English Entertainment
Warner looks to take digital distribution of entertainment in Europe to the next level
MUMBAI: Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group has announced the formation of a joint venture with arvato mobile in Europe called In2Movies
This is a digital download platform for the electronic sell-through of motion picture and television content in Germany, Austria and German-speaking Switzerland. In2Movies will leverage the speed and flexibility of a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) network and the security and quality of a centralized service to provide consumers with the ultimate legal entertainment downloading experience.
In2Movies will be the first P2P-based download-to-own platform to offer consumers legitimate content day-and-date with the German language DVD release. With the initial rollout, consumers will be able to download movies and television shows to their personal computers. The second version of the service will expand on consumers’ download options and enable them to download programs to DVD recorders and other portable devices.
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group president Kevin Tsujihara says, “Through this partnership with arvato mobile, Warner Bros will be breaking new ground in legal digital delivery, providing a rich experience at affordable prices. One of the most effective weapons for defeating online piracy is providing legal, easy to use alternatives. Warner Bros. continues its role as an industry leader by expanding the reach of its digital content through this extremely innovative platform. Our initial efforts will focus on the German market but in the months ahead we will leverage this technology to better serve markets around the world.”
In2Movies will launch next month and will initially feature more than 80 Warner Bros. new releases, catalogue favourites and local productions. The movies and television series offered on a non-exclusive basis will include Batman Begins, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Must Love Dogs, The O.C., Friends and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. In2Movies will also feature entertainment programming from local distributors and third-party content providers. Consumers will be able to download programming directly from the In2Movies website, or via a click-through from other websites and also from retail partner websites powered by In2Movies.
arvato mobile CEO Bernhard Ribbrock says, “With In2Movies, consumers can download films or TV shows with guaranteed speed, efficiency and quality through our proprietary technology. Consumers are seeking new channels for finding authourised entertainment and this relationship signifies arvato’s entry into the motion picture download business; we would not have done so without a great partnership with the industry’s leading innovator, Warner Home Video.”
In Germany during the first half of 2005, 1.7 million Internet users illegally downloaded a total of 11.9 million movies. Research has shown that 20 per cent of illegal downloaders do so on a weekly basis. However, 73 per cent of all illegal downloaders in Germany are interested in utilising a paid for movie download service. In2Movies will offer consumers exactly that legal option and will provide a high quality and reliable service.
UK: The aerial is losing its grip. As broadband becomes the default way Britons watch television, the UK is edging towards a decisive, and divisive, question: should Freeview be switched off by 2034? The issue, highlighted in reporting by The Guardian, has exposed deep fault lines over access, affordability and the future of public service broadcasting.
For nearly 25 years, Freeview has delivered free-to-air television from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 to almost every corner of the country. Even now, it remains the UK’s largest TV platform, used in more than 16m homes and on around 10m main household sets. Yet the same broadcasters that built it are now pressing for its closure within eight years.
Their case rests on a structural shift in viewing. Smart TVs, superfast broadband and the Netflix-led streaming boom have pulled audiences online. Advertising economics have followed. By 2034, the number of homes using Freeview as their main TV set is forecast to fall from a peak of almost 12m in 2012 to fewer than 2m, making digital terrestrial television, or DTT, increasingly costly to sustain.
But critics say the rush to switch off risks abandoning those least able, or least willing, to move online.
“I don’t want to be choosing apps and making new accounts,” says Lynette, 80, from Kent. “It is time-consuming and irritating trying to work out where I want to be, to remember the sequence of clicks, with hieroglyphics instead of words. If I make a mistake I have to start again.”
Lynette is among nearly 100,000 people who have signed a “save Freeview” petition launched by campaign group Silver Voices. She fears the government is about to “take [Freeview] away from me and others who either don’t like, can’t afford, or can’t use online versions”.
Official figures underline the fault lines. A report commissioned by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport estimates that by 2035, 1.8m homes will still depend on Freeview. Ofcom’s analysis shows those households are more likely to be disabled, older, living alone, female, and based in the north of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Freeview is owned by the public service broadcasters through Everyone TV, which also operates Freesat and the newer streaming platform Freely. After two years of review, DCMS is expected to set out its position soon, drawing on three options proposed by Ofcom: a costly upgrade of Freeview’s ageing technology; maintaining a bare-bones service with only core PSB channels; or a full switch-off during the 2030s.
The broadcasters have rallied behind the third option. They argue that 2034 is the logical cut-off, when transmission contracts with network operator Arqiva expire. By then, they say, the cost of broadcasting to a dwindling audience will far outweigh the returns from TV advertising.
Ofcom agrees a crunch point is approaching. In July, the regulator warned of a “tipping point” within the next few years, after which it will no longer be commercially viable for broadcasters to carry the costs of DTT.
Others see risks beyond economics. Questions remain over whether internet TV can reliably deliver emergency broadcasts, such as the daily Covid updates, in the way that universally available DTT can. The UK radio industry has also warned that an internet-only future for TV could push up distribution costs and force some radio stations off air if PSBs no longer share Arqiva’s mast network.
“It is a political hot potato,” says Dennis Reed, founder of Silver Voices, who says he has “dissociated” his organisation from the government’s stakeholder forum, which he believes is “heavily biased” towards streaming.
The Future TV Taskforce, representing the PSBs, counters that moving online could “close the digital divide once and for all”. “We want to be able to plan to ensure that no one is left behind,” a spokesperson says, adding that rising DTT costs could otherwise mean cuts to programme budgets.
The numbers show the scale of the challenge. Of the 1.8m Freeview-dependent homes projected for 2035, around 1.1m are expected to have broadband but not use it for TV. The remaining 700,000 are forecast to lack a broadband connection altogether.
Veterans of the analogue switch-off, completed in 2012 after 76 years, recall similar fears of “TV blackout chaos”. Around 6 per cent of households were labelled “digital refuseniks”, yet a targeted help scheme and a national campaign, fronted by a robot called Digit Al voiced by Matt Lucas, delivered a largely smooth transition.
This time, the BBC is less keen to foot the bill. Tim Davie, the outgoing director general, has said the corporation should not fund a comparable support programme for a Freeview switch-off.
Research for Sky by Oliver & Ohlbaum suggests that with early awareness campaigns and digital inclusion measures, only about 330,000 households would ultimately need hands-on help ahead of a 2034 shutdown.
Meanwhile, viewing habits continue to fragment. Audience body Barb says 7 per cent of UK households no longer own a TV set, choosing to watch on other devices. In December, YouTube overtook the BBC’s combined channels in total UK viewing across TVs, smartphones and tablets, albeit measured at a minimum of three minutes.
That shift may accelerate. YouTube has recently blocked Barb and its partner Kantar from accessing viewing session data, limiting transparency just as online platforms consolidate power.
“When the government chose British Satellite Broadcasting as the ‘winner’ in satellite TV it was Rupert Murdoch’s Sky instead that came out on top,” says a senior TV executive quoted by The Guardian. “There already is such an outsider ready to be the winner in the transition to internet TV; it is YouTube.”
Freeview’s future now hangs on a familiar British dilemma: modernise fast and risk exclusion, or protect universality and pay the price. Either way, the aerial’s days as king of the living room look numbered.
