YouTube's movie rental experiment with the Sundance Film Festival isn't looking so great for the video service.
According to a NewTeeVee report, the five Sundance films saw a mediocre reception over the weekend, renting roughly 1,500 times total for $3.99 a piece. This rounds out to $6,000 in sales, or $1,200 per film.
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YouTube's Sundance Views:
First Weekend
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Video
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Views
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Bass Ackwards
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308
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Homewrecker
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308
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The Cove
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303
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Children of Invention
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301
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One Too Many Mornings
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250
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It's unclear what Google was taking out for hosting the files and streams.
When rented, the films were available for streaming for 48 hours.
Independent films are rarely ever able to generate a significant buzz compared with traditional Hollywood blockbusters, but the showing was still poor when considering the films' prominent placement on YouTube ever since their release.
Some in the independent film community have come out against the poor numbers by saying that YouTube's audience isn't sophisticated enough or the service is too heavily used by children. Remarks like this have been issued by multiple producers and directors, but they don't do any good. It makes the independent film community look like the wrong place to partner with while ignoring the huge success YouTube has seen with its older TV programs and movies.
One thing YouTube will likely end up doing to create a successful service will be giving the service a new brand name and some partners - perhaps by teaming up in a joint venture like it did to create Vevo. Adding this branding would help drive users to premium content without getting caught up in the normal bulk of YouTube users. |
