Bigpond Out To Make Waves With Internet Movie Downloads
The Age
Thursday February 23, 2006
TELSTRA is offering internet users the ability to download films, TV series and music videos from its BigPond Movies Downloads service, in a move to capture revenue from traditional media players.
BigPond's group managing director Justin Milne said the service would be similar to a video store and customers could "rent" content to view as many times as they wanted. Latest-release films will cost $5.95, TV shows will start at $1.95 and music videos will cost $3.95. . BigPond members will get a 20 per cent discount.Media analysts said the service posed a threat to commercial TV operators, particularly pay TV giant Foxtel, which is 50 per cent owned by Telstra.Roy Morgan research released yesterday revealed there were now more Australians connected to broadband internet than pay TV. It showed that in the year to December, more than 4.6 million Australians had broadband connected at home, while fewer than 4.1 million had pay TV. But while Telstra said people would be able to start watching a movie while it was downloading, other media observers warned that Big Pond customers' standard download speed of 256 kilobytes a second was still "non-commercial" and would create headaches for users."The biggest problem that BigPond Movies has got is BigPond," EL & C Baillieu media analyst Ivor Ries said. "You'd be waiting a year to download a movie at that speed. It's a joke." He said growth in online movies would come when Australian broadband users got download speeds greater than 1 gigabyte a second.Stephen Langsford, chief executive of rival online movie rental company Quickflix, said: "Any initiative that helps to move consumers' mindset towards online services for their entertainment needs, can only be a good thing."LINK www.bigpondmovies.com
© 2006 The Age