5 Q's with Greg DePrez, vp, SVOD, Starz Encore Group

What’s CTAM’s On Demand Consortium done? We’ve been sharing marketing best practices and developed a common point of view on the kinds of metrics, measurements, activity reports we’d like to see. [They will be released today at CTAM Digital.] The other big initiative has been the PR campaign to promote the whole on-demand category through the consumer press. Any surprises about consumer behavior from Predictive Networks’ software? We’re getting such new and different information that it’s all kind of fun and surprising. We’re not ready to go public with any interpretation. Even internally we’re not sure what the message is. Why is Starz bent on allowing consumers to copy SVOD? What we’ve argued for is that the network or distributor be allowed to determine [the policy]. Just because we’ve gone to an all-digital environment shouldn’t change the right of subscribers to make a copy of a subscription service. Our policy would be a single copy. How will studios distributing their product-like Disney’s MovieBeam-affect SVOD? As for MovieBeam, I don’t really have a comment other than to say Disney is trying yet another way to communicate directly with the consumer. They’ve defined it as PPV. We’ll have to see where it goes. A positive aspect of this has been support for Internet distribution of movies, which has been great for us. It’s validated our interest in the Internet as well [because of the Real Networks’ deal]. You collect old radios. Will collecting set-tops ever be as much fun? No. If you get into radio history there’s far greater magic and revolution than TV or the Internet could ever hope for. Listening to radio, in your mind you have a better picture than HD, better than full color because you create it in your imagination.