The Financial Times is reporting that Google is in negotiations with Hollywood studios to provide pay-per-view video on their You Tube site by the end of this year. If they are able to come to an agreement, this would be a significant break through on how we watch movies. If the rumored announcement by Apple this week for iTV is true, this would be a major challenge to them.
If this comes to an agreement, it would be for international service which would provide streaming on-demand movies to everyone. Apparently, these negotiations have been going on for months in an effort to come to an agreement. With the expected announcement by Apple this week about iTV, it appears that negotiations have taken on a sense of urgency so as to make an announcement on You Tube offerings before Apple.
One of the big benefits from this is consumers will not be downloading movies, but rather streaming them directly to their TV for viewing, which will remove some of the hassles. Obviously, it will require a pretty fast internet connection in order to have a smooth viewing experience. The Google TV platform, which was announced earlier in the year, provides TV over the web, which many have been waiting for. Google TV appears to be another provider of TV to your home providing many of the normal features that you get with existing Paid TV Subscriptions.
You Tube has been offering movies since January, as a test of the service using lesser known movies as part of a pilot. It is expected that You Tube would offer movies on-demand for $5.00 for new titles, which would be available at the same time as the DVDs are released.
Netflix has been offering similar services and attracted a number of followers of their service. Hollywood studios are trying to replace lost revenue from the drop in DVD sales and this is an opportunity for them to obtain that revenue without having to produce media for use.
If negotiations are successful, the existing video rental stores will now have another challenge to keep their revenues continuing as the You Tube method is quick and convenient. With Netflix, they have seen a drop in sales with those movies being delivered to the home in the mail which is very convenient.
I would expect to see an agreement on this soon and consumers will have another method of watching movies.
