VOD provider Intertainer shuts down

Internet and cable video-on-demand provider Intertainer said it would shut down next week as it pursues a federal lawsuit against major movie studios’ prices and release dates.

In a statement from Chairman-CEO Jonathan Taplin posted on its Web site, Intertainer noted that it was suing AOL Time Warner, Sony, Universal and Movielink and planned to take its site down “until we can work out a fair business model with the defendants who control more than 50% of the theatrical motion picture business and more than 60% of the music business.”

Intertainer, in the Web message, claimed to have 147,000 broadband users.

“We promise to return when there is an environment in which an independent company such as ours is allowed to compete for your business,” the statement read. “Whether the current environment of increasing media concentration is good for our Democracy [sic] is, of course, the ultimate question.”

Intertainer, which is used by Cincinnati Bell’s Zoomtown DSL service, laid off 10 of its 18 remaining employees to conserve costs while in the court battle.--Jim Barthold, senior editor