MARINA DEL REY, Calif. & TOKYO – Announcement Marks the First Time Japan’s 32 Million Broadband Internet Users Will Have Access to Major Hollywood Films as Part of a Video-on-Demand Subscription Service
CinemaNow Japan Inc., a joint venture between CinemaNow Inc., Tokyo-based Transcosmos and Microsoft, today announced a licensing agreement with Warner Bros. International Television to make movies available for download via its Web site (http://www.cinemanow.jp) on a pay-per-view and subscription basis. CinemaNow Japan is the first online service to offer movies from a major Hollywood studio to the Japanese market via an online subscription.
“This groundbreaking agreement is a great accomplishment for CinemaNow Japan and will deliver a first-of-its-kind service to the burgeoning Japanese market,” said Curt Marvis, CEO of CinemaNow and chairman of CinemaNow Japan. “It marks another major step forward in CinemaNow’s mission to build a truly global distribution network that reaches localized markets.”
As part of the agreement, Warner Bros. International Television will offer hit titles like “Ocean’s Twelve” and “Constantine,” as well as library titles ranging from “Rebel Without a Cause” to the original “Batman” movie. These titles will be available via CinemaNow Japan’s unique subscription service, which offers any user with a broadband Internet connection the ability to download films on an unlimited basis and watch them anytime, anywhere, for as long as they are a subscriber.
“Leveraging CinemaNow’s unmatched operational experience, technical expertise, and growing content portfolio, CinemaNow Japan was able to quickly establish itself as a leading online video-on-demand service,” said Toshiyuki Tomii, president of CinemaNow Japan. “With the addition of Warner Bros. International Televisions content, CinemaNow Japan will offer its broadband users a high-quality, easy-to-use, on-demand entertainment experience that is unmatched in the marketplace.”
CinemaNow Japan’s new monthly subscription option will also offer access to hundreds of videos in total for only 1,480 Yen ($12). In addition, users can choose to download and watch any of the videos on a pay-per-view basis for as low as 250 Yen ($2) per film for 48 hours access.
The agreement was negotiated on behalf of CinemaNow Japan by Bruce Eisen, president of CinemaNow.
About CinemaNow
CinemaNow, Inc. (http://www.cinemanow.com) is the global leader in broadband video-on-demand. CinemaNow legally offers content from a library of more than 7,500 new and classic movies, television programs, music concerts and music videos from 20th Century Fox, ABC News, Disney, HDNet, Lions Gate, MGM, Miramax, NBC Universal, Sony, Sundance Channel, Warner Bros. and more than 250 other licensors via downloading or streaming. Founded in 1999, CinemaNow continues to be an innovator in the video-on-demand industry with the introduction of high-definition content and support for portable media devices. CinemaNow counts Menlo Ventures, Lions Gate Entertainment, Microsoft, Cisco Systems and Blockbuster as investors.
About CinemaNow Japan
CinemaNow Japan, Inc. (http://www.cinemanow.jp) was established on April 20, 2005 as a joint venture between US-based CinemaNow, Inc., Tokyo-based transcosmos inc., and US-based Microsoft Corporation to provide broadband video-on-demand services in Japan. The company’s movie download services give customers quick and easy access to a wide range of content, including major Hollywood titles to titles that have not been released in Japan.
About Warner Bros. International Television
Warner Bros. International Television is one of the world’s largest distributors of feature films, television programs, and animation to the international television marketplace (including broadcast, pay cable, satellite, pay-per-view, video-on-demand, and digital platforms). It licenses some 45,000 hours of programming (including more than 6,000 features and 50 current series), dubbed or subtitled in more than 40 languages, to telecasters and cable casters in more than 175 countries.
About transcosmos
Shibuya-ku, Tokyo-based transcosmos inc. has been pioneering Japan’s outsourced information services field since 1966. Led by President and COO Masataka Okuda and traded on the First Section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange (symbol: 9715), it had 7,604 employees and annual sales of 91.9 billion Yen (consolidated) in the year to March 2005.
Since its founding, transcosmos has continually striven to enhance client-corporations’ competitiveness through innovations combining the strengths of human resources and technology to offer outsourced services with higher value-added. Foreseeing how the quickening spread of broadband Internet and VoIP is going to facilitate more-direct communication of mutually valuable information between companies and consumers — and the implications this has for corporate marketing — in June 2002 transcosmos moved to transform itself into The Marketing Chain Management Company. With a new communications channel now taking shape through the integration of telephone, the Web, email, and even live video using Internet protocols, transcosmos realizes that Internet expertise will be indispensable in the running of contact and call centers. Continuing in its tradition of developing more advanced outsourcing services while adapting the latest Internet technologies, transcosmos is committed to continue maximizing these, its unique strengths, to help clients speed up business processes, expand sales, cut costs, and enhance customer satisfaction. To find out how transcosmos can help your company with its cutting-edge interactive solutions, you are invited to visit its Web site at http://www.trans-cosmos.co.jp.
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