to try and make sure they're doing what they think is best for their movie.

Paramount is, as you're read by now, essentially shuttering its Vantage label, merging the marketing, distribution and production operations into the main studio. That makes this officially a trend following Warner Bros not only killing New Line but later Warner Independent and Picturehouse as well. Anne Thompson catches the mandate for films from Nick Meyer, who remains, to greenlight more "commercially accessible" movies, meaning we've seen the last truly interesting and original films from that particular venue.

THR's interview with Regal Entertainment CEO Mike Campbell and NATO CEO John Fithian touches on everything from the impact a recession might have on concession sales to how they'd like to see more blockbuster tentpole-type movies released year-round as opposed to being all clumped together in the middle six months of the year.

Finally, the question of whether Hollywood will "embrace femme pics?" is ridiculous on its face. Hollywood has not really shied away from movies that skew toward female audiences. The thing about Sex and the City was that it was released during the generally men and teenager-focused summer season.

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Ad spending down as costs rise
Overall media spending by studios on marketing fell slightly to $3.4 billion in 2007, down from 2006's $3.5 billion according to this story in The Hollywood Reporter. But that coincides with a rise in the average cost of marketing movie, which rose by four percent in 2007. That obviously means there are fewer movies being […]

Overall media spending by studios on marketing fell slightly to $3.4 billion in 2007, down from 2006's $3.5 billion according to this story in The Hollywood Reporter. But that coincides with a rise in the average cost of marketing movie, which rose by four percent in 2007.

That obviously means there are fewer movies being greenlit and released. More than that, marketing execs are being held accountable for their spending.

According to Nielsen analysis most, $1.09 billion or 32.2 percent, of that spending is still going to network television. That's down from 2006's $1.13 billion, though it's slightly higher in terms of percentage. In 2005 networks got $1.2 billion, or 33.8 percent.

Cable television spending is rising as the younger audience shifts over there, with 2007 hitting $893.5 million, or 26.5 percent of total budgets.

Newspapers got slightly more dollars than they did, with spending reaching $479 million, up a little from 2006 but down from 2005's $538 million.

Interestingly, magazines continue to not get much money since they're viewed as part of the publicity machine more than anything. Spending there was a paltry $25.8 million, or less than one percent overall.

Online received $85.1 million, or 2.5 percent of their budgets. That was actually down from 2006's $95.6 million. That reflects the fact, as one person says that popular social networks MySpace and Facebook, which are synonymous with young audiences, have become prohibitively expensive. That person also says young people have become adept at avoiding ads. That tells me either most of the spending is on CPC ads or on CPM ads on sites that aren't being turned to for information.

This statement, in fact, is curious:

Web-savvy young men and women know how to find the information they need without waiting to be targeted by the studios, he says.

So studios, by implication, don't know where people are turning for information, since if they did they would likely put ads there.

An average of $1 million per movie is being spent online according to MediaPost. Internet executives, though, point out that if the studios are really trying to reach the young men they say they are.

Studios are expected to be right in the thick of the television upfront this year. Networks continue to make the case that TV is the best format for movie trailers, especially as larger, high-quality TVs continue to roll out.