Monday, March 14, 2005

Rentals Hurting ...because of shorter theatrical windows?

Short Windows on Top Hits Assist Sales, Hurt Rentals
go to original article .. or email me for article text
"Shorter windows boost consumer awareness, goosing sales, which dampen rentals."
I'm not really convinced that theirs a linear connection betwen these three things. I think a decline in rentals has more to do with rising availability of DVDs to a public that has rapidly become more accepting of the medium. As the discs continue to get cheaper and the gap between price of rental and price of purchase shrinks, people are naturally going to stop renting new movies the way they used to.
"While rental demand for box office hits has fallen, rentailers haven’t reduced their buy rates for top-grossing theatrical releases. They know that after rental demand is satisfied, they have a flourishing aftermarket for these hits in previously viewed title (PVT) sales."
Which is exactly what I'm talking about. They've basically become retailers for used goods. The "rentailers" really need to reimagine their business. After having gotten extremely caught up in the DVD buying craze and owned far too many myself, I'm the first to say that rental places should definitely still have a place in our culture. But they have to take a look at what service they actually provide and give it a reasonable price and restructure their business to provide it efficiently. The netflix subscription model is a decent start, but I think there must be something else that would be even better.

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