The director of Sky Movies believes that the movie industry needs to embrace change in order to compete with the increasing use of illegal P2P sites to get movies ahead of the game.
Ian Lewis, speaking to The Independent, insists that the movie industry’s failure to look at new platforms, combined with the rigidly enforced windows of time between cinema, DVD and television release, is not helping their cause.
New platforms
"There's a need to embrace change," said Lewis. "Sometimes the movie industry has not been as quick to react and develop as other industries have. It hasn't moved as quickly as consumers, who embrace new platforms at the drop of a hat.
"One of the things we collectively do [as an industry] that restricts us is the very strict window structure. There is no rhyme nor reason why those windows exist in the format they do.
"Up until the last year or so they have been rigidly adhered to, though every now and then they move forward and develop. I don't think anyone could turn around and say it means they optimise their marketing money.
"Any studio or independent distributor will have spent a certain amount of money on marketing their film when it goes into theatres, and then when it goes to DVD. We'll spend money, and then even later one of the terrestrials might spend money. It is a very inefficient means of making people aware of the film."
Increasing bandwidth
Of course, it’s in Sky’s best interest to cut down on the peer-to-peer spread of movies, with several of its premium channels focused on first-run movies and a movie-on-demand service called Sky Box Office.
However, the pressure appears to be growing on the movie industry to learn from the mistakes of the music publishers who have finally begun to embrace online in the face of massive illegal downloads.
With people’s bandwidth increasing at home - due to cheaper and more readily available high-speed broadband services - it is now much more feasible to download big files like movies online.
This is making the arbitrary windows between releases across the world less enforceable, with fans sometimes plumping for illegal methods of watching the latest titles rather than facing weeks of wait because they do not live in the US.
Your comments (4) Click to add a new comment
robertjamespaul
April 28th 2008
4. movie studios don't know what they're doing - much like the music industry really. you pay too much for the cinema nowadays. £8 a ticket where i live. too much
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reload
April 28th 2008
3. Being a patient man I just wait for most films to make their way on to Sky Movies (which I'm subscribed to). It does mean waiting around 18-months to see the flim, but if there is a film which i really want to see (which isn't often) I will see it at the cinema. This way I get the most value for my money.
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weeve_stalmer
April 28th 2008
2. DVDs are overpriced, Sky Movies is way overpriced, the cinema is way overpriced (I wanted to see a new movie this weekend, but was put off by the fact that it would cost me and my wife around a tenner a ticket)... Aside from questions of legality (which I don't care about as I'm not running a pirate movie factory) bittorrent is an annoying pain in the arse and I'd rather not feel any need to ever have to use it... yet I do. Go figure.
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calcio
April 28th 2008
1. So Sky want people to pay for their movie channels rather than illegally download - agenda much?
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