omtvideo
2001 Video Industry Copy Depth Newspaper Article by Tom Hannah/Rewinders Comic Strip
Starting in 1998, movie studios started a thing called "Copy Depth Programs" for video stores in an attempt to reduce costs per unit and increase consumer satisfaction by putting more copies on video store shelves. A little background: Before copy depth started the wholesale...yes, wholesale cost per VHS movie was approx. $70 each. This was considered the rental price window, which lasted for approx. 6 months before other stores such as Target and Wal-mart could sell them. Full retail price was $100, sometimes even more.
If a video store wanted 2 copies of a big hit movie on VHS, that would be $70x2 and so on. Blockbuster paid less but that's another story.
In the beginning, copy depth programs were over complicated using calculations that only a mathematician would understand. Even wholesale distributors found it difficult to understand. Every studio had a different program with different calculations.
The main issue with these programs was that in order to get cost down to $58 per copy, a video store would be required to say, bring in 6 copies (called a goal that the store must meet to qualify for the discount). This goal often forced video stores to bring in more copies of movies than they actually needed.
6 copies may be 3 more than a store needs, which meant 3 copies just sat on the shelf unrented.
The article mentioned sideways selling & buying, which was basically the act of selling off your sealed bonus copies to a sub-distributor who in turn would sell these bonus units back to video rental stores for a small profit minus the complicated programs. Of course, movie studios did not like this practice but there were dozens of "sub-distributors" who did this.
Eventually, VHS died off and so did all the copy depth programs as DVD's were never "rental priced".
2001 Video Industry Copy Depth Newspaper Article by Tom Hannah/Rewinders Comic Strip
Starting in 1998, movie studios started a thing called "Copy Depth Programs" for video stores in an attempt to reduce costs per unit and increase consumer satisfaction by putting more copies on video store shelves. A little background: Before copy depth started the wholesale...yes, wholesale cost per VHS movie was approx. $70 each. This was considered the rental price window, which lasted for approx. 6 months before other stores such as Target and Wal-mart could sell them. Full retail price was $100, sometimes even more.
If a video store wanted 2 copies of a big hit movie on VHS, that would be $70x2 and so on. Blockbuster paid less but that's another story.
In the beginning, copy depth programs were over complicated using calculations that only a mathematician would understand. Even wholesale distributors found it difficult to understand. Every studio had a different program with different calculations.
The main issue with these programs was that in order to get cost down to $58 per copy, a video store would be required to say, bring in 6 copies (called a goal that the store must meet to qualify for the discount). This goal often forced video stores to bring in more copies of movies than they actually needed.
6 copies may be 3 more than a store needs, which meant 3 copies just sat on the shelf unrented.
The article mentioned sideways selling & buying, which was basically the act of selling off your sealed bonus copies to a sub-distributor who in turn would sell these bonus units back to video rental stores for a small profit minus the complicated programs. Of course, movie studios did not like this practice but there were dozens of "sub-distributors" who did this.
Eventually, VHS died off and so did all the copy depth programs as DVD's were never "rental priced".