
Mitch Lowe co-founded Netflix, now he's hacking movie night - tooba
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-41197966
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buro9
Forget the cinema in this product.

The real product is a new model for subscription services based on the issuing
of prepaid payment cards and a payment system that enforces how it is paid.

That's pretty huge.

Imagine your employer giving a transit allowance and food allowance via this,
and that it could only be used on a given transit mode and with the n local
places to the work place, at some set amounts per month.

Or that parents could use a Uni subscription card that allows for purchases
from the campus grocery store and the bookshop to be capped at a reasonable
rate.

This is essentially a new breed of subscription that can be used across
multiple outlets and yet have a set of controls built into it that make it
seem more like a coupon.

As a new mechanism for subscriptions... this is far bigger than the cinema
model.

You could even allow for the creation of custom controls to create
subscription models that are totally personalised, or go further and sell this
capability to other businesses.

~~~
bpicolo
> Or that parents could use a Uni subscription card that allows for purchases
> from the campus grocery store and the bookshop to be capped at a reasonable
> rate

A bunch of unis already have this model and their own card for it, and even
extend purchases to local businesses

e.g.
[http://bluebucks.umich.edu/p/home.html](http://bluebucks.umich.edu/p/home.html)

~~~
buro9
It is the control mechanisms that make it interesting, not just the group of
retailers and funding source.

With the control mechanisms you have the basis of a food subscription, a book
subscription... allowances for very specific purposes at a rate that is pre-
determined and could be set per retailer or even for specific products if such
integration were achieved.

This is what makes it more interesting than any pre-paid card or coupon
system.

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Al-Khwarizmi
I don't know in the US, but in Spain, cinemas have been closing en masse in
the last few years due to unrealistic prices. I still go, but most people I
know say paying €8 for a ticket (the same price as one month of Netflix, a
3-course set meal, or four beers in a bar) is just outrageous. Something like
this could save cinema here.

~~~
lol768
They are expensive (though I find it's usually the refreshments that're marked
up the most vs the ticket in the UK), but I'm not so sure on your price
comparisons... can you really get a 3 course lunch or 4 pints for ~£8 in
Spain? I think you'd be lucky to get one course or 2 pints here for that.

~~~
Al-Khwarizmi
You can definitely get a 3 course lunch for €8, which is less than £8. Not in
highly touristic places or in the center of Madrid or Barcelona, but I live in
a 250K city and there are many places offering simple 3-course meals (salad or
entrée + fish or meat + dessert) with that price. And if you go to €9 you can
get fancy meals and all.

The beer analogy may have been misleading, though. You can indeed get 4 beers
for €8, but the standard size of a beer here is 300 ml, which is much less
than a pint (568 ml I think).

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balladeer
I like this idea.

I don't have Netflix subscription. Because where I live Netflix catalogue is
laughable - this is one of the reasons. Anyway, that's another matter.

I really like watching films in theatres and prices are going sky high. Some
of the films turn out to be really bad and I would rather like to leave in the
middle (of course not walking out abruptly blocking others' views). Something
like MoviePass could be very handy to me.

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dhruvrrp
I am surprised that the article says that moviePass is looking to get a share
of beverage revenues from theaters to turn a profit.

I remember when the price drop happened there were articles circulating that
MoviePass aimed to make a profit by collecting the data they get from the
movie goers. Which makes more sense when you realize that Helios and Matheson
Analytics owns a majority share of MoviePass.

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bathory
This may be derailing the core of the intended discussion, but this is again
one of those things which is only available in the US, whereas the rest of the
world (at least western Europe) is lagging behind. It really makes me wonder
why this kind of innovation isn't available here? I can't even get an
unlimited pass to the only cinema I frequent.

~~~
zimpenfish
Here in the UK, it's available in a couple of the big chains.

[http://www.odeon.co.uk/limitless/](http://www.odeon.co.uk/limitless/)
[https://www.cineworld.co.uk/unlimited](https://www.cineworld.co.uk/unlimited)

~~~
DanBC
Cineworld is £17.90 per month, which is roughly $23.

~~~
Ntrails
It also doesn't have the limit to one film per day as far as I know, but
unlike the other is limited to the one chain of cinemas and is a yearly thing
- can't just do one month.

I still think it's an incredibly good deal vs buying a ticket @£12 for one
film

~~~
zimpenfish
Also I think both Odeon and Cineworld charge more if you want to include
Central London cinemas.

But definitely still a good deal even if you only go twice a month.

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empath75
They are literally selling $20 for $10. That's one model for growth.

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dustinmoris
Interesting concept, but I am afraid this will (if ever) only work in the US.

Here in the UK and in Europe people would get the cheap tickets and then still
smuggle their own drinks and snacks into the movies, because that's what we've
always done and that's the culture here - especially among the millenials who
think they can outsmart everything and everyone and feel entitled so. Also
people on this side of the pond don't really fancy the massive buckets of
sugary drinks or XXL sized hot dogs like our American friends.

~~~
k-mcgrady
>> especially among the millenials who think they can outsmart everything and
everyone and feel entitled so

While I agree with your comment mostly this bit seems ridiculous. When it
comes to going to the cinema in particular I find (anecdotally obviously) that
it is the older generation unwilling to pay for snacks. I've lost count of how
many times people of my parents generation have asked me to fill my pockets
with all kinds of stuff when I, the broke millennial, am happy to pay for a
drink/snack. I think the last time my friends or I tried to sneak in
food/drink was when we were young teenagers below working age.

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adithyah
How is this remotely sustainable ?? I do not see avenues for Add on's which
can still make MoviePass profitable !

And the article compares it to Uber , but I highly doubt that Uber is making
that heavy of a loss when someone hails a cab ! Infact Uber even takes a cut
of each transaction unlike Moviepass . What could i be missing ?

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seunosewa
The $10 pricing certainly seems extremely unsustainable. I don't get it.

~~~
ghaff
The key point is sort of buried in the article. They hope to parlay this into
revenue-sharing deals. I could actually see something like this making sense--
provided that the card issuer gets at least a cut of refreshments. I don't
know the exact numbers but my understanding is that movie tickets are
basically breakeven for the theater. They make most of their money on
refreshments.

(Of course, people also buy subscriptions and then don't get around to using
them much but I suspect the revenue sharing is key. I'd also wonder though if
the theater chains aren't really in a better position to go this route.)

~~~
dsr_
AMC's 10k is pretty informative:
[http://investor.amctheatres.com/Doc/Index?did=39811732](http://investor.amctheatres.com/Doc/Index?did=39811732)

Page 17 or so is good: "We predominantly license “first-run” films from
distributors owned by major film production companies and from independent
distributors on a film-by-film and theatre-by-theatre basis. Film exhibition
costs are accrued based on the applicable admissions revenues and estimates of
the final settlement pursuant to our film licenses. Licenses that we enter
into typically state that rental fees are based on aggregate terms established
prior to the opening of the picture."

and then: "Food and beverage sales are our second largest source of revenue
after box office admissions."

The ratio, seen later in the document, is basically 65% admissions, 33%
food/beverage.

(This surprised me, I had thought it was around 25% admissions.)

I don't see theaters being willing to give up any of that in exchange for a
vague promise of extra customers.

On the other hand, I don't see why theaters feel antagonistic towards a
company that promises to take investment money and buy full-price tickets with
it. That's a complete win for the theaters.

~~~
ghaff
That's revenue though. If you look at the income statement, films have about a
50% profit margin while refreshments have about an 85% profit margin. If you
allocate all other expenses evenly, that makes it about 50-50 between film and
refreshments. That may or may not be appropriate cost accounting (there's
another big chunk of operating expense that isn't under G&A or rent) and I
just took a quick glance. More of their profit comes from film than I thought
--or at least used to be the case--but refreshments still makes a good 50%.

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gourou
Moviepass is hurting AMC's business and doesn't seem to have plans to make a
profit.

If I were AMC I would buy this company just to shut it down.

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tass
Its there any explanation as to how this hurts their business?

~~~
gourou
They have a competing card service that's more expensive

