The Circuit

There's a lively discussion on the Filmmaker Mag blog about online distribution.

Noah Harlan reports back from the Sundance Producers Conference that amidst all the parting-the-seas talk of online exhibition, there are some real concerns.  It is the natural ebb and flow of a new delivery device whose possibilities are borderless but whose business model is having a fitful birth.

As people thrash about looking for a revenue model that works the notion of ad-paid content is rising. A stunning statistic came up at one point which no one followed up on and it has to do with Hulu's ad-generated model. Hulu places 4-6 ads on your content for a feature film and you get paid 50/50 with them at $40-$60 CPM per ad that is viewed (ie: if the viewer doesn't watch the whole movie you don't get paid for all the ads, only those that are watched). That means, assuming everyone watches your film all the way through, and you are getting the most number of ads at the highest pay rate, the absolute maximum that 100,000 views of your film will pay you is only $18,000.

In the end, it's the people with the gold that'll probably win:

The mid-term mistake of Cinetic Rights Management and other similar ventures is that they are going to be eclipsed in value by the companies that bring the marketing muscle (read: dollars) and savvy to the table. Figuring out what platform you should be on is akin to figuring out what theater to program a film into. It is a good skill but one that is of marginal use if no one shows up at the theater.

Make sure to check out the comments, too.