With the rapid growth of movie distribution over the Internet, Colorado telecommunications companies Qwest and Level 3 Communications could soon get into the act.
Starz Entertainment, based in Douglas County, recently went searching for partners such as Qwest to sell its 1,500-title Vongo movie library over high-speed Internet services, spokesman Tom Southwick said.
Now Starz plans to expand its moviemaking capability and release those movies over the Internet, Southwick said. Starz parent Liberty Media said Tuesday it will buy IDT Entertainment in Newark, N.J., for $186 million. IDT is known for its animation and action films.
“With the acquisition of IDT Entertainment, we can experiment with all kinds of releases, so maybe it makes sense to release in home video, theaters and online all at once,” Southwick said.
Qwest declined to comment Tuesday. But in the future, the phone company may sell customers a service to deliver entertainment on demand, chief executive Richard Notebaert told investors in a May 3 first-quarter earnings call.
AT&T recently partnered with Starz to sell Vongo. Customers pay $9.99 per month to access films and streaming of the Starz TV channel.
Level 3 stands to benefit from more customer demand for movies, since it has a national fiber- optic network, president Kevin O’Hara said Monday at the company’s annual meeting. There isn’t currently enough Internet bandwidth to handle potential demand, O’Hara said.
“Video is growing rapidly. Future commercial video will require significant additional Internet capacity,” O’Hara said.
Since March, Philadelphia- based Comcast Corp. has offered films through its video- on-demand service the same day they come out in theaters. The cable giant has more than 700,000 customers in Colorado.
Movies are $5.99 for 24 hours of unlimited viewing if they are currently in theaters. Films cost $3.99 in the on-demand service after they’ve been in theaters.
Staff writer Beth Potter can be reached at 303-820-1503 or bpotter@denverpost.com.
