ABSTRACT
The ability to watch a movie or TV show at home on a videocassette or DVD has had a profound impact on the economics of the motion picture and television business. Not only has the video market altered the consumer’s consumption pattern of watching movies, but it has also changed the underlying financial modeling of whether a movie, and in cases TV shows, are made in the first place. Despite the rapid and wide market penetration of new technologies such as DVDs, it is a testament to the cultural impact of videocassettes that the studios, at least colloquially, still refer to their divisions as Home Video. In fact, the word “video” in this context has become a misnomer, a catchall of sorts that conceptually captures the varied devices that have evolved allowing consumers to watch films on their television or over a computer.
