Andre Yoskowitz
24 Dec 2009 15:16
Warner, Universal and Fox, three of the major Hollywood studios, announced in the last quarter that the popular Redbox kiosks would not be allowed to offer new releases of their films for the first 30 days after launch, taking a shot at the growing kiosk market which offers movie rentals for $1-a-night. The three studios account for 40 percent off the entire rental market.
Redbox has signed workaround agreements and continues to offer the titles, and has sued the studios as well. The kiosks continue to offer street-date films from Sony, Disney, Paramount and others.
According to Merriman Curhan Ford analyst Eric Wold, new popular releases such as The Hangover from Warner and Inglourious Basterds from Universal were stocked in about 85 percent of all Redbox kiosks on launch day, but it is still unclear whether they have one disc of the title, or twenty.
"We know that copy depth on workaround titles is going to be lower than for titles [Redbox gets] through distribution agreements," Wold told VB. "But in my discussions with Coinstar, they stress their workarounds are centered around getting as many copies in as many kiosks by Friday night."