Movie-watch
What's facing your sofa - a computer or a television set? Unless you're an internet ultra-nerd, chances are the TV set holds prime place in your living room. This is, some analysts think, one of the main reasons that online movie-watching has not grown as much as expected. It's simply more comfortable to watch a movie on a television than to download one from the internet.
A 2009 survey by US researchers NPD Group showed just three per cent of viewers' money was spent downloading films online, as compared to 63 per cent on DVDs.
But online is still heralded by most in the industry as the future of movie distribution. Luminaries such as British producer David Puttnam, now president of the Film Distributors' Association, regularly talk up the need to prepare for an online future.
'Today's audience demands access when they want it, in a format that they want it in,' he said recently. 'Content on demand is not a genie that can be popped back in the bottle.' So why aren't more movies - and more first-run movies - available online?
The reasons for this are shared between the needs of the film industry and the desires of the audience. Finding a way to make money by streaming films over the internet has proved problematic in a medium where audiences expect free entertainment. Free sites such as Hulu use the advertisement support method, but online ads are the cheapest of all media advertisements - especially now that advertisers are cutting their budgets due to the recession.
The industry has also been slow to work out the legal and financial issues of internet rights. For instance, should producers get paid for the amount of online views, or should online exhibitors pay a flat fee to them for a film as in traditional exhibition? Producers are suspicious of the former, and exhibitors are loath to do the latter.
As for audiences, they will watch films online - if they are free. Online piracy of films is rampant and seemingly difficult to stop. Some movie fans say that they only download films illegally because they are not available legally. Other downloaders say they would refuse to pay for anything online; while others complain about jerky images, lost connections and locked-up web-browsers.
Better technology is probably the key to the success of online movies. When download technology is as reliable and user-friendly as the DVD set in front of your sofa, audience demand will increase and the industry will quickly solve its problems. Software which allows viewers to stream films from the Web via an Xbox 360 games console - therefore integrating the internet with a standard TV set - has already proved successful in the US.
