Missed It in the Theater Today? See It on DVD Tonight

[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Sharon Waxman]
Hollywood will inch further toward making movies simultaneously available in theaters, on DVD and on home television screens at the Sundance Film Festival this week, as IFC Entertainment unveils a plan to release 24 films in theaters and on cable at the same time this year. The simultaneous release in several distribution modes, called "day and date" release in Hollywood, has been the subject of intense debate in the industry, as movie attendance in theaters has dropped for three years in a row while cellphones and iPods have become the improbable new hosts for filmed entertainment. In many ways, the independent film world is best suited for experimenting with these new distribution strategies, because of the large number of films that are not widely seen, and because the low budgets make them a less risky proposition. IFC's initiative will involve more films and almost certainly more viewers. Because the films will be made available on cable, far more subscribers will have access to the video-on-demand service than now receive the HDNet network.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/23/business/media/23independent.html?pagewanted=all
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