ABC announced a project last week that will make its news archives available on-demand via instant DVDs.
In cooperation with Amazon.com and its CustomFlix Labs subsidiary, a DVD manufacturer, the network has entered into a deal in which a viewer can order a news program and have a DVD pressed to order. Delivery will take two to three days.
The DVD will be copied from digital files stored at CustomFlix only when the order has been placed, and the seller incurs none of the costs of inventory and warehousing. CustomFlix has offered the service to broadcasters for several years, but this is the highest profile deal to date.
In a report last week, the “New York Times” said the market potential for on-demand DVD sales is considerable. Amazon would not release sales figures or characterize the portion of its on-demand DVD sales, beyond saying it was a “small percentage.” But the company has great expectations for the on-demand market.
Projected sales of DVDs for Amazon.com should be just under 5 percent of its $7.6 billion domestic sales revenue in 2007, Aaron Kessler, a senior research analyst at Piper Jaffray, told the “Times.”
On-demand sales allow ABC to increase income with no additional investment beyond the cost of digitizing its archives. About 300 titles are now available, including daily news coverage, celebrity interviews by Barbara Walters, special reports and segments from “Nightline” and “20/20.”
CBS, NBC and PBS also have titles being handled by CustomFlix. Customers, for example, can purchase entire CBS shows or select interviews, like clips from “60 Minutes.”
