| Wal-Mart vs. iTunes: New Media Battleground |
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Enter Apple and the upgraded iTunes store that now offers movies on top of music and tv shows. Given the resounding success both of these branches of iTMS have been, it isn't a stretch to think that iTunes will sell metric arseloads of movies, and the first week showed this with Disney alone bringing in $50 million in profit. So, other studios are probably looking at the numbers and wondering when they will be invited into to iTunes love in. This is where Wal-Mart comes in. Wal-Mart is concerned about this new iTunes and justifiably so. Some 125,000 Disney movies were sold in the first week of the service, surely no small part of that came at the expense of brick-and-mortar shops like Wal-Mart or Blockbuster. However, unlike most shops, Wal-Mart has serious pull in the industry. Premier Magazine lists Wal-Mart's David Porter, head of stocking DVDs and CDs at the chain, as one of the industries most powerful people. Studios have edited movies and CDs specifically for Wal-Mart, because if they did not then the chain wouldn't stock the discs. That's pretty powerful. So, back to the original story. Wal-Mart is concerned that Apple is breaking into its territory. DVDs are profitable for the company and often offer the opportunity to sell accompanying items like snacks and drinks. Having Apple cut into this would certainly make some small dent in Wal-Mart's profits. It has been mentioned that David Porter has made the rounds to the major studios and mentioned, informally and in passing to be sure, that there may be certain "ramifications" for studios that happened to sign up with Apple. Surely Wal-Mart won't stop selling new releases, but one could certainly imagine seeing the DVD racks at Wal-Mart shrink as they stock fewer older titles and send back new releases not sold in a given period of time. It looks like there may be a stand-off of sorts. Apple is making a very big name for itself in the entertainment industry. The iPod and iTunes is rapidly becoming a generic term for music players in much the same way that Nintendo did for video games and Google for searching. However, Wal-Mart is still the big dog. Wal-Mart has more cash on hand and has demonstrated that it is willing to win at almost all costs. This will be interesting. Grab some popcorn! Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites          Add your comment
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