Warner Bros. Make Up Your Mind: Are You Competing With Piracy Or Not?
from the mixed-messages dept
It really was just last week that we were somewhat impressed that movie studio Warner Bros. recognized that it needed to compete with piracy in China, and was doing so by offering super cheap movie downloads there. However, apparently that strategy isn't universal across Warner Bros., because, as a few readers have alerted us, the studio is acting in quite a different way in neighboring Korea. Rather than compete, Warner Bros., is apparently throwing in the towel and pulling out of Korea entirely.To be honest, I'm quite confused as to how the same company could make both of those decisions in the course of a single week. Perhaps the situations are really different between China and Korea (though, I doubt it), but it's difficult to see why it would make sense to try to compete against widespread piracy in one country, and then insist it was impossible to do the same thing in another country.
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Filed Under: china, dvds, korea, movies, piracy
Companies: warner bros.
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Warner's DVD Sales
http://newteevee.com/2008/09/03/the-death-of-the-korean-dvd-industry-a-sign-of-things-to- come-in-the-us/
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Re: Warner's DVD Sales
Saying what, exactly? That movie studios were too slow to figure out how to compete?
Again, that does nothing to answer the question in the post here.
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Re: Re: Warner's DVD Sales
All the Hollywood studios have now abandoned Korea as a lost cause. The article also speculated, which seemed a main theme of the article, whether this was the wave of the future for other countries, including the U.S.
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Re:
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Re: Re:
Korea is your future, Hollywood. Prepare yourselves.
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Re:
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100% penetration
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"I'm quite confused as to how the same company could make both of those decisions in the course of a single week"
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It boggles my mind how this would confuse someone. You've never worked for a with a large company I take it? Or on a smaller scale, tried to pick out which color to paint your living room with a significant other.
The left hand never knows what the right hand is doing.
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Size of customer base?
S.Korea - Population: 49,044,790 (July 2007 est.)
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It is the size that matters
It's the size.
1.3 billion quarters
is more than
49 million dollars.
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Re:
Then why are they willing to do exactly that in China?
Did you even read the post?
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S. Korea used to be among the top markets for Hollywood movies. China is still a market that can be developed for Warner or other studios, because of the size and scale of the untapped market. Surely the great Mike Masnick should know that corporates will leave a region only when they lose all hope of being able to survive in it, cutting their losses while they can.
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Re:
That's rather meaningless since Warner is offering cheap DOWNLOADS in China, not cheap DVDs. In that case, you'd think it would make EVEN MORE sense to do the same in Korea.
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Re: The Question Is...
I have read all these comments and the question, though not the answer, is obvious.
Why would Warner Brother pull out of Korea but remain in China?
We have to assume that any company will take actions that increase shareholder wealth, since to do otherwise risks executive management being relieved of their duties by the board of directors.
Warner Brothers decided that the costs of doing business in South Korea exceeded the benefits.
Warner Brothers decide that the cost of doing business in China was less than the benefits.
Okay, rather than speculating and laughing at the seeming foolishness of Warner Brothers, the last major Hollywood studio to pull out of South Korea, why not do some ciphering and come up with the actual business case for each country? Lacking the ability to come up with support for staying in or leaving either country, you are laughing at (or chiding?) a fairly routine business decision made by companies all the time.
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Don't assume...
If 50% of the population is downloading movies off the Internet, then 50% of the population is not doing that and that would be your market. 50% is better than pulling out totally.
I've always believed that the actual movie shouldn't be the product the studio sells, since the movie will soon be free on cable tv until the end of time. The studios should sell a value-added product with the DVD like a gift card, or a collectible poster, or a figurine. Something cool. George Lucas, for instance, made more money from collectibles than he ever did from the actual Star Wars movie grosses.
Hollywood needs to be more aggressive with their retail sales rather than slapping out a disk, shoving it in a plastic sleeve and shipping it to stores. They need to offer something "cool" with their movies!
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