Studios Seek FCC Waiver to Put Movies on Pay-TV Earlier
Studios are considering giving pay-TV providers movies farther in advance, a Friday FCC filing by the Motion Picture Association of America shows. Disney Studios, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal City Studios and Warner Bros. want a permanent waiver of the commission’s one-way plug and play rules, to protect high definition moves from piracy, they said. Those studios represent the bulk of Hollywood output, said Leichtman Research President Bruce Leichtman.
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MPAA seeks a waiver from restrictions on use of selectable output controls, preventing multichannel video program distributors from using those controls to direct content through only authorized and secure inputs. MPAA members are “interested in partnering” with MVPDs to provide “high-definition content to consumers prior to the normal release date of prerecorded media (e.g. DVDs) for general in- home viewing,” the group said. Exemption from the FCC’s 2003 rule will allow “the creation of a discrete and well-defined new distribution window,” added MPAA.
A CEA spokesman was lukewarm about the use of selectable output controls. That “could pose challenges to consumer enjoyment of CE products,” he said. “Consumers should have the right to the integrity of the products that they purchase in good faith.” MPAA’s request shows the industry “is serious about embracing new technologies and responding to consumer demand,” said a spokeswoman. She called it “another step toward creating new, additional choice for HD customers.”
Now, pay-TV subscribers wait 150 to 165 days after movie releases in theaters to watch titles on video on demand or pay-per-view, MPAA said. That’s 30 to 45 days after DVDs are released, it said. If the waiver is granted, the studios “would each be able to offer the services through MVPDs to consumers significantly earlier and prior to DVD release.” Buttressing its request, MPAA said granting the waiver would further the digital TV transition and encourage consumers to buy more HDTVs. “These new services are exactly the type of ‘new business models’ that the commission contemplated when it adopted the encoding rules,” said MPAA. “Each studio would have its own independent business model developed through private negotiations with existing and potentially new partners.”
Leichtman said a quick reversal is unlikely of studio policies against day and date releases, despite the filing. Warner Bros. is the only studio that has publicly said it’s interested in releasing movies by other methods the same day they're unveiled on DVD, Leichtman noted. “We're getting closer but we're not quite there yet,” he said. “It might happen on occasion. I don’t think we're going to see any sea change in that happening -- that would just be completely flipping the model, and I don’t think they are completely ready.”