Kiosk.net

An article in the New York Times today discusses the true cost of a night out at the movies: money and time. The article attributes some of the box office slump to the schlep, meaning, the theater experience itself. Getting tickets online, getting to the theater, getting food, getting seats, sitting through ads, then sitting through a juggernaut-sized film.

Speaking of a time investment, there’s a great infographic in the article that lists movie times against other varying activities, including the international space station orbiting the Earth and a one way flight from New York to Miami. The longest item on the list is the running time of King Kong.

The loss of spontaneity is also mourned:

In the age of Fandango, premovie advertising and sellouts every weekend, it has become increasingly difficult to simply “catch” a movie. Going to see a film has become an exercise in elaborate planning and, particularly this holiday season - when many big films like “Munich,” “The New World” and most famously “King Kong,” are clocking in at two and a half to three hours - a major time commitment.

“It’s basically impossible to see a movie spontaneously,” said Scott Solish, 26, an urban planning student who sees movies three times a month with strategic plans to avoid crowds. For the latest “Harry Potter” installment, he went at 11 p.m. on a Monday or Tuesday several weeks after the film opened, when the theater was comfortably underpopulated. “It’s better to have it empty than full of screaming people,” he said.

I’m sure the folks over at Fandango.com are plenty pleased to hear today referred to as “the age of Fandango.” Sort of reminds me of the dawning of the age of Aquarius, only with more talking paper bags.

Check out the article here.

I’ve made some rumblings about the subscription model in terms of television and how the iPod and iTunes may effect cable and video on demand, but here’s an interesting question: Will VOD turn TV into a luxury item? Joe Stein at the Decatur Daily Democrat weighs in:

Basically, here’s how it worked: We all got to watch “60 Minutes,” but only some of us were able to buy the BMW advertised in the commercials. This was a great deal for the poor, other than the fact that they didn’t get the BMW. And they had to watch Andy Rooney. When you’re working two jobs for $30,000 a year and a guy is pulling mid-six figures by rummaging through his desk drawers, it’s got to hurt.

But now the advertising model is dying. More than 10 percent of Americans own a TiVo-style DVR, skipping all the ads. The networks have made deals to charge directly for commercial-free TV episodes sent to portable video players. Their series are already sold ad-free on DVD. So instead of watching “24” when it’s broadcast, viewers can now order it from Netflix, thereby saving six hours they can now use to stuff DVDs into envelopes and mail them

So what might this mean? If you can’t afford a Netflix sub, an HBO sub, a sat radio sub, a stockpile of DVDs, movie tickets and now on demand, pay-per-download TV, you’re shit out of luck when it comes to entertainment?

Let them eat cake!

We may be headed in that direction, although more and more free material is being made available online as well. Read the full editorial for a complete perspective.

Rueters is way behind the times. Today, they reported that Netflix won round one by surviving the onslaught of Blockbuster Online. Apparently, the world has forgotten about how they already beat a little company called Wal Mart, so I guess they really won round 2… which Kiosk.net reported back in July of ‘05. In the near future when Blockbuster either A) scraps its online store or B) completely goes under, I guess Netflix will have won round 3 completely giving round 2 a miss. Although now that the year is officially coming to an end, this is a pretty good time for a recap.

This year was about Blockbuster taking a run at us,” Netflix Chief Executive Reed Hastings told Reuters at the company’s Beverly Hills offices. “They chopped price. They emptied their balance sheet.”

But despite Blockbuster’s costly offensive, Hastings said Netflix was on track for net subscriber additions of 1.5 million for 2005 for a total of 4.1 million — the midpoint of its target range

It may also be prudent to mention Amazon.com in the growing list of companies thwarted by Netflix. As reported by Kiosk like a year ago or whatever, Amazon essentially ditched its plans to launch a dvd-by-mail service in the U.S., relegating itself to the U.K. and Germany, where Netflix is not yet well established.

Blockbuster has announced a new service plan called Movie Suite. For $29.99/month, Blockbuster users get unlimited DVD rentals from BB online, two free Blockbuster store rentals a month, and two free movie passes per month courtesy of Fandango. If you typically see two movies a month (at $10 a ticket) and rent two movies a month (at $5 a DVD), then hey, it’s already paid for itself and the online service is basically free. Sounds like a good deal to me, and you know how much I’ve railed on Blockbuster in the past.

I won’t even mention them going out of business in this post.

And for those of you who are suspicious of the movie tickets, here are the terms and conditions as quoted from Blockbuster.com:

Tickets are issued by Fandango, Inc. and are subject to certain terms, conditions and restrictions. See below and www.fandango.com for more information.

While you are a subscriber, each month you will receive a promotional code for two movie tickets. Tickets are issued by Fandango, Inc. You can only redeem the promotional codes for tickets through the use of the Fandango.com website. Tickets will only be issued for participating movie theaters and available movies. Promotional codes have expiration dates after which they cannot be redeemed. Certain other restrictions may apply. See www.fandango.com for complete details and full terms and conditions.

Blockbuster is also running a special promotion where the first month of the Movie Suite service is $14.99 instead of $29.99.

Heavy hitters NBC, Sci-fi channel, and USA now all have shows available for download at the iTunes store, ready to zap directly to a video-enabled 5G iPod. Things are moving fast in the world of portable video downloads; NBC in particular seems to have realized the potential and taken a huge step forward.

Shows available for download include the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Late Night with Conan O’brien, The Office, Monk, Battle Star Galactica, Law & Order, and even some vintage shows like Night Rider, Dragnet, and Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

This is a great start and I’m pleased with the rate new networks and shows are being added. What would I like to see in the future? Fox would be a great addition. Simpsons is a natural choice for the portable format thanks to its rapid fire jokes, short episodes (compared to Lost etc), and extreme appeal to the masses. Ditto for Family Guy and Futurama.

Speaking of those shows, I believe I mentioned before that Cartoon Network/Adult Swim would be an amazing partner for Apple. Not only does Adult Swim hold a huge portion of the iPod market, but the shows are cool, funny, and above all short. 15 minutes of Aqua Teen Hunger Force might be the ultimate iPod show.

Another little annoyance, for the price of $2, you only get the first 10 minutes or so of Leno or Conan. If you want the full episode NBC expects you to fork over a whopping $10. Also, to purchase many episodes, say, the first season of Dragnet, would cost a TON of money, far more than buying the DVDs. So it’s not perfect yet, but we’re getting there.