Why are the rental movies so expensive?

[rapidturtle]

Just returned a movie to redbox, and noticed that the same movie was $5.99 to rent from dish. Why are the movies so expensive to rent over Satellite or Cable providers, but only cost a buck to rent from red box? Are the providers charged a lot more by the studios for the content?
You would kind of think that because there is no physical cost of discs and rental machines, that they should be able to rent us a movie for a buck or two.
I realize this isn't just a Dish thing, and all providers charge a lot to rent a movie. I was just curious about why it is the way it is.

 

[inazsully]

Hard to figure. I just saw where One For The Money comes out next Tuesday. Regular DVD is $14.95. Blu-ray is $19.95. Hard to believe blu-rays are still so much more than regular DVD's. When blu-ray first came out they said that prices would come down after they recouped their start up manufacturing (equipment) cost.

 

[Brussam]

Since there is no media transport like cable or satellite and no media like a DVD, then going into a movie theater should be free.

 

[rvvaquero]

Whatever the market will bear.

 

[sparc]

the licensing and costs are probably very different between physical and digital media

 

[televisionarchives]

Just returned a movie to redbox, and noticed that the same movie was $5.99 to rent from dish. Why are the movies so expensive to rent over Satellite or Cable providers, but only cost a buck to rent from red box? Are the providers charged a lot more by the studios for the content?
You would kind of think that because there is no physical cost of discs and rental machines, that they should be able to rent us a movie for a buck or two.
I realize this isn't just a Dish thing, and all providers charge a lot to rent a movie. I was just curious about why it is the way it is.

My guess is convenience. And I don't know anyone that rents a movie from Directv, Cable or Dish .

 

[Teehar]

My guess is convenience. And I don't know anyone that rents a movie from Directv, Cable or Dish .

Me either unless we have free ppv coupons.Yet they have 50 channels of them?So someone must be renting movies otherwise can't explain why they dedicate so much b/w to them.

 

[kcburk]

The exorbitant rentals fees r why we seldom evr rent on dish. RB or NF or even Vudu r the way to go. Or use a free rental code u get from a class action lawsuit settlement against dish

 

[rapidturtle]

I never rent from them either. That's why when I saw the movie was available for $5.99 from Dish, and I got it for $1.50 from Redbox, it made me wonder why. Wouldn't it make more sense for them to lower the prices and actually have people rent the movies? It would run things like Redbox out of business.

 

[rajmarie]

I never rent from them either. That's why when I saw the movie was available for $5.99 from Dish, and I got it for $1.50 from Redbox, it made me wonder why. Wouldn't it make more sense for them to lower the prices and actually have people rent the movies? It would run things like Redbox out of business.

Hollywood greed. When they were promoting these digital vod....they themselves said that digital will be cheap because less overhead. But as we can see that was a lie. The bottom line is that with digital...they control everything. They can keep the extra high price. That's why they want to kill the disc whenever they can.

I myself will not pay those rental. If Hollywood can find a way to bring it down to 1.50...I will rent those vod.

 

[CK SatGuy]

If dish lowered their PPV prices, then there wouldn't be a reason to keep Blockbuster in business. Anyway, I think in the future, Dish (and all providers, but dish could be the 1st) should get rid of all the PPV movies and go VOD only. (They could keep a couple PPVs for sporting events and that's about it.) I know not everyone has acess to reliable high-speed internet though, but to me if Dish could be able to do something like "Dish Unplugged" for the Hopper, they could probably be able to do Satellite-based VOD for all the PPV movies they show.

 

[3HaloODST]

It's about the same as asking why convenience stores cost more than Wal-Mart.

 

[cave1376]

I like the idea of getting rid of ppv and using vod. I can't remember the last time I rented a movie or purchased a ppv.

By getting rid of ppv, it would free up transponder space which would add pq, or service providers can add channels that people want but can't be added because of the current strangle on transponder space.

 

[Skee7ix]

The funny thing here where I live is that the movies that are now on Dish for 6.99 are in a movie theater that has movies like 3 or 4 months olds, but that cost $1.50 per ticket.

 

[Dishman1978]

Just returned a movie to redbox, and noticed that the same movie was $5.99 to rent from dish. Why are the movies so expensive to rent over Satellite or Cable providers, but only cost a buck to rent from red box? Are the providers charged a lot more by the studios for the content?
You would kind of think that because there is no physical cost of discs and rental machines, that they should be able to rent us a movie for a buck or two.
I realize this isn't just a Dish thing, and all providers charge a lot to rent a movie. I was just curious about why it is the way it is.

Its the price of convienence. Sit on your ass and push a button, versus get up, go to your car, put your key in the ignition, turn the key....oh crap battery is dead.....charge battery, drive to a red box, oh snap, none are available, drive to another redbox, yippeee its here!!!! Get back into car, crap!!! Why's my battery dead again??? Call AAA. Pay for new battery, give guy 20 dollar tip for changin battery. Drive home, run over neighbors cat, drop cat off at nieghbors house in brown paper bag. Go home....ih snap too late to watch movie. Watch movie next night. To late to return movie. Next day comes have to attend cat funeral to pay your respects. Return redbox....3 days fees??? I thought it was 99 cents not 3 dollars. Oh im late. Plus gas....

 

[Coach Knight]

I can't speak for anyone else, but I have never rented a PPV movie from Dish or cable and probably never will. Why would anyone pay $5.99-$6.99 for a movie that is several months old? If it was that important, you could have watched it for a few dollars more when it was brand new in theaters. Or as a previous poster said, the dollar theaters probably have it as well at about the same time it's on PPV.

Nevertheless, someone, somewhere, must be renting these movies. I do understand the cost, gas/time/etc, that one encounters with Redbox or other similar alternatives like a local video store, however, for many it may not really be all that inconvenient and on their regular route to/from work, etc.

I totally agree that a reasonable price on such movies would be a huge blow to Redbox and others...say $1.99 to $2.99 per movie. At that cost, it'd be hard to justify using Redbox.

 

[inazsully]

Not to mention that all of these PPV movies are available from Dish's own Blockbuster Package for $10 a month which includes some extra channels and Blockbuster does not charge a premium (Red Box does) for blu-rays.

 

[empiretc]

their prices would be OK if the movies were the same ones in the theater. imagine the revenue that would generate!

when they tried that, though, it was $30.

 

[gpollock87]

it would be nice if they brought back those .99 movies for a week,weekend or something like that.

 

[patmurphey]

You are all answering from the wrong perspective. The answer is more likely found in the size of Dish's revenue stream from PPV.