America Online And Movielink Extend Partnership To Offer Complimentary And Discounted Movie Downloads To AOL For Broadband Members

22-Oct-04

America Online announced today that it has extended its existing alliance with Movielink to offer AOL for Broadband members free downloads of classic titles and exclusive discounts on recent releases. Beginning today, AOL for Broadband members can visit AOL Keyword: Movielink and choose from ten classic titles for free downloading in the first month of this program including Academy AwardÆ nominees Steel Magnolias and Against All Odds. AOL will offer five new classic titles from Movielink as free downloads each subsequent month of the program. In addition, AOL for Broadband members will be able to download a selection of recent studio films for just 99 cents, which is 80 percent off Movielink's regular price of $4.99. Among the titles available at launch of the extended offering: 13 Going on 30, Hellboy, The Prince and Me, The Big Bounce and Agent Cody Banks 2. This broadened agreement is the result of the overwhelming success of AOL and Movielink's initial partnership that was forged earlier this year, which helped increase Movielink's number of downloads by 15 percent. Moving forward, AOL will offer its members rotating monthly discounts on new movies and will continue to add both discounted new and classic movies each week. The popularity of downloading movies continues to increase, particularly as more and more Web users move to high-speed broadband connections. According to Forrester, more than 50 million households have access to consumer VOD and the company estimates that the market for on-demand video will be $900 million this year alone. A recent study by NPD Video Watch noted that in Q2 2004, Movielink, the leading VOD movie download service, boasted the largest share of the digital movie rental market with a 33 percent unit share. ""Since our initial partnership with Movielink, we've steadily seen increased usage among the AOL for Broadband community, and now that movie downloads are reaching the mass audience more than ever before, we feel this is the perfect time to offer these benefits to our members,"" said Steven Yee, Vice President and General Manager, AOL Movies and Moviefone.com. ""AOL for Broadband is an ideal way to watch movies online and we're sure our members will appreciate this new value-added content."" ""AOL is a valued partner of Movielink and we are deeply committed to providing their customers on high-speed connections with a wide variety of compelling content for download,"" said Jim Ramo, CEO, Movielink. ""This extended partnership shows that there is a strong need in the marketplace for quality content as broadband adoption continues to grow in the U.S. market."" AOL for Broadband members can download Movielink movies and store them on their hard drive for up to 30 days. With the high-speed Internet connection and Movielink's Movie in Minutesô feature, members can watch movies minutes after beginning the download. After initiating play, they can watch a movie as many times as they like in a 24-hour period at home on a PC or a television connected to the PC, or on the road on a laptop. In addition, AOL for Broadband members can access the rest of Movielink's library of nearly 1,000 titles at regular prices.