— The Film Club: Another bunch of film distributors is setting up an online distributor. Terry Stone, Mike Watson and Anthony Nottage are working on The Film Lounge, an adult horror, crime, action and kung-fu movie specialist that has $6 million VC backing and launches in November, Hollywood Reporter says. “Cutting out the sales agent and existing exclusively online will mean an increase in the revenue going directly to the producers,” the trio say, though they will only show 60 titles in the first year.
Each will retail at £1.99 in the first three months, but prices will eventually depending on viewer ratings. Independent film makers will get a cut of revenue every quarter. They’re targeting 15,000 monthly downloads, which might seem steep for a new-launch niche site.
— MuZu TV: A glut of sites has popped up in recent years to address the perception that MTV rarely plays much music anymore. The latest is MuZu TV, a Dublin-based startup that wants to give labels yet another “channel”, or “profile”, for their bands, and which offers a share of video advertising revenue. Sounds little different from your common or garden social media behemoth, though MuZu makes a particular play toward live music, interviews and on -the-road footage. MuZu claims over 200 labels are on board and TechCrunch says it has $8 million funding from VC house Oyster. MuZu may be offerings labels money, but many labels see such destinations as marketing, rather than revenue-generating, channels, which limits it to smaller or alternative music brands like Drum & Bass Arena and Irish DJ Dave Fanning