Someone needs to tell Lionsgate not to pre-announce its deals before the partners want it done (good for us journalists, though): in its earnings call today, CEO Jon Feltheimer listed its digital movies partners, which includes existing ones such as Apple and Amazon.com, and he also included Best Buy and Blockbuster, neither of which has yet announced its plans in the space, reports Variety. Lionsgate did a similar things earlier last year by pre-announcing its Apple iTunes movie deal, and had to backtrack on it a bit. Anyway, both BB and BB were always expected to enter the market, so not that big of a news, but no timeline on when they will go to market. Wal-Mart and Amazon.com with competing services haven’t exactly burned the charts.
From the earnings call:
— On-demand generated revenues, VOD and pay-per-view, equaled nearly 10% of box office on better performing titles such as Crank and Employee of the Month. VOD revenues on Employee of the Month alone exceeded $3 million on a film that grossed about $27 million at the domestic box office.
— Our Internet delivered digital revenue grew by a multiple of 7 in fiscal ’07 compared to the prior year, although obviously from a relatively small base.
— Since our electronic delivery deal with X-Box Live became active in February, we have had 150,000 VOD downloads from just 15 films.
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