James Delahunty
25 Sep 2006 7:19
An article published by the NY Post has caused quite a stir in the movie business. It claimed that the retail giant Wal-Mart has threatened to retaliate against major Hollywood studios who make deals to sell movies through Apple's iTunes service. "Wal-Mart has overtly threatened to retaliate if they go into business with Apple," NY Post's Tim Arango wrote.
He cited an anonymous source as saying that Wal-Mart's David Porter "threatened to hurt us in terms of buying less products." Major Hollywood movie studios depend on Wal-Mart to sell about $5 billion of DVDs during the fourth quarter. When Apple first began to offer TV shows which included Lost and Desperate Housewives, Wal-Mart sent back "cases and cases" of DVDs to Disney according to the source.
However, Wal-Mart was quick to distance itself from the NY Post article by releasing a statement to that effect. "Customers want to watch movies and they want to be able to make the choice when and how they want to view them. While we recognize there are various current and potential providers of this service, we are not dissuading studios from conducting business with other providers," a Wal-Mart spokesperson told Reuters.
Reuters also quotes an anonymous source as saying Wal-Mart isn't worried about Apple's offerings as it sees it as niche and catering mainly just to young single men. "I don't think Wal-Mart or Target or any of the big box retailers are nervous," the source said, "because we have had almost a year of learning and development, and it has proven not to be that threatening."
Sources:
NY Post
Reuters
Ars Technica