To what extent does digital distribution affect the marketing and consumption of media products in the area of media you have studied?

There are many ways that digital distribution can affect the marketing and consumption of media products. This mostly comes down to VOD (Video on demand) services. This is mainly shown through services such as Amazon Prime, Itunes and Netflix.

Due to the fact that internet streaming services have become much more easily accessible, more people are tending to use them as it Is much more effortless just renting from your household than having to go out and rent from a DVD/Blu-ray rental store such as Blockbuster. Video on Demand services have been available since around 2005, but have become more predominant recently. Amazon Video was first developed in 2006 and recently it is available through all manner of things such as the internet, Playstation, Xbox and the Amazon Fire tv stick.

Films can also be simultaneously released along with cinema and VOD services. However, this is rarely done and has only been done a few times such as God Bless America (released in 2011) In Your Eyes (released in 2014) and Ben Wheatley’s A Field In England. I believe that this was done in an attempt to avoid piracy of the movie as torrent websites are also very popular. Illegally downloading films has become one of the most popular things on the internet. The Illegal downloading of films has been the cause of many films’ downfall, most notoriously for the film Kick Ass 2. The film’s writer and cast members suggested that illegal downloading caused there to be no third film to the franchise as it effected the box office intake. One film that I have studied, that film being Mad Max: Fury Road, was the most pirated film of 2015. Unfortunately, the film’s studio Warner Bros. didn’t receive any money from the illegal downloads.

Distribution is a very important process in filmmaking. Particularly in making sure that the film is watched as the film is distributed to cinemas all over either the UK or on a global scale. Digital Distribution however can sometimes be a different story, particularly in Netflix’s case as there are different forms of Netflix in different regions that have some films that others don’t so in affect some are distributed to countries and some are not. This can affect the consumption of the media product as it may have not hit its entire intended audience spectrum. If a film wasn’t distributed, then the film would have no success and make no money.

Ex Machina was a film that was made on a low budget so it had little money for marketing. It also had a rather limited release. The film made its money back in the box office as well as making money when it was added to Amazon Video and Itunes. The film was also then added to Sky Movies and then to the Sky Go app to further generate an audience for the film thus affecting the consumption of the product (film).