Strategic Moves Related to Broadband Diffusion on the French VoD and TV Market - Adoption, Usage, and Global Impact of Broadband Technologies - page 245

Table 1. Release windows in France for movie distribution channel (Source Adapted from Kuhr (2008),
Olivennes (2007))

Release authorisation Exception Distribution mode

From release approval Movie theatre

Video cassette or DVD, authorised VoD
platforms

6 months

9 months Pay-per-view

12 months Encrypted Pay TV

24 months 18 months Broadcast TV (if movie co-producer)

36 months Broadcast TV

segments, according to territoriality (by country
and by linguistic zone) and time (duration and dis-
tribution rights) agreements (Debande & Chetrit,
2001). The release window timeline is designed
to maximise revenues across the value chain. It
may be expected that release windows will be
shorter in the future, with significant effects on
the VoD business. Rights holders look to digital
distribution as the next source of revenue growth.

each activity show the critical role of service
provision in the value chain, comprising technical,
marketing, and IPR management functions. Some
players can be positioned on more than one activ-
ity. Each layer requires critical resources and
competences.

THE TWO PERIODS OF VOD:
PRE-IPTV AND POST-IPTV

The VoD Value Chain and Critical
Resources The Pre-IPTV Situation and the

Launch of Triple-Play Services

The VoD value chain will depend on the nature of
technical architecture used and on the complexity
of the network. While this framework can vary
according the nature of the technology used, the
general structure is quite similar. Table 2 presents
the VoD value-chain, structured around three
main activities involving several players: content
provision, service provision and distribution, and
commercial distribution. The business model re-
lated to VoD services (Berne, 2003; Berne et al.,
2003) relying on the sharing of revenue across the
value chain is still a key issue and differs from
country to country 2 .
From a conceptual perspective, the Actors-
Resources-Activities model (Axelsson & Easton,
1995) can be useful in order to analyse a value-
chain, which are also a network. In the case of
VOD content delivery, the detailed functions for

Moviesystem's Quasi-Monopoly

During the pre-IPTV period, VoD services were
marketed via websites or Portals, and were usually
viewed on a PC. Customers had to engage into
specific transactions with the VoD service provid-
ers in order to view movies, i.e. consult a movie
catalogue online, select a movie, pay for it, and
download the movie (or view a streaming movie).
This context conforms to the complementary con-
vergence scenario presented by Chan-Olmsted &
Khanna (2003), in which PCs and TVs distribute
differentiated services.
The French VoD market started with the
quasi-monopoly of a firm called Moviesystem,
later bought by Canal+ and renamed Canalplay.
The case of the first mover on the French market