Netflix在其2014年第三季度財報電話會議之前宣布與IMAX及溫斯坦公司達成協議，將會在IMAX銀幕與流媒體Netflix上同步發行《臥虎藏龍2青冥寶劍》——1.28億美元收益票房2000強的續集，從而引起一點關注。不出所料，影院業主反響并不熱絡，國內外大型院線均宣布他們無意向預訂家庭同步發行的電影。

　　Netflix’s chief content officer, Ted Sarandos, continued to tout the plan,assailing theater owners for standing in the way of “innovation.”

　　Netflix首席內容官泰德·薩蘭多斯繼續推銷該計劃，批評影院業主阻礙“創新”。

　　“Movie distribution is pretty stuck in old models. A lot of models thatthe theater owners have kept in place are outdated,” he said at the fifthannual U.S. / China Film Summit on November 5. “We need to stop distinguishing the experience by access. Many movies are just as good if not better at home.”

　　“電影發行仍然滯留在老舊模式。影院業主大多數模式所維持的已經過時了，”他在11月5日第五屆年度中美電影峰會上說道。“我們需要停止區分不同觀影方式的體驗，許多電影在家里看同樣很好。”

　　This is an old refrain from Sarandos, who a year earlier said at the Film Independent Forum, “Theater owners stifle this kind of innovation at every turn. The reason why we may enter the space and release some big movies ourselves this way is because I’m concerned that as theater owners try to strangle innovation and distribution, not only are they going to kill theaters, they might kill movies.”

　　這是薩蘭多斯在老調重彈，他早在上一年電影獨立論壇中就說道，“影院業主在每個轉折點都扼殺了這種創新。我們進入這一領域，用這種方式自行發布一些重磅電影，因為我們擔心影院業主試圖扼殺創新與發行，他們不僅是在毀了影院，而且他們還很可能會毀了電影。”

　　NATO president John Fithian quickly fired back.“Subscription movie services and cheap rentals killed the DVD business, and now Sarandos wants to kill the cinema as well,” he said. “The only business that would be helped by day-and-day release to Netflix is Netflix. If Hollywood did what Sarandos suggests, there wouldn’t be many movies left for Netflix’s customers or for anyone else. It makes absolutely no business sense to accelerate the release of the lowest value in the chain.”

　　NATO總裁約翰·菲西安迅速還以顏色。“會費電影服務與廉價的租金毀掉了DVD生意業，而今薩蘭多斯還想毀了電影院，”他說。“在Netflix同日發布的唯一得益者是Netflix。如果好萊塢采納薩蘭多斯的建議，就不會有太多的電影留給Netflix顧客或其他任何人了。加速產業鏈中最低價值端的發行絕對沒有任何商業意義。

　　Sarandos quickly backpedaled, saying at the Bloomberg Tribeca Film Festival Business of Entertainment Breakfast a few days later, “I wasn’t calling for day-and-date with Netflix. I was just calling to move all the windows up to get closer to what the consumer wants. I think there’s a better business in giving people what they want than a artificial distance between the product and the consumer.”

　　薩蘭多斯迅速收回了這個說法，在幾日后的彭博翠貝卡電影節娛樂業務早餐會上說，“我并非要求在Netflix上做得一日不差，我只是呼吁縮短所有的窗口期，以便更貼近消費者的需求。我認為會滿足大家所需，生意會更好，勝過在制片與消費者之間制造人為的距離。”

　　Sorry, not sorry.

　　抱歉，但并不遺憾。

　　We have covered numerous times the various fallacies inherent in the simultaneous-release business model. Movies like Margin Call, Arbitrage, and Bachelorette, touted as successful examples of the model domestically, far underperform theatrically in the United States compared to their performance internationally. Arbitrage’s distributor there was no cannibalization of theatrical revenues because the moviegoing audience is different from the home audience, citing surveys that show 90 percent of moviegoers were unaware it was also available on VOD. A business model predicated on consumer ignorance does not inspire Confidence.

　　我們已經討論過無數次同步發行商業模式與生俱來的各種謬論。電影如《商海通牒》、《套利交易》、《未婚女子》吹噓成國內模式的成功案例，他們在美國的票房與國際的表現相比卻遠遠落后。《套利交易》的發行商聲稱對影院收入沒有影響，因為電影院觀眾與家庭觀眾是不同的，而市場調查顯示90%的電影院觀眾沒有注意到有VOD（視頻點播）版本。但以消費者不知情為前提的商業模式是不能讓人信服的。

　　More recently Snowpiercer, released to VOD in its third week in theatrical release, fell off 37 percent, despite expanding its screen count by more than 42 percent. Conversely, Boyhood, with a traditional platform release (it opened on five screens, then 34, then 107 in its third week) expanded from 107 screens to 310 screens in its fourth weekend (189 percent increase) and revenues rose 36 percent. Further, Boyhood outgrossed Snowpiercer (in its third-week expansion) on slightly fewer screens ($1.76 million to $.63 million). Through seven weeks of release, Boyhood had quadrupled Snowpiercer’s theatrical gross over nine weeks.

　　更近期的《雪國列車》，在影院放映三周后發行了VOD而成績跌落了37%，盡管其增加排片，銀幕數量占比多達42%。相反的，《少年時代》以傳統平臺發布（首映5塊銀幕，然后34塊，然后在第三周增至107塊）從107塊銀幕增加至第四周的310塊銀幕（189%增長率），票房收入也增長36%。此外，（在增加排片的第三周，）《少年時代》以略少的銀幕數超越了《雪國列車》（176萬美元對63萬美元），經過7周的放映，《少年時代》的票房總收入達到了《雪國列車》9個星期的影院票房總收入的4倍。

　　Yet strangely enough, one of Boyhood’s producers, John Sloss, slammed exhibitors at the Produced By: New York conference, saying, “The real criminals here are the exhibitors. We’re creating bad habits. I don’t think people steal content because they want content for free. They just want it when and where they want it.”

　　然而奇怪的是，《少年時代》制片人之一的約翰·斯洛斯在“制片人：來自紐約”發布會上抨擊影院業主說，“這里真正的罪犯是影院業主。我們正養成壞習慣。我不認為人們竊取內容是因為他們想讓內容免費，他們只是希望隨時隨地想得到。”

　　This, too, is a myth. The leading indicator for piracy is, in fact, availability. Illegal downloads of movies spike on the Internet almost as soon as a movie hits theaters and then trail off, mirroring the weekly declines in admissions in theatrical release until they are a barely perceptible background hum. They spike back up again the week before the home release when a DVD or two falls off the truck between the warehouse and retailers, which again mirrors legal availability and popularity.

　　這，同樣也是個神話。對盜版的領先指標，事實上，就是可以得到。幾乎只要電影在影院上映，互聯網的電影非法下載就會飆升，隨后減弱，完全對應影院放映入場人次的每周跌幅，直至最后的無聲無息。它們會在家庭發布前一周再度飆升，那周會在倉庫與零售商店之間掉落的一兩張DVD，再次對應合法觀看和熱門情況的軌跡。

　　The entire argument for simultaneous release is founded on bad faith, shoddy data, and mysterious bookkeeping. John Sloss made waves in the industry with his call for transparency in the reporting of VOD revenues. It’s long past time for that call to be heeded. Netflix doesn’t even provide viewership data per title to its own shareholders.

　　同步發行的整個論點是建立在不誠信、劣質數據與難以理解的記賬方式基礎上的。約翰·斯洛斯呼吁對VOD收入報告的透明化掀起波瀾。再去重視這項呼吁早就不合時宜了。Netflix甚至不向自己的股東提供每個節目的收視率數據。

　　And, frankly, I don’t think that Ted Sarandos believes his own arguments. If he truly believed that exclusivity is a curse, “creating artificial distance between the product and the consumer,” he would make House of Cards and Orange is the New Black available on Hulu, Vudu, Redbox, Amazon Prime, cable VOD, and next to the checkout counter at Walmart. But he doesn’t.

　　而且，坦率地說，我認為就是泰德·薩蘭多斯也不相信他自己的論點。如果他真的相信排他性是一種禍根，“拉開了制片與消費者之間的人為的距離，”他就會在Hulu、Vudu、Redbox(紅盒子)、亞馬遜、有線電視點播、沃爾瑪收銀臺邊發布《紙牌屋》與《女子監獄》。但他沒有。

　　And why not? Because exclusivity matters. Exclusivity works. Because Netflix needs to offer its subscribers something its competitors don’t to retain them as subscribers and for those subscribers to believe they are getting something of value that they can’t get from a growing number of competitors.

　　為什么沒有呢？因為排他性的問題。獨家作品。因為Netflix需要提供其用戶一些競爭對手沒有的東西，從而留住他們續訂服務，令這些用戶相信他們正獲得一些有價值的東西，這些東西是他們在越來越多的競爭者中無法獲取的。

　　There are really only two things that matter to Netflix’s bottom line: the cost of acquiring and delivering content and subscription revenue. The importance of keeping costs down led to Netflix’s biggest misstep with its customers when it tried to separate out the DVD-by-mail business from its streaming business. It costs Netflix far more to ship DVDs back and forth per transaction than it costs to stream over the Internet, but subscribers revolted at what they saw as an attempt to impose a nearly 100 percent price increase on those who wished to receive their content both ways. The company backed down, not only failing to contain costs, but also losing them enormous goodwill and quite a large number of subscribers.

　　真正只有兩件事可觸碰Netflix的底線：獲取與交付內容的成本,以及訂閱收入。降低成本的重要性導致Netflix與客戶間的最大的失誤，它試圖將DVD郵件租賃業務從流媒體業務中分離。相比在互聯網以流媒體傳輸，Netflix每筆交易來回寄送DVD所要耗費更多，但訂戶抗議Netflix試圖強加的幾乎100%的價格上調，如果訂戶希望用兩種方式獲取內容。公司做出了讓步，不但未能控制成本，同時失去了極大的商譽和相當多的用戶。

　　And costs continue to rise. Netflix is no longer the only streaming player, studios have started to pay close attention to the potential revenues in the space, and Netflix is no longer content to wait at the back of the line of home windows. This means to compete with more competitors for prime content, which will keep their subscribers growing and satisfied, their content costs will only go up. At the same time, Internet service providers are squeezing Netflix for more money to guarantee fast connections to their systems. Additionally, Netflix is spending large sums to break into international markets.

　　然而成本持續上漲。Netflix不再是唯一一家流媒體播放商，電影公司開始密切關注對這一領域的潛在收入，Netflix不再滿足于在家庭窗口線背后等待。這意味著要為精華內容與更多競爭者較量，內容將令用戶增長和滿意，他們的內容成本只會上漲。與此同時，互聯網服務提供商向Netflix壓榨更多錢來保證用戶快速地接入系統。此外，Netflix正花費大量資金打入國際市場。

　　Simultaneously, the company is seeing a slowdown in subscriber growth in the United States. Some analysts cite a price increase for new subscribers as a reason for that slowdown. Current subscriber rates will rise later. With 36 million U.S. subscribers, the domestic market is running out of grow room, and consumer acceptance of price increases will become critical to revenue growth.

　　與此同時，該公司正目睹美國用戶增長狀態在放緩。一些分析師提及對新用戶提價是放緩的原因。當前用戶費用往后會提升。美國現有3600萬用戶，國內市場可提升空間已經不多了，消費者對價格上漲的認可將成為收入增長的關鍵。

　　Netflix truly broke ground with home delivery of DVDs and later with on-demand streaming (of whatever Netflix had streaming rights to). But their first-mover advantage has an expiration date. Premium cable channels are starting to wade into the streaming space and they, like Netflix will have a mix of exclusive self-generated content as well as exclusive licensed content, and they are going to have to compete for it.

　　Netflix先是DVD送貨上門，其后點播流媒體（任何Netflix流媒體權限），的確做出了突破。但他們的先發優勢是存在有效期的。收費有線頻道也在開始涉足流媒體領域，他們，跟Netflix一樣，將擁有專屬的自我制作的內容組合，以及獨家授權內容，他們將不得不為此展開爭奪。

　　Consumers have a finite amount of money to spend on home entertainment, which is why low-cost subscription services like Netflix and cheap rentals like Redbox took off in the first place. Consumers also have access to an enormous variety of free entertainment thanks to the broadband connection they already pay for to access Netflix. Maybe that connection is also bundled with cable services, and that costs money, too. There’s a ceiling on what various services can extract from in-home customers, and Netflix is starting to get a pretty close-up view of it.

　　消費者花費家庭娛樂的資金是有限量的，這就是為何低價訂閱服務如Netflix和廉價租賃如Redbox最初能脫穎而出。消費者們同樣有機會獲得海量的各式各樣的免費娛樂項目，這得益于他們訪問Netflix時已付費的寬帶連接。或許這些連接還捆綁了有線電視服務，而這同時也是花錢的。不同服務從家庭消費者中可以收取的利潤是有天花板的，而Netflix正在開始貼近查看這道風景。

　　Which may be why Ted Sarandos keeps talking so loudly about movie theaters. It keeps the industry from looking too closely at the cards Netflix is actually holding.

　　這或許就是泰德·薩蘭多斯不斷對電影院人士夸夸其談的原因。這避免行業過于密切地關注Netflix實際掌握的底牌。

　　Or maybe he just envies our business model. 

　　又或許他只是羨慕我們的商業模式。

　　“If [Netflix’s Ted Sarandos] truly believed that exclusivity is a curse, “creating artificial distance between the product and the consumer,” he would make House of Cards and Orange is the New Black available on Hulu, Vudu, Redbox, Amazon Prime, cable VOD, and next to the checkout counter at Walmart. But he doesn’t.”

　　如果他（Netflix的泰德·薩蘭多斯）真的相信排他性是一種禍根，“人為地拉開了制片與消費者之間的距離，”他會在Hulu、Vudu、Redbox(紅盒子)、亞馬遜、有線電視點播、沃爾瑪收銀臺邊發布《紙牌屋》與《女子監獄》。但他沒有。

　　Kevin Spacey as Frank Underwood in the Netflix exclusive, House of Cards

　　凱文·史派西在Netflix獨播《紙牌屋》中扮演弗蘭克·安德伍德

　　Bong Joon-ho’s critcally-acclaimed Snowpiercer saw a precipitace drop in its box office numbers after also becoming available via VOD in just its third week of theatrical release.

　　奉俊昊備受好評的《雪國列車》僅在影院放映第三周后，同時也是VOD發售時票房數據急轉直下。