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VOD Service MovieBeam Shuts Down
The corporation, which operates Movie Gallery and Hollywood Video stores, declared Chapter 11 in October (pdf). On December 15, the company closed MovieBeam, which it acquired from the Walt Disney Co. last year. Disney had toyed with the VOD service since 2003.
Philip Swan of TVPredictions.com blames MovieBeam's demise on Americans' "set-top fatigue." He says:
MovieBeam's failure should be a lesson for any company trying to sell a TV-based set-top at retail. Americans have set-top fatigue -- and they are tired of stacking set-top upon set-top next to their televisions. …
For a new set-top to succeed, it has to offer a service so powerful that Americans will ignore their set-top fatigue and give it a try. MovieBeam clearly was not that service.
MovieBeam's box retailed for $200, or $150 for a perpetually "limited time." Movies could be watched (via over-the-air transmission) for $2 to $5 each.
The Associated Press reports that subscribers who joined the MovieBeam service in March or later would be refunded the cost of the set-top box, which came loaded with 100 films.
The AP says MovieBeam had 1,800 subscribers when it shut down.
MovieBeam's exit from the business does not portend doom for video on demand. A flood of new Internet-based services are hitting the market, and they are providing more content than ever before.
ABI Research estimates that some 1.2 million Internet-based VOD devices will ship in 2008.
"Since this category first emerged in 2004-2005 with the debut of Akimbo's public Internet VOD product, vendors of these products have struggled with a number of hurdles that have so far made this market relatively unsuccessful," says ABI research director Michael Wolf. "The high cost of these devices, their reliance on the home network, the need for consumer self-installation, and the scarcity of content have all contributed to their lack of commercial success."
Wolf adds, "However, we believe that there is a possibility of a break-out success among these new entrants if they can create compelling content offerings, make consumer installation and management incredibly easy, and offer both the hardware and content at compelling pricing. We believe one way to achieve this is by incorporating some premium content using advertising support."
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3 Comments (displayed in order by date/time)
I totally enjoyed my Moviebeam service for all of 6 months before Movie Gallery shut it down :( I loved the no monthly service fee or costs and enjoyed many movies from $1.99 to $3.99. The greatest part was the sheer convenience of not having to go drive to the video rental store and waste time and then later having the hassle of returning your movies. I thought the Moviebeam menu system was great and the quality of the Linksys made set-top player box. Sooo, you can’t even begin to imagine how bummed out I was when came home Dec 17th and my 160GB Moviebeam Hard Drive and “Zero” Movies :( Ack ! They zapped em clean instead of letting users continue to enjoy movies until all existing movies hit the end of their time stamps and self erased ( say around 90-days-ish ... ). I even got 2 Moviebeam boxes to give to 2 members of my family as their main Christmas gifts. So with about a week before Christmas to try to replace such a brilliant gift idea such as the Moviebeam VOD service I was beyond bummed out !!! In a reply email I received back from Moviebeam’s customer care email dept, I was told that the “final-disposition had NOT yet been decided yet as of late December 2007. It’s crazy but I a hoping for a miracle in which Moviebeam resurects itself as it was or say as a PBS TV network VOD / station fund raising tool. Heck they could make a ton of their very cool and unique programming avaiable to more viewers and boost the stations bottom line. PBS has most of the infrastructure in place in 38 cities anyway. Anybody got any ideas ... ? I’m thinking of Tivo/Amazon-Unbox downloads or Netflix or an HT-PC. Opinions ? thanks Michael
Since I bought mine because of the Disney name and they sold me out. I think it would be civil if Disney would send coupons to all the MovieBeam customers for some discount on Apple’s Apple TV. Steve is involved in both companies. If the Disney name is worthless. Seems so. I am already not so trusting of Apple since my brand new iMac ate my Disney pictures, thanks to loosing it’s volume due to a faulty factory load. Apple does not even say thier sorry, and I’m not in love with them. (Love means never having to say your sorry, Love Story, a really bad movie) Apple fanatics will take any amount of abuse from Apple, that is because they are besotted. Oh well, I will probably buy an Apple TV anyway.
I would have been happy to try MovieBeam, but I kept checking their website every 3 months and it always said the service was not available in my zip code.