AOL announced this morning it had signed deals with most of the major studios to sell movies for $9.99 to $19.99. The deal is significant because of its breadth, flexibility, and cheapness. AOL will offer 20th Century Fox, NBC Universal, Sony, and Warner Bros. Movies can be transferred to other PCs and compatible portable devices. Fox and Sony television content will also be available.
This is a big score for AOL; the competition doesn’t have it nearly as good. Studio-supported Movielink and CinemaNow do have a lot of variety but new movies will set you back at least $20. They’ve announced plans to allow DVD burning but only with select studios. Guba just made a splash by offering videos for $9.99 on the day they come out on DVD and half that for the old stuff. But it only has deals with Warner Bros. and Sony. Amazon and Apple haven’t even crossed the starting line. Here’s hoping they cut pricing deals that are more in the Guba range than the AOL one.
In March, AOL launched streaming video of old TV series, a deal that seemed like a breakthrough at the time. Nowadays who doesn’t sell studio content online? AOL had previously had a partnership with Movielink; it’s not clear what has happened to that.
Update: Movielink called in to say that their pricing and raw deal with the studios is the same as AOL’s. In addition, the two companies’ partnership is “alive and well.” Tomorrow Movielink is going to do a promotion where movie downloads are $9.99. I’m going to have to get Windows so I can be more knowledgeable about products that don’t offer anything for Mac users!
{"source":"https:\/\/gigaom.com\/2006\/08\/24\/aol-scores-movie-deals\/wijax\/49e8740702c6da9341d50357217fb629","varname":"wijax_52852b0712bb1a6eb8622c6528c07612","title_element":"header","title_class":"widget-title","title_before":"%3Cheader%20class%3D%22widget-title%22%3E","title_after":"%3C%2Fheader%3E"}