One
of the business challenges that has held back the direct-to-consumer streaming of ticketed events — whether live concerts, Broadway shows, or first-run movies — has been the lack of an effective ticketing mechanism for over-the-top video. As there was no way to know how many people might be gathered around a particular screen rights owners and event producers had little choice but to charge an arbitrary price for the stream, usually high enough to account for the possibility of multiple viewers but at the cost of turning off people viewing alone or perhaps with only one other person.
Sean Parker’s Screening Room, for instance, plans to charge a flat $50 per movie for in-home access to first-run films, which research shows could limit the market for the service.
In-home ticketing may be poised to have its moment, however, due to some recent technological advances.