Florian Kumb
Reinhard E. Kunz (corresponding author)
https://doi.org/10.56140/JOCIS-v8-4
Abstract
The post-theatrical exhibition has become essential for motion pictures to break even. Nevertheless, besides the first attempts to study TV broadcasters and streaming providers as release windows, academic research in marketing has concentrated primarily on the initial theatrical release. This article examines factors influencing supply and demand during the sequential release process of the motion picture industry. The authors build a modelling framework to analyze the drivers resulting in comprehensive supply and strong demand in major exhibition windows (i.e., during the home video, video-on-demand, and free-to-air TV exhibition). They estimate the conceptual model of regressions using market data from Germany, including all 5 200 theater-released motion pictures between 2005 and 2014. The authors expand the existing success-breeds-success theory and use a winner-takes-all theory to explain market supply and demand in sequential distribution.
The results reveal a limited set of influencing factors (e.g., word-of-mouth communication or certain genres) that increase the probability of comprehensive exhibition and strong demand. Other influencing factors depend on the exhibition window (e.g., age ratings). The results add to existing theories of sequential distribution and can help research-ers and managers improve movie-specific exhibition strategies.