Effects of Subscription Video on Demand on the US Movie Industry: Analysis of windowing strategy

Abstract

This thesis investigates how emergence of internet video streaming technology and subscription video on demand (SVOD) business model affects the windowing strategy adopted by the US movie industry. Netflix, Inc. is chosen as a proxy for SVOD business model. 419 movies’ releases re-leased onto Netflix in 2010-2013 are analyzed using regression analysis. The analysis concludes that there has been a statistically significant increase of movie release lag (delay) onto Netflix plat-form in 2013. The analysis also suggests that successful movies are released earlier onto physical mediums while their release lag onto Netflix is increasing. Furthermore, it is found that dominant distributors tend to delay the release onto Netflix.