Home Media Magazine - April 20-26, 2008 - (Page 26)

ADVERTISEMENT PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT NEXT YEAR IN JERUSALEM MSRP: $29.95 One gay man who is Jewish but not practicing meets another devout Jewish man who is deeply in the closet. Can they find common ground to build a life? Originally made in 1998. Watch Georgina Spelvin (Devil in Mrs. Jones) as an excellent aunt. Order Date: 4/15/08 Street Date: 5/16/08 NEWS www.homemediamagazine.com New Line Video Top Brass Bid Adieu Continued from page 1 In home video circles, Einhorn is chiefly pink-slipped effective June 27, including presiknown for his early advocacy of DVD special dent and COO Steve Einhorn, who founded features, which ultimately became one of the the division in November 1990. Einhorn is the format’s chief selling points. Under Einhorn’s only president the division — which routinely watch, New Line also brought to DVD the achieved a market share of 3% to 4%, just acclaimed “Lord of the Rings” trilogy with Einhorn behind the six major studios and Lionsgate a variety of innovative consumer products, — has ever had. including extended editions of each film and Einhorn is considered the dean of the studio premium-priced gift sets. New Line’s home presidents, having served in that role at New video release strategy, in which a vanilla Line longer than any other home entertainversion of the film is followed in the market ment studio president. During his tenure, by a beefier version with an extended cut annual revenue has grown from $43 million of the film and hours of bonus features, is Lasorsa in 1990 to as high as $1 billion. Einhorn also considered to be one of the industry’s most structured and managed highly successful complex and innovative. distribution partnerships, first with Columbia TriStar Also out are EVP of marketing Matt Lasorsa, EVP of sales Home Video and then Warner Home Video. Pam Kelley and financial EVP Ray Landes, along with most A member of the committee that greenlights films at other marketing, sales and operations staffers, sources parent New Line Cinema, Einhorn also managed New Line say. Some personnel have been offered opportunities to Cinema acquisitions and coproductions for three years. fill open positions at Warner Home Video. Internet Brands Buys High-Def Sites Continued from page 4 CLASSIFIED SHOWCASE B R O W S E R D I S P L AY S BUSINESS SERVICES “These highly targeted, content-rich sites nicely complement our existing properties,” said Bob Brisco, president and CEO of Internet Brands. “Additionally, they fit easily on our common operating platform, enabling us to quickly enhance revenue and reduce expenses.” The acquisitions bring Internet Brands’ total monthly visitors to more than 34 million, with nearly a half-a-million page views. Readers at both High-Def Digest and High Def Forum expressed concern over the acquisitions. “I have mixed feelings about this,” wrote a member at High-Def Digest. “I’ve heard it all before – ‘Nothing will change. It’s all for the best!’ Usually just ends up being true for the short term. We will see.” “If [High-Def Digest] is merged with [High Def Forum], I’m gone,” wrote one member on the latter’s message boards. “I left there for a reason, and I’m sure most people on here would now agree that I’m not a rabid HD DVD fanboy jumping to save the format’s reputation at every possible opportunity.” However, DVDTalk.com founder Geoffrey Kleinman assured his site’s readers during the acquisition that the review, news and opinion site essentially will remain the same. “We’ll use [Internet Brand’s] resources to enhance the DVDTalk experience for our users, keep pace with the fast-changing home entertainment industry, and continue our leadership role with consumers for the next-generation, high-definition formats,” he said. CO M P U T E R S O F T WA R E Web Studio Filmaka Sets Up Shop Continued from page 4 USED TAPES & DVDS REDUCING YOUR INVENTORY? We Buy VHS, and also DVD & Video Games xtreme deo E 733-7370 (203) Vi stuff, which is obviously a bottom-up business where people go out, shoot stuff, upload it, and then hope and pray somebody watches it, we have brought a top-down process to the business of discovering talent and creating content,” Grushow said. The original idea was to have just the one feature film competition over the course of a year, but “we didn’t feel that having one contest was enough,” Grushow said. “To build a whole business on the back of one person making one feature film at the end of the year did not feel like a sustainable business model.” So they came up with additional contests, including branded competitions to address the needs of advertisers in the burgeoning online market. Grushow said the idea came together after meetings with advertisers, who expressed a growing desire to move more money out of traditional media and onto the Web, but also were frustrated because the quality of the content was not high enough for them to want to associate their brands with it. “It’s got to be ad safe, and for a lot of these companies YouTube is not advertiser friend- ly,” Grushow said. “So we see an opportunity to be the preeminent company in terms of creating high-quality, low-cost content.” With the branded competitions, advertisers pay Filmaka a community access fee, and Filmaka asks the community to create content from a creative brief on behalf of the advertiser. The idea is that the advertiser gets hundreds of films from which to choose to sponsor, and the filmmaker wins a professional opportunity and compensation. Another type of opportunity comes from media companies. Currently FX has enlisted Filmaka to generate ideas for a new television series. Community members compete within the guidelines set by FX for the opportunity to win a $40,000 budget to create a 15-20 minute pilot episode. “We are not a single payoff,” Nayar said. “We are in the business of discovering talent.” Grushow added: “We don’t view ourselves as a being a destination site. The only people we wish for it to be a destination for is filmmakers. We are a studio that is simply using [online] competitions as a means to an end. We are going to distribute our content as widely as we possibly can.” 26 Home Media Magazine April 20–26, 2008 http://www.homemediamagazine.com http://DVDTalk.com http://www.corporate.com http://www.rapidrental.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Home Media Magazine - April 20-26, 2008

Home Media Magazine - April 20-26, 2008 Contents News Commentary TV DVD Horror Reviews Pipeline Research Top 20 DVD Sellers Top 20 Rentals and Top 10 Charts Just Announced

Home Media Magazine - April 20-26, 2008

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