BellSouth to offer on-demand films over DSL

BellSouth today said it will deploy on-demand paid movie services over its DSL networks, marking the first time an RBOC has offered an enhanced premium content service generating revenues beyond subscription costs.

The service, through Movielink, will be available to all of BellSouth’s DSL customers, allowing them to view previews for hundreds of movies on BellSouth’s broadband homepage and then “rent” individual films for fees ranging from $2.95 to $4.99 per month. The movie is downloaded, not streamed, onto the user’s hard drive, from where it can be viewed in either RealPlayer or Windows Media formats for up to 30 days after the day of purchase.

BellSouth soft-launched the service last month, marketing it on its broadband homepage, and since then a significant number of Movielink’s e-commerce traffic has come from the BellSouth portal, said Jim Ramo, CEO of MovieLink.

So far, the movies can only be viewed on a computer unless a customer has equipment that can pump the signal from the computer’s video card to a TV, but Ramo said Movielink expects to have further discussions with BellSouth about enhancing the service, and those discussions may include providing set-top box equipment. Ramo added that Movielink is in discussions with other RBOCs as well as other ISPs.