One of the wierdest creative tensions in Hollywood is between finding new distribution channels for old content, whilst rigorously defending existing channels from new challenges. Back when the box office was king, getting the DVD format greenlight was an uphill battle. Now that DVD is a $17.5 billion dollar industry, you can just imagine the reception to proposals for digital downloading replacements. Still, potential lost billions or not, it seems this time round Sony is determined to avoid being iPodded again.
Speaking at the Digital Hollywood conference, Michael Arrieta, the senior vice-president of Sony Pictures, announced plans to develop a digital download service for its 500 most popular movies from its large movie library. With a respectful nod toward Apple's iTunes strategy, Sony also discussed making this content available for new smaller format devices such as mobile phones and its recently launched PSP mobile video game console.
Leaving aside the dubious merits of watching feature films on your mobile, it has certainly become all too easy for new media execs to chant the iPod/iTunes mantra whenever they are trying to get people excited about a new idea, without really considering whether the same rules will apply to their space.
In fact, there are likely to be a number of significant differences in the way the movie download industry shakes out relative to what happened with music. Larger file sizes are only part of the issue. More interesting is playback and packaging. In the case of MP3 music tracks, the availability and relative simplicity of playback devices made the entire process of ripping CDs, swapping them digitally over a network, and then uploading to a device relatively painless. Apple's great contribution to the cause was not technology but rather the application of psychological 'shrink wrap' - using marketing and product design to neatly simplify for consumers what was already quite a mature technology.
Achieving simplicity in downloaded movie playback, however will be no mean feat. In addition to the issue of competing formats, you can safely assume that unless the vast majority of consumers wish to drag their sofas into their home offices, the computer will not replace the widescreen TV as the primary viewing portal for downloaded films in the future. The winning solution for digital movies therefore needs to be a combination of hardware (which utilises the existing home investment in living room TV displays), software (which streamlines rights management, content delivery, and device distribution) and branding (to make everyone comfortable and excited about the whole thing).
Will that be Sony? Maybe. But certainly not only. The key to being the lynch pin in the new world of digital downloading will be independence, and despite Sony's impressive film library - you can be sure that consumers will want more than a steady diet of Spiderman and Lawrence of Arabia.
