Home movies come by post

By LAUREN MENTJOX


Movie lovers are being offered a growing array of services that let them hire DVDs without making a trip to the video shop.

Started in the past year, Sky Television's DVD Unlimited, Movie Shack and Fatso are online rental services in which customers select movie titles, have them delivered and send them back again for a flat monthly fee.

Customers pay between $30 and $60 a month to have two to six movies a time sent to their homes.

Compared with video store prices of $8 a time for a new release or $10 for up to five older movies, it is an attractive price for having a changing supply of DVDs on hand.

Other advantages include the absence of late fees, convenience of home delivery and a huge number of titles to choose from.

Similar services overseas, such as United States company Netflix, which claims to have more than two million customers, have been running since 1998.

Fatso owner Robert Berman said the service had broad appeal, especially to busy and rural people.

Sky Television chief executive John Fellet said that although the company was broadening its customer reach, he did not believe the online DVD service would ever be huge.

"Over the next five to 10 years, DVDs will probably be substituted by downloaded movies off a television set, or a storage unit of some sort.

"It is just that now the most efficient way to download a movie is through New Zealand Post."

Mr Fellet said Netflix in the US had just a 2 per cent market share out of 1.4 million possible homes.

Translated to New Zealand figures, 2 per cent was 28,000 customers, which was not enough to have an effect on video stores, he said.

Steve Dods, managing director of Blockbuster NZ, which provide DVDs to Sky, said online rentals were another opportunity for consumers.

He did not believe they would lead to the demise of local stores.

"People still enjoy the retail experience they get in a store," he said.

"There is a place for online rental, and I'm pretty confident there is still a place for the rental store."

But the survival of video shops could depend on how they were marketed, just as cinemas had to be re-invented in recent years.

Social insights researcher Jude Hooson said the growing confidence people had in buying online would hurt video stores.

"Local video outlets would have to create something within their environment that would make people go," she said.

Andrew Armitage owns Wellington's Aro St Video Shop, which also couriers DVDs nationwide, but does not have the capacity to hire titles out for an unlimited period.

He said he did not feel threatened because he was a niche retailer.

"My customers were more specific about what they wanted to see.

"Only a fraction of the public would entertain the idea of ordering DVDs online."

Mr Fellet said Sky Television and Telecom would work closely over the next few years to try to develop a system under which people could download a variety of entertainment and not just movies.

"We are transitioning from mass media into 'my media' where people are wanting everything designed just for them."

Movies delivered to the door

* DVD Unlimited's three-at-a-time subscription costs $38 a month.

* Movie Shack and Fatso charge $39.95 a month.

* The best value is Movieshack's "max" deal for six DVDs a time at $59.95 a month.