Consider: No more driving to your video store on Friday or Saturday afternoon, only to find that all the copies of the latest releases are already rented; no more return trips to take back the tapes that are available. For the first time in Orange County, thousands of cable television subscribers will soon be able to rent popular movies on the spur-of-the-moment, with just a flick of two buttons on their remote control unit.
Several other cable systems in the county offer pay-per-view movies and special events, such as the upcoming Sugar Ray Leonard-Thomas Hearns title fight, but they require the subscriber to call the cable company to place an order. Industry research cited by Comcast has determined that subscribers on the impulse system are between two and five times as likely to order a movie than those on systems requiring a telephone call.
Rent a movie. Nimmer explained that the impulse system requires pressing two buttons to rent a movie to avoid an accidental purchase. An optional feature of the system is a security code to prevent unauthorized use. A third channel on the Comcast system previews movies available on the other two.
Comcast officials said they expect to complete installing the technology throughout the Newport Beach system within 6 months. Tom Adams, an analyst with Paul Kagan Associates of Carmel, said Tuesday that he thinks that video rental stores will probably give up more of a market share to impulse pay-per-view than would the movie-package channels. Get our big stories about Hollywood, film, television, music, arts, culture and more right in your inbox as soon as they publish.
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