Fox Interactive Media (FIM) and Twentieth Century Fox announced this morning a partnership to offer video downloads of feature films and television shows across a wide swath of FIM properties online, beginning with the game download site Direct2Drive in October and eventually including MySpace.
In what the announcement claimed was a first, the downloads will be transferable to any Windows Media portable device. Each download will be viewable on two computers and one portable device per computer. Feature films will cost around $19.99 and TV episodes $1.99. The DRM and the pricing are to be expected for such a partnership, but I suppose being allowed to transfer a file you’ve purchased to a portable device you own is notable.
We’ve covered a number of other video on demand partnerships here lately, but this one is obviously notable for the incredible breadth of high-traffic sites at issue. This may also be the first time an additional revenue model other than advertising has emerged from MySpace. Hopefully this Fall we’ll see a serious catalogue of videos available for easy download expand quickly across the FIM network. This could be a move that puts video on demand on the map, especially if the offering is meatier than whatever iTunes is offering by then.
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Wow! This just keeps getting bigger…
Fascinating how those who control TV shows and films (Let’s resist calling it slurry, er, content) are investing to route around the walled gardens of cable and satellite multi-channel TV distributors.
Especially fascinating, and very enlightended in this case, because Fox and MySpace are corporate siblings of not only DirecTV in the U.S. but other DBS distributors with worldwide reach. Go, Rupert, Go Rupert.
Nice. My tv broke so this fall season I am going to see how long I can last without buying a new one. I think $20 is too steep though for a movie, you can buy a dvd for $20 or less at target or walmart. You can spend $2 on just about anything (did somebody say ringtones), but I don’t think $20 downloadable movies will catch on nearly as well. They should be $10 given how much they are saving in distribution.
I’m keeping my eye on VOD for the next year. I expect it will grow very quickly.
FindMotive.com
My only worry with VOD is if enough people have the bandwith speed to download a full feature length film… Imagine if halfway through you got disconnected/pc crashed…
Though I have to say VOD is the future…
What IDOTS are paying for this. The newsgroups are still alive, more then the mainstream internet!
The convergence as they say is upon us. What an eXciting time to connected! AKIMBO seems to have s solid plan in place to deliver VOD. The question is will content keep up with demand?