February 05, 2005
CinemaNow Signs Deal to Sell NBC TV Shows
CinemaNow has signed a deal this week with NBC Universal to sell movies and TV shows on their website. The startup that is one of the early leaders of legal commercial movie downloading and streaming now has 6 of 7 major Hollywood studios offering their content. Only Paramount which is owned by Viacom has not relented.The CEO said they are growing revenue at 5-7% clip every month and will be well over 100% growth in 2005. The race to be the iTunes of movies is on. My bet is the iTunes of movies eventually will be iTunes, as a new iPod like device that can play video will drive traction just like the iPod did. Unfortunately for all these companies, awesome hardware and software with the best end-to-end experience drives success. CinemaNow and Movielink by showing movies primarily on consumers' PC is not there yet.
