Long live 'video'
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Sony and Reef Check celebrated the DVD release of Surf’s Up at Malibu Bluffs Park in Malibu, Calif., on Oct. 6.
Fox celebrated the DVD release of Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer on Oct. 2 with a “Surfing in New York” event in New York.
CBS and Paramount hosted a release party for the first season DVD of Jericho with cast and crew members at Crimson in Hollywood.
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By Marcy Magiera -- Video Business, 6/2/2006
JUNE 2 | It has been five years or more since the major studio video divisions began dropping the term “video” from their official monikers, and substituting “home entertainment,” to reflect a broader world (or at least industry) view instead.
(Given, Warner Home Video still exists, but it is part of the Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group.)
It’s just in the past month, however, that two of the industry’s oldest organizations have done the same.
The Video Software Dealers Assn. (VSDA) has become the Entertainment Merchants Assn. (EMA) and the Video Industry AIDS Action Coalition has become the Entertainment AIDS Alliance, presumably to broaden their membership and supporter bases and show they are facing forward, not backward.
(In a bit of awkward timing, the VSDA convention will remain the VSDA convention this year, and possibly longer, I suspect, in the minds of veteran attendees.)
The name changes are completely understood. In fact, some might say it’s about time, especially those who equate video with that clunky old format, VHS.
No doubt about it, VHS is dead. On our Top Renters chart this week, only four of the 35 titles ranked show any activity on VHS. As of next week, we’ll drop VHS revenue off the chart completely.
Video, I would argue, is far from dead. Video, as in moving pictures, is delivered in more ways than ever, all of them far sexier than VHS. Streaming video. Video phones. High-definition video.
Video iPod—need I say more?
It has been suggested that Video Business rename itself Entertainment Business, for the same reasons the studio divisions and industry support organizations have changed their names. We subscribe to the broader definition of video, however, which is what the home entertainment industry is all about delivering, in more ways than ever before, and so we’ll stay VB.
VHS is dead. Long live video.
Another venerable industry term—“direct-to-video”—has also been getting a major makeover recently, as several studios ramp up their production and marketing of “DVD premieres” or “DVD Originals” (which Universal even uses as a trademark).
Increasing direct-to-video production seems counterintuitive given flat DVD sales and the escalating fight for retail shelf space for all but big theatrical grossers. These movies, however, are relatively inexpensive to produce—Warner’s new batch will be budgeted around $5 million each—and can be efficient to market as well, especially when leveraging the consumer awareness of existing franchises. Franchise extension really is the direct-to-video sweet spot for studios, as Disney has long demonstrated in animation.
In addition, original productions give studios some control over their release schedules, independent of the film flow from theatrical.
Long live Bring it On, Dr. Dolittle and the Dukes of Hazzard.
