Google's partnership with the major studios to rent movies on demand through YouTube could transform the streaming and VOD landscape, turning the leading internet video site into a substantial new revenue source for Hollywood.
But we may never know exactly how substantial, because the exploding VOD and streaming business is also a market whose figures remain shrouded in secrecy.
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When four major studios launched their big, controversial premium VOD experiment last Thursday, with the Adam Sandler comedy "Just Go With It" available on DirecTV for $30 only 60 days after its theatrical release, we know that the VOD release didn't have much effect on the film's box-office grosses. That's because those figures are widely available, prompting headlines every weekend.
And while exact figures are rarely released for DVD and Blu-Ray releases, rankings are made public -- prompting news stories, charts and prime placement in stores and online.
But hard figures on VOD and streaming are held privately and not released publicly, which means the success or failure of a grand venture like YouTube's rental initiative or the studios' Premium VOD can remain a mystery -- and a filmmaker whose film is the No. 1 VOD title of the week shouldn't expect that anybody will notice.
On Tuesday, for example, a DirecTV spokesman said there are no upcoming plans to release any consumer usage data on its new premium VOD offering, which it calls Home Premiere.
Even though it's the one segment of the market that's growing rather than slumping, there's no national chart with streaming figures; the Rentrak Corporation's OnDemand Essentials service does release a weekly list of the Top 10 VOD performers, but that list contains no hard data and is not widely publicized.
And, crucially, there's no desire on the part of many companies to bring together figures from the various VOD and streaming outlets to to stir up consumer interest the way studios routinely do with box-office info.
"To some degree now, success breeds itself," said producer Ted Hope, whose latest film is James Gunn's action comedy "Super," with Rainn Wilson and Ellen Page (above left).
"You hear a film is number one at the box office, even in terms of a specialized release, and it encourages you to make sure you see it. People want to be part of the cultural conversation. But will it be the same with VOD and streaming?"
Hope's answer is no -- because, he said, the lack of a central VOD chart makes it impossible to track, compare and exploit that information.
"If this becomes a significant enough source of revenue, it will be in a lot of people’s interests to provide those metrics," Lindsay Conner, an entertainment law partner at Manatt Phelps and Phillips, told TheWrap. "At this point, no one has that incentive.
