All you can eat
Netflix and Amazon Prime have established themselves on an all-you-can-eat model around movies and, to date, have not fared that well with recent content. So let’s take a look at this year’s movies:
With 11 titles available this year, Netflix seems to have made a tremendous jump compared to other years (last year, it had only 5 of the top 100 movies from the previous year). So while Netflix’s 2013 story has been about its original content (House of Cards, Orange is the New Black), it seems the company is also quietly working on improving its position in delivering studio content. Meanwhile, Amazon Prime comes in with only 1 title (Texas Chainsaw 3D) in its offering, even less than it did in the previous year. This, of course, is compared to a total of 96 titles being available on DVD today so if you’re looking at the all you can eat model to feed your recent movie habit, you’re out of luck.
But let’s now take a look at whether you can rent those movies in an on-demand fashion over the internet.
VOD
To do so, I pulled data on the most popular rental services online: iTunes, Amazon on-demand, Vudu, and the emerging YouTube service.
| Rank | Title | Amazon digital rental | iTunes | Vudu | YouTube | DVD/Blue Ray |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Hunger Games: Catching Fire |
No | No | No | No | Yes |
| 2 | Iron Man 3 | Purchase only | Purchase only | Purchase only | No | Yes |
| 3 | Despicable Me 2 |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 4 | Frozen | Yes | Purchase only | Yes | No | Yes |
| 5 | Man of Steel | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 6 | Monsters University |
Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| 7 | Gravity | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 8 | The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug |
No | No | No | No | Yes |
| 9 | Fast & Furious 6 | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 10 | Oz The Great and Powerful |
No | Purchase only | Purchase only | No | Yes |
| 11 | Star Trek Into Darkness |
Purchase only | Purchase only | Purchase only | Yes | Yes |
| 12 | Thor: The Dark World | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| 13 | World War Z | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| 14 | The Croods | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 15 | The Heat | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 16 | We’re the Millers |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 17 | The Great Gatsby (2013) |
No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 18 | The Conjuring | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 19 | Identity Thief |
No | Purchase only | Purchase only | No | Yes |
| 20 | Grown Ups 2 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 21 | The Wolverine | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 22 | G.I. Joe: Retaliation |
No | Purchase only | Purchase only | No | Yes |
| 23 | Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues |
No | No | No | No | Yes |
| 24 | Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 |
No | No | Purchase only | No | Yes |
| 25 | Now You See Me | No | Yes | Purchase only | Yes | Yes |
| 26 | Lee Daniels’ The Butler |
No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| 27 | The Hangover Part III |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 28 | Epic | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 29 | Captain Phillips |
Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| 30 | American Hustle | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| 31 | Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa |
No | Purchase only | No | No | Yes |
| 32 | Pacific Rim | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| 33 | This is the End |
No | Purchase only | Purchase only | No | Yes |
| 34 | Olympus Has Fallen |
No | Purchase only | Yes | No | Yes |
| 35 | 42 | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 36 | Elysium | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 37 | Planes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 38 | The Lone Ranger | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 39 | Oblivion | No | Purchase only | Purchase only | No | Yes |
| 40 | Insidious Chapter 2 |
No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 41 | Turbo | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 42 | The Wolf of Wall Street |
No | No | No | No | Yes |
| 43 | 2 Guns | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 44 | White House Down |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 45 | Mama | No | Purchase only | Purchase only | No | Yes |
| 46 | Safe Haven | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 47 | The Smurfs 2 | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 48 | Saving Mr. Banks |
No | No | No | No | Yes |
| 49 | The Best Man Holiday |
No | No | No | No | Yes |
| 50 | Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters |
No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 51 | A Good Day to Die Hard |
No | Purchase only | Purchase only | No | Yes |
| 52 | Warm Bodies | No | Purchase only | Purchase only | No | Yes |
| 53 | Jack the Giant Slayer |
No | Purchase only | Purchase only | No | Yes |
| 54 | The Purge | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 55 | Last Vegas | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| 56 | Ender’s Game | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| 57 | Prisoners | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 58 | After Earth | No | Purchase only | Purchase only | No | Yes |
| 59 | Escape From Planet Earth |
No | Purchase only | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 60 | Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters |
No | Purchase only | Purchase only | No | Yes |
| 61 | Free Birds | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| 62 | Evil Dead (2013) |
No | Purchase only | Purchase only | No | Yes |
| 63 | The Secret Life of Walter Mitty |
No | No | No | No | Yes |
| 64 | Red 2 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 65 | Tyler Perry’s A Madea Christmas |
Yes | No | No | No | No |
| 66 | Tyler Perry’s Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor |
Purchase only | No | No | No | Yes |
| 67 | The Call | Purchase only | Purchase only | Purchase only | No | Yes |
| 68 | Pain and Gain | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| 69 | Lone Survivor | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| 70 | Gangster Squad |
Purchase only | Yes | Purchase only | No | Yes |
| 71 | Jurassic Park 3D |
No | No | No | No | No |
| 72 | The Internship | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 73 | Instructions Not Included |
Yes | Yes | Purchase only | Yes | Yes |
| 74 | Snitch | Purchase only | Purchase only | Purchase only | No | Yes |
| 75 | Riddick | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 76 | A Haunted House |
Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| 77 | 12 Years a Slave |
Purchase only | Purchase only | Purchase only | No | Yes |
| 78 | 47 Ronin | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| 79 | The Family (2013) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 80 | Carrie (2013) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 81 | Texas Chainsaw 3D |
Purchase only | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| 82 | Walking with Dinosaurs |
No | No | No | No | Yes |
| 83 | R.I.P.D. | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| 84 | Blue Jasmine | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 85 | Kevin Hart: Let Me Explain |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 86 | Side Effects (2013) |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 87 | Scary Movie 5 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 88 | The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 89 | Delivery Man | No | No | No | No | No |
| 90 | One Direction: This is Us |
Purchase only | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 91 | Grudge Match | No | No | No | No | No |
| 92 | Kick-Ass 2 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 93 | Rush (2013) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 94 | The Host (2013) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 95 | The World’s End | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 96 | 21 and Over | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 97 | Escape Plan | Purchase only | Purchase only | Purchase only | No | Yes |
| 98 | Don Jon | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 99 | The Incredible Burt Wonderstone |
Purchase only | Purchase only | Purchase only | Purchase only | Yes |
| 100 | Philomena | No | No | No | No | Yes |
Here, we see substantial improvements compared to last year. iTunes has 55 of the top 100 available for rent, closely followed by YouTube (52) and Vudu (49) but Amazon is trailing with only 35 titles. If you throw in titles one can purchase (generally purchases are in the $15-20 range as opposed to rentals which average around $5), iTunes has 78 titles, Vudu 72, YouTube 53, and Amazon 46. The puzzling thing her is around Amazon’s video on demand service: on the one hand, they’ve been aggressively promoting Amazon Prime and building out new original content and on the other, they appear to be trailing the competition in terms of VOD.
You may wonder what it looks like compared to previous years so I’ll delve into my historical data for rentals:
| Amazon | iTunes | Vudu | YouTube | DVD/Blue Ray | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 48 | 46 | 46 | No data | 74 |
| 2011 | 45 | 44 | 44 | No data | 74 |
| 2012 | 44 | 44 | 46 | 38 | 77 |
| 2013 | 35 | 55 | 49 | 52 | 96 |
The first thing that jumped at me was how many of the titles were actually available on BlueRay/DVD this year. I actually went back to look at the sources as it seemed incongruous but the data appeared valid. Secondly, we seem to be witnessing the quiet rise of YouTube as a rental service and the floundering of Amazon VOD.
If you factor in sales, the data looks as follows:
| Amazon | iTunes | Vudu | YouTube | DVD/Blue Ray | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 56 | 60 | 57 | No data | 74 |
| 2011 | 61 | 62 | 61 | No data | 74 |
| 2012 | 57 | 59 | 59 | 38 | 77 |
| 2013 | 46 | 78 | 72 | 53 | 96 |
Here, we’re still seeing an Amazon service that appears to be struggling compared to the competition. iTunes and Vudu are strong players in the sales space while YouTube seems to have little interest in in.
Conclusion
2013 and 2014 are boom years for media streaming. While a lot has been written about the emergency of Netflix, Amazon and others as sponsors of new filmed content, another interesting story the data gives us is that 2013 seemed to have been the turning point in terms of Hollywood’s acceptance of streaming as a legitimate form of media consumption.
However, we are also seeing an industry that is clinging to the old release window model, distributing movies on plastic before they do so online (in fairness, the time lag between the two has been growing increasingly small so one can hope they will eventually do away with that approach).
With the Oscars broadcasting tonight, one could wonder whether the next step for the movie industry is not same time release. For example, many of the movies in the running are still not available online, even though they have been in movie theaters for a couple of months already. One could hope that the movie industry will look into this practice and decide that they want to release movies in a legal fashion earlier so that interested fans could catch them online. That said, there are still more movies available on plastic disks than there are online, which brings up the question as to why aren’t we seeing more simultaneous releases on DVD/BlueRay and online.
So kudos to Hollywood for embracing digital and now on to the next challenge of making content available in everyone’s home (for a fee, of course) at the same time it is in theaters.
Methodology
To capture the data set, we went to canistream.it and plugged in the titles of the top 100 winners at the box office in 2013. The research was performed during the first week of February 2014. I would like to thank Mary LoPorto for her help in gathering this data set.