Film Industry needs to up its game as golden era of TV approaches

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If you're getting tired of the endless movie sequels coming out at theaters that get progressively worse, you might find more love for your TV in the coming year.

At the end of 2014 we saw a surge in VOD services being launched promising new series and original content for audiences hungry for more selection and quality shows. VOD demand continues to grow and companies such as Amazon and Netflix have started investing heavily on in-house productions for their VOD subscribers.

With the rise of VOD, the business model of the film industry is changing, and audiences want more quality films and TV programs at a click of a button, which poses new opportunities and challenges to the established content players.

Amazon's recent splash on a new motor show with the hosts of British TV series "Top Gear" is a good example of how the money is shifting from broadcasters and production companies to VOD platforms, who now effectively control content from pre-production through to distribution with no middlemen.

Most of us are consuming video content on a daily basis, our internet connections are speeding up, and we're getting more accustomed to discovering new, high quality films and series at home.

For the film industry, this shift to VOD is irreversible and production companies need to strategize all their film slates for VOD viewing, and the marketing around that. This means that there's also going to be more competition within the channel of distribution as tech companies push to grow subscribers with exclusive content and full length films.

Amazon Studios is going to be the first company to really establish the blueprint of the VOD production shift with its new feature film slate, which will be closely studied by other studios and producers in the industry.

As it stands, quality at the movie theater is on the down and original stories are becoming a higher risk game for investors so we're seeing more reboots and spinoffs which is clearly not a sustainable strategy in the longterm as audiences will demand better content. If the film industry isn't careful, franchise fatigue could give VOD platforms a green-light to take audiences away from theaters altogether.

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