“Worried about its massive DVD sales, retail behemoth Wal-Mart has told some of Hollywood’s biggest players it will retaliate against them for selling movies on Apple’s iTunes,” Tim Arango reports for The NY Post.
“Last year when Disney announced it would begin offering episodes of the hit shows ‘Lost’ and ‘Desperate Housewives’ on Apple’s iTunes, the reaction of the world’s largest retailer sent shockwaves through the entertainment industry,” Arango reports.
“Wal-Mart, worried that offering the shows for viewing on iPods would cut into DVD sales at its stores, sent ‘cases and cases’ of DVDs back to Disney, according to a source familiar with the matter,” Arango reports. “Now, following Apple’s entrance in to the business of selling full-length films for download, the battle between Hollywood and its largest client is getting uglier, as studio executives say Wal-Mart has overtly threatened to retaliate if they go into business with Apple.”
“The last thing studios want to do before the holiday shopping season is to offend their biggest sales outlet; the studios, collectively, rely on Wal-Mart for some $5 billion of DVD sales in the fourth quarter,” Arango reports.
“But several weeks ago, in the midst of rumors that Apple was close to announcing a deal with Disney, Wal-Mart’s David Porter – the executive responsible for stocking the retailer’s shelves with DVDs and CDs and whose influence is so immense in Tinseltown that he’s been named to Premiere magazine’s annual power list – made the rounds of Hollywood studios,” Arango reports. “His message, according to a studio exec involved in the discussions: that there would be ‘serious ramifications’ if the studios hopped in bed with Apple.”
“‘They threatened to hurt us in terms of buying less products,’ said this person. The situation between Bentonville and Hollywood has gotten so heated and so high-level that Jobs recently phoned Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott to ask him to moderate his stance, according to a source,” Arango reports.
Full article here.
Even a low-class anticompetitive cancer like Wal-Mart won’t be able to hold back the future. Wal-Mart logic: we can undercut every business in every town in the world, but you can’t do it to us. If you agree with that logic, by all means shop at Wal-Mart.
WAL-MART: The High Cost of Low Price: http://www.walmartmovie.com/
Related articles:
Wal-Mart: we’re not fighting iTunes Store movie downloads – September 23, 2006
Wal-Mart not happy with looming threat of Apple iTunes movie downloads – August 31, 2006
Wal-Mart loses ‘philosophical argument’ with Apple CEO Steve Jobs, gains top-selling iPod – November 29, 2005
Wal-Mart could also have opened itself up to a CLASS ACTION lawsuit by having harmed millions of customers, namely iPod and iTunes users, by denying them access to online Movie content through illegal coercion.
Ambulance Chasers, start your engines…
walmart is the devil. walmart and the republican party support nationanalized healthcare. the biggest sponsor of insurance for underpaid walmart employees if the US taxpayer. The biggest supporter of the Chinese economic and industrial expansion is walmart. vote your Commie loving Republican Rep out of office!!!!
viva chavez!! im off to S. america! cant talk crap about the govt but i cant do that here either so what is the difference? oh they help the poor there i forgot … lol
As the Neimoidian viceroys would say, “Isn’t that irregal?”
Yeah, but …
http://www.walmart.ca/
IPods, iPods, iPods … and not much else … all over the Canadian Walmart homepage.
“walmart is the devil…”
and the nuts have officially fallen off the tree and climbed up onto the soapbox… time to go – gotta run pick up a few things at Wal-Mart…
So how do we start an “Apple customers boycott Wal-Mart” movement?
An online petition?
Send mass E-mails to this brain-dead Wal-Mart exec and the company CEO?
Let’s show this company economic pressure.
It’s just business… Sheesh. Wallmart’s got a lobby in Hollywood – big deal!
Wallmart is allowed to put it’s money in purchases where it wants, get the best deals it can, and wield as much influence over price/supply as it legally can – it’s not a government owned agency!
Yikes…
I’m more than aware of that fact, however if there has to be a line in the sand, better that it be drawn now before Apple can be accused of abusing its position and cast in the role of the bully.
Wal-Mart can’t substantively discount the iPod, although it probably gets a healthy “retro” discount from Apple based on volume: However, during peak demand seasons (like the holiday period), Apple could sell iPods through any retail channel it chooses and really doesn’t need Wal-Mart for anything. Even during off-peak demand, Apple’s growing retail presence plus the independent channel together wit less predatory multiples can deliver the same market as Wal-Mart.
If – and I say this based on my earlier reservation as regards accuracy – Wal-Mart is anti-iTS, then let it reap the whirlwind of having no iPod supplies. Then it can stock up on Zune and see how that works out for them.
grok
1) “Everyone” does not shop at Wal-Mart. Maybe “everyone” YOU know shops there. But that’s it. Wal-mart is a dump. You would think that a company making as much money as they do, would spend some of it refurbishing their redneck, trailer trash look.
2) “Everyone” does not work at Wal-mart. Maybe “everone” YOU know works there. But that’s it. I got my MA in Multimedia Design and Graphic Design because working at Wal-mart wasn’t going to support a family and mortgage.
fuck wal-mart
They’ll never get one red cent from me again. Period.
FR – sorry if I was a little snide – bad habit…
It seems to me that Steve would much rather heal this rift than make it p**sing contest. Wal-Mart sells about 40% of all new DVD releases – it’s retail sales are beyond huge – and that’s a lot of potential mac customers in the future. No one with any business acuity who sells a retail product would flippantly alienate the country’s largest retailer.
Rather, I think, Jobs will subject Wal-Mart execs to the vaunted RDF and make them reluctantly understand that physical disks will eventually be replaced, and that Apple will be there regardless. Wal-Mart knkows it can’t compete in the non-physical media space – it proved that with their download store.
Apple doesn’t want to alienate Wal-Mart. The reverse is also true, its just that Wal-Mart doesn’t know it yet. But they will…
Brooklyn – you got me – ‘everyone’ does not shop or work there.
Over on the financial page, however, Wal-Mart has a market cap of $210.32B.
I should have said that more people shop there than anywhere else in the country. Sorry for being inexact. Forgot my audience.
This is really going to bite Walmart in the ass.
Basically, the threat is an empty one. Sure, maybe Walmart will have the cojones not to stock their stores with DVDs, but are they seriously going to say, “We’re going to give up tens of millions of dollars in DVD sales and push you firm into the arms of Apple by no longer stocking your products?”
I think not.
This is all posturing. They can send boxes back to Disney short term, but long term, it’s a losing strategy. People can easily get their DVDs at Target, Best Buy, and Amazon. And Disney will feel more inclined to sell more movies via iTunes. Pretty soon, Walmart will either have to face up to the reality of making money by selling DVDs or not making money by not selling DVDs. I’m sure Steve Jobs is smart enough to make the studios aware of this fact.
This does prove one thing, however – movies on iTunes is already a smash hit.
Wal-Mart is an amazing company, who’s success has taken a huge backlash. I do understand how the management team has forced companies to their buying power will, but this is true in any industry market.
Take Dell. Every quarter the hammer on suppliers until many can no longer play. One must have extremely cheap labor and facilities in China or India in order to compete.
Apple is no different. In fact, Apple is among the best at leaning on its suppliers to achieve amazingly low prices. The one with the lowest price, with the quality meeting spec. wins.
But do I complain about this? No. I just state it is what it is, and fight to win, to achieve more, better, smarter.
If consumers want lower prices at Walmart so be it. But if they want fruitstand guy and higher prices, so be it. The market will decide.
As for me, Walmart helps me keep my hard earned money in my pockets. It helps me save money, or use it on my family, or my children in other ways.
Sadly, many folks against Walmart are the very people who need their low prices to survive. Many of the Walmart working class and those that shop there unfortunately, are not well educated – this is a socio-economic fact. Instead of these people blaming Walmart for their ills, they should absolutely be drilling their kids about the value of an education, and the opression of life without one. It is these adults who should be drilling their kids to do their schoolwork, get good grades, to strive to achieve better than they have or were able at the time. Working at Walmart-like positions or pumping gas should show these people’s kids what to do in order to not end up in that situation.
It is a world of education, and those who do not have it will find it difficult to survive. I see far too much blame on political figures, government, lack of funding for programs, the need for more welfare, and the list goes on. Get an education and this blame disolves, and opportunity abounds.
What’s it matter, Wal-Mart joined the communist party anyhow:
h**p://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5281218.stm
What would ole Walt do if he was alive today?
All you tin foil hat wearers can drop your pitchforks and put out your torches. While WalMart is not my favorite store, this doesn’t mean that an unverified, anonymously sourced story floating over the internet as a rumor, is true.
FSCK Walmart.
Boycotting since 2000. Never again.
Well Walmart I hate to break the news to you but there are plenty of outlets that will sell the DVD’s if you won’t. Your anticompetative attitude needs some adjusting so I think the big studio’s should sell through iTunes and watch there sales triple what Walmart did. Online sales is the way of the future anyways. And Christmas is a great time to start.
“FSCK Walmart.
Boycotting since 2000. Never again.”
That would explain why business at Walmart has been going downhill the last six years.
LMFAO!!! You libs kill me. Enjoy that limited iTunes movie selection. It’s not expanding past anything that isn’t owned by Mickey Mouse.
As I stated above, this is pretty much an empty threat. Walmart can throttle back on DVD purchases for a short time only – after that, they start losing major business to Target, Best Buy, Amazon, and yes, iTunes. And as the studios become less dependent on Walmart’s sales, the less influence Walmart will have to stop the studios from jumping in bed with Apple.
Sorry, but Walmart can’t win here, even if they can exert pressure for the short term. Capitalism is a two-way street.
I haven’t purchased anything in WalMart in years. I do however frequently stop at one of their stores to use their bathroom before/after I go mtn biking.
“Wal-Mart’s David Porter – the executive responsible for stocking the retailer’s shelves with DVDs and CDs and whose influence is so immense in Tinseltown that he’s been named to Premiere magazine’s annual power list – made the rounds of Hollywood studios.”
I’m sure Mr. “Power Broker” Porter would be happy to explain to investors why Walmart’s sales were off by tens of millions of dollars because he refused to keep DVDs in stock for the holiday season, forcing consumers to flee to Walmart’s competitors like Target and Best Buy.
I agree with “Newtype”
Walmart can hold back the tide for only so long, apple isnt the only outfit that wants to sell movies online, how many online retailers do you think they can hold back?
Plus walmart loses money too, not just the studios, and the studios knwo that, cause if you cant get it from walmart i guess you will go to target? or maybe online.