Limited-Play Rentals Face Resistance

Those so-called revolutionary “limited-play” cassettes may have a limited life. They’re being tested in the Sacramento area and, so far, according to a spot survey, are flunking.

The cassettes are less expensive for retailers to purchase than regular tapes because they are equipped with a mechanism to erase the movie after 25 plays. Showcase, the company marketing the tapes, touted them as the answer to the retailer’s problem of having too few rental copies of hit movies to meet the demand in the first five to six weeks of release. Along with a shipment of regular cassettes, retailers would order some of these to rent when the others are out.

The innovation is supposedly a bonus for consumers too, since it puts more product on the shelves, but the Sacramento folks haven’t seen it that way so far. One gripe is that the tapes aren’t rented at a discount, even though the retailer pays less for them. In fact, it could cost more: Because each tape has a counter to monitor how many times it has been played, renters who watch a movie two or three times wind up paying from $5 to $8 per night.

On top of that, some consumers say that the counters reportedly have been malfunctioning, mistakenly indicating extra plays.

Retailers have a gripe too. Some said they’re tired of explaining these cassettes to customers.

Unless consumers in Sacramento have a sudden change of heart, limited-play cassettes may never get beyond the test-market stage.

Low-Priced ‘Home Alone’: “Home Alone,” probably the biggest title to hit the sales market this year, came out Thursday, with FoxVideo shipping 8.5 million copies. It’s priced at $24.98, but you shouldn’t have to pay that much. Movies that come out in the $20-$25 price range usually can be found for as low as $13-$15 if you know where to look.

The Wherehouse chain, for instance, is selling “Home Alone” at $16.99. And discount stores that usually carry few or no videos will often stock a monster hit like “Home Alone” as a loss leader.

In addition, there’s a $5 Pepsi rebate that will drop the price even lower.

September Blues: With “Home Alone” just released and the Academy Award-winning “Dances With Wolves” due out Wednesday--Orion says it will ship a record 649,000 rental copies, topping “Ghost” by 7,000--August is ending with a bang for retailers. But they may be singing the blues next month.

September’s biggest releases--”The Hard Way,” “The Doors” and “Rescuers Down Under”--were not box-office blockbusters. September traditionally is a slow rental month because consumers are preoccupied with back-to-school activities, the beginning of the football season and watching TV series debuts.

No Pee-wee Ban: Though some retailers said they would take Pee-wee Herman titles off the shelves when kiddie star Paul Reubens was charged with indecent exposure a few weeks ago (one sarcastic retailer reportedly even moved some to the adult section), it’s easy to find them in stores.

In a spot check of local and national stores a few weeks after the furor, all contacted were carrying Herman titles--even family-oriented Blockbuster stores. A retailer in Arkansas and one in Florida did admit to removing some Herman films from the shelves for a week or so after his arrest, but they put them back when customers complained.

The Herman titles on the market include Warner’s “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure,” Paramount’s “Big Top Pee-wee” and Video Treasures’ 15 volumes of “Pee-wee’s Playhouse.”

Fall ‘Robin Hood’?: A retail-chain executive confided that, according to a reliable source at Warner Home Video, “Robin Hood: Price of Thieves,” which is still doing well at the box office, will be out in November as a rental title. He didn’t rule out the possibility of a last-minute shift to a low-price ($20-$25) release for the sales market. Expect an announcement in the next few weeks.