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Wal-Mart Threatened by iTunes Movies?

I'm weak

This sounds to me like Wal-Mart might be angling to get in on the online movie store business. They're certainly not going to stop selling movies, but I can see them pressuring studios to partner with them (exclusively) for some sort of online download service.

As for Wal-Mart, the company, it's power and influence on business markets in this country is not so much a commentary on itself, but instead, on society. The fact is there are a lot of poor people in this country who need cheap goods and services and Wal-Mart affords that to them. You take that away and something else will replace it.
 
MacinDoc said:
...Ten years from now, movies and music on physical media will largely be things of the past, much like cassette tapes are today. The change won't come right away, but it will come. If Wal-Mart wants to beat Apple at this game, it will have to introduce its own movie download service.
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The problem is that Wal-Mart is incapable of doing it. Look at how stunningly successful their 88 cents per song music store was (not). If Amazon's movie store sucks so bad (considering that Amazon must employ some pretty good computer programmers), what chance does Wal-Mart have of producing something that isn't a laughing stock. Good, competent programming/infrastracture building on the level of Apple is VERY hard. Google can (usually) do it. Not too many other companies can (certainly not Microsoft).
 
NewYorkPost Article said:
The studios generally charge Wal-Mart a wholesale price of $17.95 for new DVDs, while Apple is paying Disney a wholesale price of about $14.50 per film, according to a studio source.
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Go figure...
 
I thought about this, and I just can't see Wal-Mart winning this battle.

If they drop DVD sales, then they undermine the DVD format. That will push people towards streaming movies of the type Apple intends to sell.

This threat is hollow. People do, right now, want to buy DVDs. Wal-Mart can choose between a choice of online, virtual, purchases and content-in-the-hand solid purchases in future, or no choice at all and the entire world going online. Try as I may, I don't see it in Wal-Mart's best interests to promote the latter. And anything they do to hurt DVD sales will lead to the latter.
 
I won't shop at evil Wal*Mart

I have already stopped giving the evil empire any of my money. This is just one more piece of validation that my decision was 100% correct.

Shrivel up and wilt away Wal*Mart. People don't need your greed or abuse! Start paying your workers a fair wage and benefits.
 
aswm said:
Here is a copy of an e-mail I sent to the FTC and DOJ yesterday (by way of copy from an e-mail to David Porter, the offending Wal-Mart executive). I urge everyone to do something similar:

Send to dporter@walmart.com, antitrust@ftc.com, and antitrust.complaints@usdoj.gov

Dear Mr. Porter:

By this letter and by copy to the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice I hereby notify you that your reported behavior constitutes numerous violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act and the Federal Trade Commission Act. As reported in a wide variety of sources, you have been meeting with the heads of large movie studios and threatening to purchase fewer or return product from those studios that agree to distribute movies over Apple iTunes service (see, e.g., http://www.macnn.com/articles/06/09/22/wal.mart.threatens.studios/). This is an egregious restraint of trade that severely effects interstate commerce. News reports indicate that you have already "punished" Disney by returning thousands of DVDs and refusing to sell them. Because Wal-Mart sells 40% of the physical DVDs in the United States, you are in a privileged position and are abusing your market power. You are seeking to obtain concessions to sell content at Apple's prices (which does not include the manufacture, shipment, and sale of a physical item). Apple has innovated - something WalMart is incapable of -- and WalMart now wants to take advantage of Apple's innovation.

I urge the FTC and the DOJ to open criminal investigations into your behavior. In addition, your conduct violates your own "Corporate Code of Ethics," making a mockery of your supposed corporate values.

You should be ashamed of your luddite and monopolistic behavior.
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Bravo, sir! I wrote a similar complaint to the Department of Justice. If everyone here wrote one, we might actually see some effect; big corporations and institutions seem to believe that for every single person who sends out a letter there are at least 20 other people with the same opinion. (A good example: the Janet Jackson 'wardrobe malfunction' backlash. Who really cared about that other than the people who wrote the FCC? Practically no one...)
 
aswm said:
In addition, your conduct violates your own "Corporate Code of Ethics," making a mockery of your supposed corporate values.

You should be ashamed of your luddite and monopolistic behavior.
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I really do believe that Sam Walton would be very upset at the path Wal-Mart has taken.
 
Can't buy iPods at walmart.com?

I just noticed that on the Walmart.com site it says you can't buy iPods online - has this always been the case? Also on their front page is a big ad for the Zune that says "Get Zune at Walmart as soon as its released". What's this all about? Have they always not had ipods available online? I have no idea...but could be a clue.
 
meepm00pmeep said:
i refuse to shop 'walmart again
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I've never liked walmart --- it's sooo creepy; even creepier than rite aid, the dress barn, and guns'n'ammo combined.

I don't see why they're freaking out about this; i wouldn't see iTMS being such a threat to their customers who seem to be pennypinching old ladies that don't know whether it's tuesday or december.
 
iRepublican said:
The New York Post.....hahaha

Only a bunch of idiotic liberals would believe anything that comes out of that rag.:D
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The New York Post is owned by Rupert Murdoch.
 
Macrumors said:


The New York Post reports that Wal-Mart is warning Hollywood studios against partnering with Apple's iTunes Store for movie distribution.

According to studio executives, "Wal-Mart has overtly threatened to retaliate if [studios] go into business with Apple."
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### Just one more reason to add the extremely LONG list of reasons to continue *my* boycott of Walmart. They are evil.
 
walmart

Let's see here, they sell 40% of all DVD sales and they lose on them, and somehow losing those sales costs them money? Sounds like they have a plan themselves and are keeping the competitors at bay while they gestate it.
 
HecubusPro said:
Screw Wal-mart! They should shrivel up and die. I grew up in the epicenter of Wal-Mart's birthplace and it is nothing more than a plague on small-town (and larger city) life.
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I don't quite have this same level of hatred for them, but I have a few things to say about them.

They are the Sears of our time. Back when I grew up in the 70's, Sears was still a big deal and manufacturers bent over for them, and everybody looked forward to getting the new Sears catalog, it was a big deal. They had the balls to rebadge the Atari and Intellivision consoles of the day just to stroke their own ego, and Atari and Mattel eagerly complied. Their "Craftsman" brand? They rebadge other people's products.

Do you realize how much power the Wal-Marts and K-Marts of the world have? Do you realize that music labels have to press alternate, family friendly versions of their albums for Wal-Mart and the normal version for everybody else? Some products are kept off the market entirely if they can't get shelf space at Wal-Mart. I went through this experience personally around 10 years ago with an edutainment software title I worked on.

At the end of the day, they will fail and crumble just like Sears did, because they become rigid and arrogant and will no longer "get it".

Now, Wal-Mart should feel threatened by iTunes selling movies. So should Blockbuster, DVD Empire, heck the entire physical media industry and foodchain should be worried. But the movie studios love it no matter what they say in public, because it opens the door for more oppressive DRM, which is what they wanted all along -- the ability to control your media and charge you every time you watch it.
 
kalisphoenix said:
I hope that this pisses off the studios royally. The sooner we shift to a purely electronic method of distribution, the better everything is.
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Be careful what you wish for, and which Devil you find yourself in bed with. Remeber Divx, the original Circuit City Divx. The studios want to protect our media FROM us and they want us to forget "fair use" ever existed. Their dream is to restrict access to our media and make us pay for each access to it.

Divx charged you to watch DVDs you "owned" for 48-hour time windows, and you couldn't go from one player to another. Digital media is great, but always remember the studios don't like that you can buy a movie for $20 and watch it as many times as you want or do things like ripping it to an iPod. DRM will creep in and protect your media from you, online distribution only ensures this will happen sooner rather than later.

Not to mention the quality problem. When will iTunes offer 1920x1080 movies with Dolby Digital Plus sound? That's right, never. When physical media goes away, we are all stuck with low quality -- thanks in large part to iTunes and paying for 128 kbps songs and then 320x240 videos. Sonically, we have a generation of people listening to heavily compressed music on crappy earbuds. We've gone backwards from CD, not forward. Rather than going to 24-bit sampling, 192kHz sampling, and 6 channels, at best we get lossless that's still the same as a CD. The high-res audio formats (DVD-A, SACD) failed miserably. HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are just launching but will not grow like DVD did. And here we have people flocking to buy movies with inferior quality to DVD.
 
iRepublican said:
The New York Post.....hahaha

Only a bunch of idiotic liberals would believe anything that comes out of that rag.:D
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No, the New York Times, under the idiotic and bumbling leadership of Pinchy Sulzberger, is the leading liberal rag. The Post is the Neo-con rag of Rupert Murdoch, you know, Fox News.
 
Wal-Mart w/40% of all DVD sales

IMHO, this isn't an issue of Wal-Mart feeling 'threatened" at this point. Rather, it's one of many early indicators you're going to see of digital movie distribution overtaking/eclipsing physical DVD movie sales.

The future is online movie distribution. People think devices like Tivo are "groundbreaking" because they give TV viewers a new level of control over when and what they want to watch. But ultimately, these devices are little more than work-arounds for an outmoded delivery system. (It makes little sense to pipe 100 channels of streaming content, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to every subscriber - forcing them to do the work on their end of sifting through it to watch the segments they're personally interested in.) By the same token, this outdated system helps drive physical DVD sales - because again, consumers feel like the only way they ultimately have control over the ability to watch and re-watch a specific, favorite movie of theirs is to buy a copy of the thing and keep it on their shelf!

When you look at the "big picture" - the only reason stores like Wal-Mart are still so successful in *both* music and movie sales is because digital distribution still hasn't matured enough yet. (EG. It requires a computer, a fast Internet connection, AND a lot of knowledge.) John Q. Public knows he can buy a DVD movie at Wal-Mart, throw it in his $30 DVD player he probably also bought at Wal-Mart a while ago, and watch the movie. No monthly broadband Inet bills or computer knowledge necessary.

But this can and will change. Cable companies and other broadband Inet providers are looking at the future. It's only a matter of time before they leverage the "set top converter boxes" to deliver all of this to people with no more knowledge required than ability to work a remote control and read the prompts on the TV screen.

Apple is simply an "early adopter" of things to come, and THAT is what should scare Wal-Mart.


quigleybc said:
How could Wal Mart feel threatened by anything.

They are more powerful than most countries.

the ITMS has been kickin in full swing for years now, and Wal Mart still leads in CD sales, and music distribution by a long shot.

I hope this goes really public and gets exposed through the media, so everyone knows what WM is trying to do.


I would have loved to hear the phone call between Jobs and Lee.
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Wal-Mart uses loss-leading priced CD sales to draw people into the store.

I work for Target... while we do not always underprice CD's, in many products, that is the case. If someone goes to buy that one product (that the store takes a loss on) the store hopes that they will pick up other items while they are there.

Target sells a lot of the iTunes pre-paid cards... and TONS of iPod accessories.

Wal-Mart... Learn to swim, dude. oh... and Grow Up.
Threats are not what good businesses are built upon...especially if publically known!

The bigger threat would be Apple not letting Wal-Mart sell any iPods. Or maybe Since Apple owns Disney... not letting Wal-Mart sell any Disney, or Disney owned movies.

So... Wal-Mart... Are you going to start threatening Blu-Ray manufacturers... because the demographic that shops wal-mart typically cannot afford things like this. Blu-Ray and online movie distribution are both going to cut into the DVD market share... so... Adapt and survive.

Sink or Swim.
 
Here's an idea

Here's an idea:

I can't imagine Target, Best Buy, Circuit City... have any great love for Wal-Mart, and I'd imagine that between them, they represenent a reasonably large slice of the DVD-sales market. Not only that, but as ubiquitous as Wal-Mart is, the other big-box stores also have quite a large footprint. So, what if Apple teams up with them in some way? Of course the movie studios would need to be convinced that such an idea would work.

For instance, if you buy a DVD at any of those places, you receive a code number on your receipt that would allow you to buy any other movie, produced by that studio, for $11.99 (or some price that represents a discount from iTunes's standard pricing). You would enter this code when purchasing the film from Apple's store. To prevent someone guessing or making up a valid code, perhaps there would be two codes that would be entered -- The code(s) would be sent to iTunes by the retailer's computer at the time of purchase, and the consumer would be prompted for them at the time of his or her iTunes purchase.

People would probably be inclined to choose Target (or whatever the retailer) over Wal-Mart for DVDs because they get the DVD they want as well as the option of downloading an iTunes movie at a discount. They could even give a friend or family member the code(s) if there are no movies they themselves are interested in downloading. The retailer, of course, benefits from added sales and the knowledge they've taken business away from Wal-Mart.

This is just a rough example of something Apple might consider doing. I'm sure there are many other methods of Apple teaming with retailers--perhaps even online retailers--to overcome Wal-Mart's bullying and economic fascism.

There's also the American panacea: have Steve Jobs go on Oprah and explain to America what Wal-Mart is doing...

mashny
 
Macrumors said:


The New York Post reports that Wal-Mart is warning Hollywood studios against partnering with Apple's iTunes Store for movie distribution.

According to studio executives, "Wal-Mart has overtly threatened to retaliate if [studios] go into business with Apple."

While Apple has only signed one movie studio (Disney) to the iTunes store, the early success has caught the attention of other studios. One executive is quoted as saying "We all want to be in the Apple business".

The threat of Wal-Mart repurcussions, however, may temper enthusiasm as Wal-Mart controls a large portion of the retail market for DVDs.
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HA HA HA :D
 
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