TIME WARNER CHIEF URGES STUDIOS TO MODERNIZE HOME VIDEO

According to Time Warner chief Jeff Bewkes the reason that consumers have flocked to kiosks like Redbox and online stores like Apple’s iTunes has little to do with price and everything to do with convenience and ease-of-use. Speaking to a media conference in Palm Beach, FL, Bewkes observed that a study of the behavior of consumers who access iTunes for movies indicates that where they are given the choice of either purchasing or renting the identical content, two-thirds choose purchasing. Such an easy choice is not available elsewhere, he indicated. “We know consumers want to buy today, but they can’t do it with the ease and functionality that they have come to expect. We need to fix that and we should fix it quickly,” he said. “If we don’t we run the real risk of habituating consumers to rental when in fact they may prefer to own and build collections of movies.” Bewkes gave high marks to the new UltraViolet technology that allows consumers to access the content of DVDs that they buy on mobile and other digital devices. Until UltraViolet, he said, “it has not been easy to buy a movie digitally, to manage your digital collection and to watch it on the device of your choosing.”