Plans call for new episodes to be streamed on the Web site and then made available on living room on-demand systems and, a few weeks later, on a traditional cable channel.
Challenges also face the hotel industry itself, digging out of a recession, still perplexed about what guests are willing to pay for in in-room on-demand entertainment.
In-room, on-demand movies?
Highly funded startups in this niche include Industrious, a provider of flexible-term, high-end office spaces, Knotel, a provider of customized workplaces, and Breather, which provides meeting and work rooms on demand.
Besides a redesign of all gyms and healthier eating options in its restaurants and through room service, Sheraton has added in-room video-on-demand workouts and delivers a free workout kit on request.
ROOM service on demand from a celebrity chef.
Breather, a startup that helps users find private rooms nearby, on-demand, is announcing that it has raised a $6.5 million Series A. The idea of helping people find empty desks or offices spaces isn't new, but co-founder and CEO Julien Smith was emphatic that Breather isn't an office sharing startup.
"We will take it school by school and structure the rooms based on demand," he said.
Movie broadcasts reach people who would not go to theaters for whatever reason: living room competition like on-demand movies, or the inconvenience of fighting traffic, or $250 tickets, or maybe thousands of miles of distance.
There are interactive TVs in each room offering "art on demand" with a choice of nine works of contemporary video art, including Sam Taylor-Wood's Still Life from 2001" – a film showing a bowl of fruit slowly decomposing.
For $11 viewers got a high definition viewing in their living rooms via video on demand.
