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Closing Windows?

By Jonathan Handel, Esq.

Interesting email from my satellite company today. DirecTV urges me to order Julie & Julia on PPV. Not my cup of tea, thanks, though I suppose Julia Child probably had a clever way to brew a cup of tea while cooking up some unusual dish at the same time. But more interesting to me were two little notes that accompanied the ad: "Now Playing" and "Same Day as DVD." The movie's official Sony website confirms that this is non DirecTV-specific.

That's intriguing. There's usually an exclusive DVD window before the pay-per-view release, with the window averaging 37 days this year, up from 32 days last year, says research firm SNL Kagan. Even the shortest average was 20 days, over at Lions Gate.

Is this a trend or an experiment? Probably the latter, but who knows where it might go. And for those wondering what effect this might have on the guilds, consider that the DVD residual formula is much less favorable to talent than the pay TV formula. Time for guild members to cross their fingers and send Sony some holiday best wishes - and maybe a gift basket worthy of Julia.

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Full post as published by Digital Media Law on December 11, 2009 (boomark / email).