Home Media Magazine - January 20-26, 2008 - (Page 28) NEWS PEOPLE I WARNER TAPS DAGES Warner Bros. Entertainment Group has named Chuck Dages EVP of emerging technology. Dages will report directly to Kevin Tsujihara, president, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group. Dages moves up from EVP of emerging technology for Warner Bros. Technical Operations. He will continue overseeing post-production facility Motion Picture Imaging and the Advanced Media Editorial department, but now also will lead efforts to repurpose the studio’s entertainment assets. Entertainment, Fox Lorber, Winstar Home Entertainment, Wellspring Entertainment, Republic Pictures, Academy Entertainment, New Horizons Home Video, MGM/UA Home Video and Media Home Entertainment. Continued from page 1 www.homemediamagazine.com Retailers Still Promoting Both HD Formats and Southern Calif.-based Ken Cranes Big Screen Headquarters incorporated both HD DVD and Blu-ray in their Sunday (Jan. 13) newspaper circulars. Circuit City offered free 1080p Bluray players from Sharp Electronics and Panasonic with the respective purchases of a Sharp Aquos HDTV or a 50-inch Panasonic 1080p plasma HDTV. Both offers included five free Blu-ray movies. Richmond, Va.-based Circuit City continued to offer Toshiba’s HD-A3 HD DVD player for $299 and seven free movies, including 300 and The Bourne Identity in the box. Best Buy offered the same Toshiba player and movies for $399. Indeed, the ad for HD DVD appeared before an ad for LG Electronics’ dual-format player for $799. The circular made no mention of Blu-ray software or additional players. Costco sells Samsung Electronics’ Blu-ray player (BD-P1400) with 1080p resolution for $379. It sells the Microsoft Xbox 360 HD DVD player attachment for $170, including five free movies. Ken Cranes offered the HD-A3 with 1080i resolution for $148 and the HD-A30 with 1080p resolution for $198. Both models included the seven free movies. Both Best Buy and Circuit City could be dropping their HD DVD prices after Toshiba Corp. said it was slashing $150 and $200, respectively, from the retail prices of the HD-A3 and HD-A30. Steve Caldero, SVP and COO of I AMANN PROMOTED AT PR FIRM MPRM Alan Amann has been upped to EVP and COO of public relations company mPRm. He will report directly to co-presidents Rachel McCallister and Mark Pogachefsky. Amann adds to his duties day-to-day operational management as COO, as well as management of the events and lifestyle practice sectors and overseeing the agency’s recently formed viral marketing and PR service, mPRm sPRead Solutions. He will continue to manage the home entertainment, television and corporate entertainment divisions. I CINEMA LIBRE NAMES HEAD OF HOME ENTERTAINMENT Independent film producer and DVD distributor Cinema Libre Studio has tapped Martin J. Mair as its head of home entertainment. He will report to Philippe Diaz, chairman. Mair most recently served at entertainment consulting firm Ten Media Inc., where he brokered international licensing deals, among other duties, and before that worked at St. Clair Entertainment Group, helping build the company’s home video division. The Bourne Identity was among the HD DVD special offerings. I ENTERTAINMENT STUDIOS HIRES TWO Entertainment Studios has hired Karen Roberts as SVP of acquisitions, reporting to chairman and CEO Byron Allen. Roberts will pursue projects for theatrical, television, home entertainment and new media/digital distribution. She previously held SVP positions at PorchLight Entertainment, Dream Entertainment, Myriad Pictures and J&M Entertainment. Entertainment Studios also has hired Patrick Mahoney as SVP of digital media. He will handle strategic oversight of mobile and online initiatives, as well as help develop new partnerships and revenue streams. Mahoney previously managed business development for ABC Television’s Digital Media Group. – Billy Gil I PORCHLIGHT HIRES GILBERT PorchLight Home Entertainment has hired Kathy Gilbert as director of sales, southern region. She will handle such accounts as Blockbuster Inc. and Ingram. The Tennessee-based Gilbert has more than 20 years of industry experience as a regional sales manager, having held positions at Koch Hawthorne, Calif.-based Cranes, said the HD DVD price reductions did not reflect a decision by Cranes to abandon HD DVD. “No, we’re not discontinuing HD DVD,” he said. Caldero said Warner’s decision still left retailers with the responsibility to sell both formats, since Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks release exclusively on HD DVD. “It hasn’t been the best situation from day one,” Caldero said. He said the Toshiba players still have an advantage over Blu-ray with Internet-connectivity. In fact, several retailers said that with the exception of the Sony PlayStation 3, which has a BD drive, most standalone Blu-ray players (Profile 1.0 and 1.1) sold thus far lack Web access and cannot be retrofitted to do so. “Their Web-enabled BD players [Profile 2.0] haven’t even shipped yet,” Caldero said. Best Buy spokesperson Brian Lucas said the retailer will continue stocking HD DVD so long as studios release content in the format and there existed consumer demand. “As far as we’re concerned, there are still two formats, and the format war is not really over,” Lucas said. He said Best Buy, which is the largest HD packaged-media retailer according to The NPD Group, will continue explaining to customers about the two formats and not take sides so they could make “an informed decision.” Lucas said as more BD titles are released, Best Buy stores will accordingly offer increased shelf space for them. He said Best Buy is responsible to its customers and not studio decisions. “Unless one format drops out, it’s business as usual,” he said. Adult Video Industry Focuses on Digital Continued from page 6 the next big delivery method.” Former investment banker turned pornographer Clifton Britt (“Lexington Steele”) said FyreTV and electronic distribution represent evolution in the marketplace and should not be viewed as underscoring the demise of DVD. “You have to see it as your glass is half full instead of half empty,” Britt said. “You have to find a way to stay on top of the game.” Free stuff As with studio concerns over copyrighted material appearing with user-generated content on YouTube and MySpace, increasingly free adult content has flooded the Web, oftentimes pirated. Last year, Vivid sued Adult Entertainment Broadcast Network (AEBN), alleging its user-generated site, PornoTube.com, displayed copyrighted material. The case is ongoing. While most producers said they lacked Vivid’s resources to fight piracy, others said doing so against foreign-based properties was futile. “What do you do when it is coming out of Russia?” said one exhibitor. Pink Visual’s Kysar countered that pirated material should be considered a cost of doing business. She said the company found offering free content online, including creating a free link to the Apple iPhone, drove DVD sales and subscriptions. By partnering with online communities housing free content, Pink Visual was able to better understand its customers and what they wanted from its product, according to Kysar. “If you cling too tightly to your content and prevent potential consumers from viewing free clips and teases, it’s going to be that much harder to build a strong customer base,” she said. Format agnostic The apparent end of the format war between Blu-ray and HD DVD largely registered indifference within an adult industry that has firmly embraced HD DVD. Currently there are more than 50 adult HD DVD titles in release, compared to fewer than 20 on Blu-ray. Digital Playground, which leads the industry with more than 30 HD DVD titles, recently announced it will street eight titles on Blu-ray. During the first hour of the AVN show, the company sold 10 copies of the acclaimed title Pirates in Blu-ray, according to a spokesperson. Digital Playground’s Joone said the company would not abandon HD DVD in the short term, citing consumer demand. He welcomed a unified format (preferably Blu-ray), which he said would give producers the ability to use Blu-ray’s acclaimed special features. The sequel to Pirates, Stagnetti’s Revenge, will be released in all formats simultaneously this spring, according to Joone. Vivid’s Hirsch said HD replication costs still favored HD DVD over Blu-ray. “We will be judicious in selecting which movies go into [Blu-ray], he said. online adult DVD service, said disc consumption will continue to be driven by consumer needs for physical product. Brandt also operates X-Rated Bucks, an affiliate marketing site — common in the adult industry — in which a business pays cash to affiliate sites for each visitor or customer brought in by their marketing efforts. “DVD sales are just a percentage of my business,” he said. Digital Playground’s Joone said the current state of technology doesn’t favor an exclusive distribution channel. He said adult consumers vary in their viewing habits and technological sophistication. “[DVD sales] can’t go away because there are consumers in their late 40s and 50s who are not downloaders,” DVD’s staying power echoed Marc Stuart with Maverick Bob Brandt with U Rent DVDs, Entertainment in North Hollywood, an upstart Calabasas, Calif.-based Calif. Home Media Magazine January 20–26, 2008 http://www.homemediamagazine.com
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