Disney-owned digital movie locker service Movies Anywhere is launching its first smart TV app, on LG TVs
Jon Porter / The Verge :
Context & Ripple Effects
Movies Anywhere has been building toward this since four major Hollywood studios joined Disney's digital locker in 2017, pooling purchases from Amazon Video, Google Play, iTunes, and Vudu into one library. Microsoft extended that reach onto Xbox and Windows 10 in 2018 via its Movies & TV app, but until now the service had no native presence on televisions themselves.
The choice of LG is notable because LG's smart TV platform already hosts a rival storefront — it was among the first to carry Google Play Movies and TV back in 2015. A native Movies Anywhere app puts Disney's aggregated library directly on the same home screen as the platforms whose purchases it aggregates.
First-order effects
- LG smart TV owners can now browse and play their combined iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, and Vudu purchases natively on the TV, no console, streaming box, or casting required.
Second-order effects
- Other TV makers without the app — Samsung most visibly, given its history of hosting third-party services like PlayStation Now — face pressure to add Movies Anywhere or risk their storefronts being bypassed by an aggregator that owns the customer relationship.
Third-order effects
- If locker services keep winning native placement on TVs, smart TV home screens become contested shelf space where aggregators sit above individual stores — shifting power over digital movie ownership from the store that sold the purchase to whichever app unifies them.
The trend: Digital movie ownership is consolidating around cross-platform locker apps that are pushing from phones and consoles onto the TV itself, one platform at a time.