Media Money
- Jeffrey Katzenberg Wants to Create the 'Disney of China'
- DreamWorks Animation Partners with China on Movie Venture
- Twitter Grows Up and Grows Revenue: Interview with CEO Dick Costolo
- Twitter Expands Ad Business, Partners with AmEx Small Business
- Discovery Beats the Street - But Analysts are Still Worried Over Oprah
- Zynga Beats the Street But Earnings Slow
- Whitney Houston’s Music Sales Surge
- LinkedIn Earnings Bode Well for Hiring and Social Media
- News Corp. Beats Estimates on Studio, Cable Strength
- Disney’s Earnings Beat; CEO Bob Iger Talks Piracy, Parks
RSS FEED
MOST SHARED
- More Asset-Buying Depends on Economy: Bank of England
- RBS to Pay Out $627 Million in Bonuses Despite Loss
- Japan Manufacturing Mood Dips to Levels After Quake
- Household Debt, Not Politics, Worry for Australia: Economist
- Japan's Sumo Belly Flops to $50 Million Debt
- 7 Undervalued IPO Stocks That Could Rebound in 2012
- Credit Agricole Posts $4.1 Billion Fourth Quarter Loss
- Break-Up, Greece Cause Huge 2011 Dexia Loss
- What if Mitt Romney Had Been President in 2009?
- The Rise and Fall of a Multibillion-Dollar Ponzi Scheme
- Wandering Through Toy Land
- Dell Is Done, But Don't Discount HP: Analysts
- Comcast Deal Could Spell Trouble for Netflix: Analyst
- Reading the Tea Leaves in RIM Shake-Up
- Sam Adams Brewer Crafts Beer for the Granddaddy of All Marathons
- Stocks to Give Up for Lent
- You Want Retail Customers? Give Them Deals: Analysts
- NJ Governor Chris Christie to Warren Buffett: 'Just Write a Check and Shut Up'
- 7 Undervalued IPO Stocks That Could Rebound in 2012
- More Asset-Buying Depends on Economy: BOE
- Stocks Sputter as Investors Seek Next Catalyst
- Winners and Losers in Obama's Corporate Tax Plan
- Santorum Takes Heavy Fire in Arizona Republican Debate
- Volcker Rule Threatens Recovery: Finance Ministers
- Next Bank of England Governor: The Race is On
- Peugeot Citroen in Talks With General Motors
- HP, Dell Watch Rising China Labor Costs for Apple
- China Internet Firm Qihoo Says Citron Allegations False
Warner Brothers Unveils New App to Transform Home Entertainment
Text Size 
CNBC Correspondent
 |
CNBC.com |
The way iTunes changed music, Warner Brothers [TWX
Loading...
()
] wants to change movies. Today the studio gave me an exclusive look at an entertainment app it's been working on for years - the ultimate destination for people to buy *all* digital movies, not just Warner Brothers'. It's an app code-named 'Digital Everywhere,' and it's set to launch this summer.
'Digital Everywhere' isn't a retailer like iTunes, but rather it gathers all the various ways movies can be bought or rented. It also organizes an individual's entire library of digital movies and TV shows - not just Warner brothers. And it will consumers to access their library from any internet-connected device - a TV, laptop, iPad or smartphone - through a cloud authentication system, called UltraViolet, that will be released this summer from a studio consortium.
Warner Brothers goal is to push consumers to buy instead of rent. The studio's looking to change the proposition of ownership, making owning a digital file more valuable than it is now, when it's stuck on the device where you bought it, and more valuable than owning a DVD, since you don't have to cart it around with you. The studio is eager to drive higher digital sales to compensate for the decline of the DVD business, which fell from $20.2 Billion in US revenue in 2006 to $14 billion in 2010. Now the industry's digital revenues are still relatively miniscule-- just $2.5 billion in the US last year. Needless to say that's not near enough to compensate for physical discs' decline.
'Digital Everywhere' aggregates all available information on a movie - trailers, clips, reviews from Rottentomatoes.com, articles from Entertainment Weekly, and release schedules. Plus it includes all the film and actor data like you'd find on IMDB and Box Office Mojo. And the app organizes everything consumers have purchased. It brings DVDs, the movies on a hard drive, digital films from iTunes, Netflix queues, and eventually digital Amazon purchases, into one easily-sortable library.
The app also makes it easier to find a movie - gone are the days of searching multiple services to find what you want. Just open the app, and type in a movie name, browse the thousands of titles, or search by genre. When you click on a title it shows you all your options - rent or buy a digital file from iTunes, buy a DVD from Amazon [AMZN
Loading...
()
], stream it on Netflix or add it to your Netflix queue. Eventually Warner Brothers plans to add a range of other options - rent or buy a digital file from Amazon, or even DVR a movie by clicking to your cable provider's upcoming schedule.
'Digital Everywhere' aims to drive sales by organizing and aggregating your library and making it accessible from everywhere, but it also expects social sharing to drive new revenue. The app integrates Facebook - letting you share recommendations with your friends and see what they're watching or like. It also has a remarkably comprehensive recommendation engine - if you link all your accounts to the system, it calculates suggestions based on a combination of everything you've watched on Netflix, your entire library, and how you've rated films.
So why is Warner Brothers creating an app that will help the rest of the industry ? The studio has a lot on the line with the biggest home entertainment marketshare of any studio, 20 percent. And the studio and its home entertainment chief Kevin Tsujihara, have a history of industry leadership. Tsujihara pioneered releasing Video-on-Demand the same day as DVD releases he's credited with ending the high-def format battle. And thanks to him, Warner Brothers is the first and only studio to rent movies on Facebook.
How can Warner Brothers get away with linking to content from its rivals? As long as consumers plug in their username and password for the likes of iTunes [AAPL
Loading...
()
] and Netflix [NFLX
Loading...
()
] it's just aggregating your information, along with a ton of public information, from across the web.
The app is going into beta testing soon, and should launch within a few months. We'll be watching to see how movie fans respond, whether other companies (like cable giants like Comcast [CMCSA
Loading...
()
]) get on board, and whether it does seamlessly integrates into the cloud. If it does, this could really be a game changer for Hollywood's home entertainment business.
Questions? Comments?
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes
