ABSTRACT
This chapter combines a bit of a hodgepodge of revenue streams, but that is because an intellectual property asset, by its divisible and malleable nature, lends itself to being exploited via endless permutations, associated with a dizzying array of physical products, and distributed by any platform capable of attracting eyeballs. Given this open ended sandbox to bring in additional dollars, in exceptional cases revenues from so-called ancillaries can become the proverbial tail wagging the dog, generating more money than the property in its original incarnation. Merchandising, a category that could mean a thousand different products (e.g., ranging from toys to games to apparel), is what one tends to associate with ancillary revenue. Notwithstanding the importance of merchandising in the film and television world, in the context of distribution, a series of ancillary streams have carved out
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additional niche windows for exploiting content. The most prominent of these include:
n Hotel/motel n Pay per view n Video-on-demand (VOD) (here in its transactional form rather
than free) n Airlines n Non-theatrical
It would be fair also to add online into this mix, because many view online as just another ancillary. However, given the new applications enabled by online use and digital technology, I am treating online as a separate category, focusing on how it is impacting mainstream and ancillary revenue windows alike. In summary, that is the challenge of convergence: Are revenues from downloading a TV show to an iPod or streaming content to a computer ancillary revenues, or rather new kinds of digital exploitation changing the very character of traditional markets (electronic sell through supplanting DVD retail, and streaming content challenging the nature of what is TV)?
