Drew Turney
VOD hit two large milestones this past few weeks. In the first, a company called the Interactive Advertising Bureau found that among the adults who make a habit of watching videos online who were polled, more went to VOD services than to primetime TV.
The results are a little bit biased because we’re talking about people who are avowed online video fans to begin with, but when an online service is a more popular go-to than primetime TV – a medium that’s been on top of the food chain for over half a century – it’s a big step.
In the other study, Symphony Advanced Media discovered that among 18-24 year old Americans, the top four series were from Netflix rather than the broadcast networks. Like newspapers, it seems like the old models will die off with the older populations while newer methods will grow up and expand in reach along with their users.
VR is also one of the buzzwords you’ve probably heard about in the last year or so. There have been some stores about the deficiencies, but it isn’t stopping VOD from jumping on board, with Sony TV’s digital movie service Crackle launching a service to allow advertisers to use VR.
Elsewhere, all the VOD providers you’ve been reading about for the last year are still expanding, with US mobile giant AT&T committing to doubling the money it spends on VOD content this year.
And in the latest ‘me too’ news, none other than Twitter is vying for a slice of VOD action, saying recently it will broadcast American football games.
On VOD now and coming up, Hard Sell, which centers on Hardy Buchanan, a senior at an elite private school who struggles to support his unstable mom (Kristin Chenoweth). Desperate to make some quick cash, he enlists the help of a beautiful runaway, and together they devise an unconventional plan of profiting off of the wayward teens at Hardy’s school.
Ride into the Danger Zone and celebrate the 30th anniversary of Top Gun. As well as remembering an innocent time when beach volleyball wasn’t so homoerotic, there are new interviews with Jerry Bruckheimer and star Tom Cruise.
If you’re feeling righteous about marital rights, try The State of Marriage, the documentary about how a legal pioneer partnered with two small town Vermont lawyers in a 20 year struggle that built the foundation for the entire marriage equality movement.
On the heels of the success of series like V/H/S and The ABCs of Death comes Monsterland, an anthology series about creatures, creepy crawlies and monsters of every stripe.
Or there’s Crossing Point, in which Michael and Olivia, a young American couple vacationing in Baja, see their romantic idyll take a harrowing turn when Olivia is kidnapped by a drug dealer, who demands that Michael smuggle a backpack full of cocaine over the border within 12 hours or Olivia will be killed.
In other docos, you might like The Best of It, which takes an unflinching look at the life of a professional gambler. The character driven film focuses on the lives of several people who all make a living betting sports and where the outcome of the gambling life is as unpredictable as the game.
And of course you can revisit the best superhero movie of the last decade, Deadpool, which we at Moviehole.net loved.
