Produced By: Distributors Enlist Producers In Fight For VOD Transparency

The rallying cry for transparency in VOD reporting fell on receptive ears Sunday at the 2014 Produced By conference, where Cinetic Media’s John Sloss appealed to the financial interests of the producers in the room regarding the mounting importance of VOD and digital distribution. “The promise of transparency creates the promise of the future of cleaner revenue streams,” said Sloss. “And the efficiency of the future should push more revenue back to you.”
Sloss has been indie film’s most vocal proponent of VOD data reporting since he went public with VOD performance numbers on indie Escape from Tomorrow and called for others to do the same. But without more distributors onboard to offer up numbers and no standards in data collecting it’s still a steep uphill climb towards transparency.
Still, he’s gained some support. On Saturday Sloss’s fellow panelist Jason Janegos of Radius-TWC revealed the strong VOD/digital numbers on docus 20 Feet From Stardom ($1.3M on VOD) and The Unknown Known ($1M), exclusively to Deadline. Joining the early adopters on Sunday, Gravitas Pictures’ Melanie Miller pledged to publish VOD/digital performance numbers on upcoming films promising that “as much transparency as possible is what we want to do.” Two years ago Gravitas took the unprecedented step of publishing its spending ledger on documentary American: The Bill Hicks Story. “We caught a lot of flack for that,” ... Read More »

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