Studio Exec Spins Highway Robbery as Effort to Save Moviegoing

Did you think the controversial new on-demand service Home Premiere was just another way for studios to milk even more money out of your pockets on a regular basis? Good news! It's not, says Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group president Kevin Tsujihara. In fact, the only reason films available via the DirecTV service -- like the studio's Hall Pass, for instance -- will cost $30 is so you'll go to the movies more. Here, let Mr. Tsujihara explain.

In an extended interview with Variety about Home Premiere, the Warner Bros. executive spun the high consumer cost and theater owner concern as such:

"We view exhibitors as our partners. We view them as a very important part of establishing the value of the movies, which is really important," Tsujihara said. "If you look at the things we think have devalued movies -- and our company has been pretty upfront about this -- we think that services like Netflix and dollar rentals like Redbox devalue from a consumer's perspective the value of the movie. Re-establishing premium content at a premium price helps not only the prior window in theatrical but also ancillary markets afterwards. That's a key part of the thought process Warner Bros. had in establishing the wholesale price that drives the ultimate retail price of this product."

That sound you heard was Bill O'Reilly fainting.

To be fair, Tsujihara is correct in his assessment that Netflix and Redbox "devalue from a consumer's perspective the value of the movie." If you know Hall Pass will be available to watch in four months for relatively nothing, why would you bother spending full-price to see it in the theater? There are artistic problems with a service like Netflix Instant Watch, too: Think about how often you wind up watching a movie on your computer instead of seeing it in the theater. Even the Farrelly Brothers probably wanted you to experience their poop jokes on the biggest screen possible -- after all, they are filmmakers, not web-content producers.

But then there's this: "Re-establishing premium content at a premium price helps not only the prior window in theatrical but also ancillary markets afterwards." Which seems like another way of saying that charging $30 to watch a movie on-demand is actually going to get people back to the movie theater! Because setting such a high rate for an on-demand film is all about the consumers and theater owners -- and not about studios creating (and taking advantage of) a fertile middle-market between a film's theatrical release and its arrival on DVD/Blu-ray.

To be fair, Warner Bros. isn't full committed to this new VOD model just yet. "Our goal, just to be clear, is that this is a test," Warner Bros. Pictures Group president Jeff Robinov told Variety. "It's designed to gather information for us." Sounds good. If you'd like to help Warner Bros. "gather information" for the low price of $30, Home Premiere will soon await.

· VOD road test: WB details early-window strategy [Variety]