CinemaNow, the online video store, has gotten another $20 million in financing from a group led by new EchoStar and including previous investor Lionsgate.
CinemaNow, among whose chief rivals are Movielink and GUBA, has raised $40 million since 1999. Investors also include Microsoft and Blockbuster.
CinemaNow just last month signed a deal with Warner Bros. to deliver movies and TV shows--Babylon 5 and Dukes of Hazard to begin with--for sale or rent over the Internet. CinemaNow billed it as the first download-to-buy/rent deal for Warner Bros.
Its other content providers include 20th Century Fox, ABC News, Disney, HDNet, Lionsgate, MGM, Miramax, NBC Universal, Sony, and Sundance, according to the company.
Competition is getting hotter for online video content as studios start to cast their 'net wide, with deals coming almost daily for some form of multiplatform delivery of movies or TV.
Just this week, competitor GUBA struck a deal for 100 movies from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, including Spider-Man 2, Memoirs of a Geisha and classic Bridge on the River Kwai. GUBA said it was the first video sharing community to get Sony Pictures for online sale or rent.
