Interview with Movie Monitor’s Andrew Nicol

Recently-launched Movie Monitor is trying to do something a little different. As movies move swiftly towards online distribution direct to the consumer, Movie Monitor aims to track what’s available to watch and where – and let consumers get to the stuff they want quickly and easily.

We asked Movie Monitor boss Andrew Nicol to explain a little bit more about what the site is for and where it’s aiming to be in future. Here’s what he had to say.

PHOTOCINE NEWS: Who is Movie Monitor for?

NICOL: Our primary target audience is people who know what movie they want to watch, but don’t know where to get it. In the past year or so, the number of major players in the online movie distribution business has increased significantly. The differences between each of them in terms of release dates, price, and quality, has increased too, and we expect this trend to continue. This means that there’s a place for a site which breaks down all of this information on a movie-by-movie basis. We also have features which allow people to discover movies that they might like, but we intentionally resist user-submitted reviews and fancy recommendation engines because we want to keep our site easy-to-use and uncluttered.

PHOTOCINE NEWS: We’re interested in the part about the future of movie distribution on your about page … that seems like it’s the foundation stone that you’re building the site around. What do you think movie distribution is going to look like in five years? Or will it change even faster than that?

NICOL: In five years – probably sooner – the majority of movies will be watched over the internet, primarily through internet-connected TVs, media centers, and set-top-boxes. There will still be a market for physical discs (such as Blu-ray discs), not because they will offer a better viewing experience (services such as Vudu already approach Blu-ray quality), but because some consumers like to collect stuff. Causal viewing, however, will be done online. The potential for growth in this sector is even greater when you consider that about one third of U.S. households still do not have a broadband connection, and a significant number of those that do are not technically savvy: as people become more comfortable with technology, the use of services like Netflix Instant Watch and Amazon on Demand is going to skyrocket.

PHOTOCINE NEWS: How about the TV networks, though? Do you think they will be fighting back with online services of their own? Is TV programming – ie, non-movies – going to move online but more slowly? Obviously there’s enormous inertia keeping TV sets in people’s living rooms.

NICOL: We’ve already seen the TV networks “fighting back”, trying to promote their own websites as destinations for watching their shows online, and pulling their content from places like Hulu. Much TV content is already online, but I think you’re right that it will be consumed differently than movies, mainly because the networks are looking to maximize ad revenue from it and therefore the pricing model is different. The studios will either force people to watch ad-supported versions of the shows online, or charge pretty steep per-episode fees (currently $2-$3). Both approaches will slow the consumption of TV content online.

PHOTOCINE NEWS: What’s a movie? Is there room for short films, documentaries, and photojournalism/multimedia pieces by independent producers?

NICOL: Documentaries are included, but for the moment we are focused on feature-length films. There are a couple of independent film sites that we are looking at supporting, which will increase our offerings in this area.

PHOTOCINE NEWS: How does it all work? If you send me to Netflix, does Netflix give you a tiny kickback for each viewing/rental you send their way?

NICOL: We do have arrangements with some of the sites, but we are just as interested in advertising and syndication/licensing as possible revenue streams.

PHOTOCINE NEWS: How are you sourcing your data in the first place? Are you scraping the destination sites, pulling in datastreams from APIs, that sort of thing?

NICOL: Yes, we get most of our content from APIs or through some other API-like arrangement with providers.

PHOTOCINE NEWS: The site is pretty US-centric right now. Are you planning to internationalise it soon?

NICOL: We are working on a localization for another major market which we hope to announce in the second quarter of this year.