Some of you might be aware of the brewing controversy that could ultimately decide how a movie should be released. Bubble, a Steven Soderberg film, was released simultaneously in theaters as well as on DVD. Probably the first time such a release has been done. The theater business reacted to the news with the predictable "you are going to kill our business, so we won't show your film" response. I think this is a fair assumption, why go to the movie theater when you can watch it home. But the latest post on the Mark Cuban (partner of Soderberg) blog has an excellent rebuttal: "How sad is it when the President of the National Association of Theater Owners doesnt think his members can create a better movie going experience than what we can see in our houses and apartments ?"

Cuban also goes on to say this: "Every single Mavs game is on TV. It wasnt that long ago that some people in the sports business thought that  having games on TV would reduce attendance. After all, why go to the game when you can watch it for free on TV ? Then someone decided to do some research and as it turns out, the more games you broadcast on TV, the more people who go to your games. At the NBA, when we do our analysis to determine the revenue opportunity in any given market,  the number of games broadcast is one of the criteria analyzed."

There is a big difference between a live event and watching a recorded live-event versus a movie which has, in a sense, been recorded. But I think Mark Cuban's point still sticks, check out this article about how the iTunes video store helped ratings to some of the shows available in the store. I am not certain dual releases is going to help the theater business but it is important to test the waters and find out.