When you were negotiating with theater chains, they felt probably too obligated to get the blessing of the studios to do a deal with you. To do a bigger strategic deal, we did get 2,000 screens, mostly all independent to integrate into our app, give us a 25% discount and that worked really well. And in fact, that's all we wanted. We wanted the same price that you would pay if you walk into a Costco. Anybody who's a Costco member can buy a booklet of AMC tickets or some of the other big chains all at a 25 per cent discount. That's allWe didn't want any more than that because that was one of the six ways for us
Mitch Lowe has been a significant disruptor of Hollywood's distribution models over the past two decades, promoting all-you-can-eat subscription models on personal devices and at the box office. Netflix famously redefined consumer video distribution while Movie Pass infamously imploded in 2019. Today, Mitch speaks openly with James about why his companies ended up on their trajectories while describing the analytics that factor into their business plans.
For a deeper dive into the dramatic evolution of the entertainment business, read or listen to Mitch's new memoir: Watch and Learn: How I Turned Hollywood Upside Down with Netflix, Redbox, and MoviePass―Lessons in Disruption
Other topics include:
- How Netflix's DVD queue saved the company (11:12)
- The genius of Netflix's auto-play feature (12:46)
- Content business models: ad sales vs. subscription (14:29)
- What led to Movie Pass' downfall? (17:46)
- Movie studios' stranglehold on movie theater pricing models (21:52)
- How Movie Pass used 'the float' in its business operations (29:22)
- The cost of acquiring digital distribution film rights (33:44)
- When does streaming become a commodity? (38:01)
- What will Netflix do to overcome the commoditization of the streaming market? (39:47)
- TikTok's algorithm vs streaming services (52:26)
(Editor’s note: Topic times don’t account for sponsor ads and may appear a few minutes later in the episode on your podcast player)
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