COVID-19 ushers in new age for the Home Theater.
As we all prepare for "life after" COVID-19, it's clear life as we knew it before will never be the same...typical of this kind of jolt to our collective system. We can lament the loss, or embrace the change, and I see some exciting new opportunities emerging for AV/smart systems integrators.
In this week's blog post, I take a look at one that strikes VERY close to home...movies. More specifically, how COVID-19 may be the "death" of the movie theater as we've known it, and usher in a renaissance for the HOME theater. This from Jeff Brown, a finance guru I follow who focuses on tech (full article here).
"Trolls World Tour was scheduled to have a box office release in April. Movie theaters expected big crowds to turn out for the event. But then COVID-19 hit. In response, Universal Studios canceled the box office release. But Universal didn't cancel the movie release.
Instead, it made the movie available on digital streaming platforms like Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play, YouTube, and others. Consumers could rent the movie for $19.99 through these platforms. Once rented, they had 48 hours to watch it. And guess what? Despite the slightly lower revenue so far, Universal made just as much money on Trolls World Tour."
So this is a sign of things to come.
And we have clear historical precedence for the shift...
"If we look back a few decades, Napster and then Apple's iTunes completely disrupted the music industry. Music went digital, CDs fell off, and record stores went out of business. The same is going to happen in the motion picture industry."
"As innocuous as the rainbow-colored, music-blaring animated movie may seem, the digital release of the Trolls sequel has caused a storm to course through the movie industry. Just as the pandemic worsened and movie theaters were shuttering, Universal Pictures shifted the film’s release to video on demand, leading a charge straight through the theatrical window.
Universal calls the Trolls World Tour digital release a success and suggests it may be the beginning of a sea change in how movies are released."
It's time to dust off your demo rooms from the early days of Dolby Digital (ahh, for the days of playing Star Wars, Top Gun and Back to the Future on auto-repeat, wowing the great unwashed w/"surround sound"!) and introduce a new generation to all that home theater can be. Get video off the 10.4" screen and on to a 104" screen, then crank the amp to 11. Position yourself now as a leader in HOME theater…introducing a new generation to all that home theater can be. Indications are you'll find an enthusiastic audience!
Next week we'll look at other similar "post COVID-19" trends...this is exciting stuff for those who "get it" and begin now to prepare, don't miss out!
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Didja Know...??? Is a series of "information bits" by Curt Hayes,
BlueDog Group co-founder, managing partner, and architect of the BlueDog Data Base.