Research Shows that Shorter Movie Release Windows Boost Revenue, Not Piracy
MrPlow writes:
Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
In recent years these release windows have slowly decreased and this process was accelerated in the COVID pandemic. Increasingly, traditional delays have come down, and in some cases, release windows have disappeared completely. Warner Bros, for example, now releases movies on HBO Max and in theaters simultaneously.
This shift is nothing short of a historic breakthrough. While more choice is good for consumers, these changes also breed uncertainty. Some movie industry insiders and theater owners, for example, fear that their income will be negatively impacted. At the same time, there are concerns that piracy will spike.
These and other questions are addressed in new research conducted by Carnegie Mellon's Initiative for Digital Entertainment Analytics (IDEA). The research group, which received millions of dollars in gifts from the Motion Picture Association, just analyzed how early releases affect piracy and box office revenue.
The results are published in a non-peer-reviewed paper titled The Impact of Early Digital Movie Releases on Box Office Revenue: Evidence from the Korean Market.
South Korea is the fourth largest movie market according to the article. I wonder how representative these results are of the top three (US, China, Japan)?
Source: https://torrentfreak.com/research-movie-release-window-boost-revenue-not-piracy-210127/
Journal Reference:
Liang, Yangfan, Burtch, Gordon, Cho, Daegon, et al. The Impact of Early Digital Movie Releases on Box Office Revenue: Evidence from the Korean Market, (DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.3749476)
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