Emergence of Movie Stream Challenges Traditional DVD Movie Rental—An Empirical Study with a User Focus

Abstract

Traditional movie DVD rental model has been challenged by a new business model of movie stream. Movie stream possesses convincing advantages over the traditional DVD rental. E-commerce shows a trend in the movie industry that consumers can stream comparable quality movies and TV shows directly from the Internet instead of waiting for the DVDs in the mail. Thanks to global technology advancement, movie stream has already prevailed. This study focuses on consumers’ preferences of decision making variables for streaming movie from the Internet and the traditional DVD movie rental. The results indicate that consumers are shifting from DVD movie rental to movie stream, while home entertainment industry needs to improve both in technology and customer service. The consumers favor movie streaming and make it better competing with other ways of watching movie. The quality of movie stream and renting DVD disks may be less important for movie viewers. Movie industry should make movie stream easy to watch.