Video Business Shuts Down

Video Business magazine, a definitive chronicler of the home video business for 29 years and a sister publication of Variety (parent co. is Reed Business), is closing its doors after 29 years, effective this week. Both the online and print operations will go dark.

According to the mag's web site, Reed is divesting itself of most of its U.S. B2B pubs. Still, since both the magazine and home video businesses are in trouble, a magazine that covers home video suffers a double whammy.

Closing Windows?

Interesting email from my satellite company today. DirecTV urges me to order Julie & Julia on PPV. Not my cup of tea, thanks, though I suppose Julia Child probably had a clever way to brew a cup of tea while cooking up some unusual dish at the same time. But more interesting to me were two little notes that accompanied the ad: "Now Playing" and "Same Day as DVD." The movie's official Sony website confirms that this is non DirecTV-specific.

That's intriguing. There's usually an exclusive DVD window before the pay-per-view release, with the window averaging 37 days this year, up from 32 days last year, says research firm SNL Kagan. Even the shortest average was 20 days, over at Lions Gate.

Is this a trend or an experiment? Probably the latter, but who knows where it might go. And for those wondering what effect this might have on the guilds, consider that the DVD residual formula is much less favorable to talent than the pay TV formula. Time for guild members to cross their fingers and send Sony some holiday best wishes - and maybe a gift basket worthy of Julia.

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No Honey for Pooh Family

An appellate court upheld a ruling from 2004 dismissing a suit by the owners of Winnie the Pooh against Disney, reports the Los Angeles Times. The suit had claimed that Disney had failed to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in royalties for merchandising, software, and home video.

The ruling, against the heirs of Stephen Slesinger, who obtained the rights to the famous bear from the stories' author, A. A. Milne, was based on a finding of misconduct against the family - specifically, that they had hired an investigator who broke into Disney offices and rifled through the company's trash.