Is Vimeo On Demand Dead?
Peter Gerard guest blogs about what is going on at the formerly indie stalwart Vimeo, Reinventing Distribution: Lessons from "Eno" and AVOD YouTube Webinar sign up.
Scott Macaulay of Filmmaker Magazine reached out to me last week about the goings on at Vimeo. He heard from a filmmaker that Vimeo on Demand was enacting strict DSA policies requiring them to post their personal contact information or get off Vimeo.
I reached out to direct distribution pioneer, entrepreneur and consultant Peter Gerard who not only worked at Vimeo for a number of years - but is famous for inventing one of the first direct to audience platforms, Distrify, which sadly no longer exists (they created a lot of innovative techniques way back on 2009/2010 that some platforms are still only beginning to utilize).
Peter wrote back immediately and I asked him to convert his response into a post for this Substack - which he most graciously did, as is his wont. I’ll add my thoughts at the bottom of Peter’s post. Also today ICYMI - the excellent Distribution Advocates Case Study of Eno (I’m talking to Jessica Edwards and Emily Rothschild to have them do a live version of the case study soon!) And then also ICYMI: Sign up for our AVOD session with Film Hub - 300 signups already and counting.
IS VIMEO ON DEMAND DEAD?
30 January 2025, Peter Gerard
Some film sellers have recently been complaining about Vimeo On Demand’s move to require identity verification and public contact information on film pages or have your films unpublished within weeks.
Since I worked on Vimeo On Demand 8 years ago, every time something changes there, I receive emails and questions from concerned sellers.
What’s all this about?
This latest change is due to the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), which requires online marketplace platforms to verify and display “trader” contact information on listings for digital goods. The public info includes an entity (or individual) name, address, phone number and email address. This requirement came into force for very large platforms before smaller ones like Vimeo, so anyone who has listed apps or ebooks in the EU/UK will already be familiar with this. Now Vimeo is trying to be compliant as well.
Understandably, many sellers don’t want to publicly share their personal phone number or physical address. While there are various services that let you create a virtual voicemail phone number or a mail-forwarding address, it’s a good time to evaluate why you would continue using Vimeo On Demand as opposed to one of the other tools for selling videos online.
Is Vimeo On Demand dead?
I’ve been asked many times over the last few years if Vimeo On Demand is dead.
Vimeo essentially stopped adding features to Vimeo On Demand in 2017, not long after they acquired VHX (now re-branded as Vimeo OTT). With the rise of SVOD & AVOD, it was becoming clear to everyone that consumers were not as interested in TVOD purchases, so this acquisition was the beginning of Vimeo’s strategic focus on SVOD tools that has continued to this day.
You can still sell TVOD on Vimeo OTT, and the huge advantage is you can build a mailing list from your buyers. This is possible for the same reason that the DSA does not appear to apply to selling on Vimeo OTT - it is a white-label service. Your films aren’t listed on Vimeo’s website - only on your own templated website powered by Vimeo OTT.
There were some perceived advantages of Vimeo On Demand in the past, but today there are essentially none. First, Vimeo used to offer TV apps that would make it easy for buyers to watch your movies on their big screen. However, the apps were shuttered more than a year ago. Second, there has long been a perception that Vimeo’s search and discovery features might help people find and purchase your movie. In the early days of Vimeo’s audience efforts (which I was involved with), the company did make serious marketing efforts for Vimeo On Demand that might have contributed to a very small percentage of your sales. Those efforts all ceased in 2017 when Vimeo switched its focus to a pure hosting and video tools business. This should have been clear to everyone when the homepage stopped promoting videos to watch. And recently Vimeo completely disabled Search and Staff Picks in the EU and the UK. More than ever, each buyer of your movie needs to discover it thanks to your own efforts, so you should at least retain their email address - something you could not do on Vimeo On Demand.
Then around a year ago, Vimeo stopped allowing new sellers on Vimeo On Demand, so I assumed it was as good as dead. That changed in the last few weeks, when they re-opened to new sellers and announced the aforementioned changes to comply with current EU regulations. Vimeo On Demand may get some updates in the future after all. I would still bet that if the platform does get major updates, they will not lead to increased awareness of your movies, since Vimeo is not a viewer destination.
So, what should sellers do?
To me, Vimeo OTT still seems like the better option for now, due to the way it “white-labels” your offering (and it charges a similar 10% revenue share). It’s true that the TVOD features of Vimeo OTT do not get nearly as many updates as the SVOD capabilities, but they still work fine.
Or you can use Gumroad, which has similar fees and active feature development. Or try Kinema - if you are selling TVOD at over $5 then Kinema’s transaction fees seem competitive. Both will have to enforce similar transparency in the EU though.
If you prefer to stay with Vimeo On Demand, there is some good news. Since other platforms (like Apple) responded to the DSA by only requiring public contact information in the EU, Vimeo’s initial decision to apply DSA rules to the whole world led many non-EU sellers to complain. I reached out to Vimeo and they acknowledged that feedback and shared a plan to address it. In a statement, Zoe Black (SVP & General Manager, Vimeo Self Serve) said:
“We remain committed to our video-on-demand service, which allows creators to sell their videos directly to viewers. Initially, we required all sellers to display their verified contact information publicly. However, based on feedback, we're working on a new option to give our creators more flexibility. We expect that this update will be released in the coming weeks.
Sell globally, share contact info: Creators who want to sell their videos everywhere, including the EU, will continue to display their verified contact information.
NEW OPTION: Sell outside the EU, keep contact info private: Creators who choose to only sell their videos outside of the EU may verify their identity for payment processing without publicly displaying their contact information.”
So, if you don’t want to go to the trouble of switching from Vimeo On Demand, you can either turn off sales in the EU or set up a forwarding address and virtual phone number to keep your contact info private.
I do sympathize with Vimeo when it comes to the EU rules. While EU lawmakers appear to intend to protect consumers from large internet companies, they are terrible at writing technical rules, so just like with GDPR, some aspects of the DSA hurt small businesses and make things worse for consumers. And for Vimeo (and Gumroad, Kinema and others), keeping up with these byzantine regulations is no doubt a pain.
What about an open source option?
All the related technology for selling videos has been commoditized, so combining a few open source tools and a low-cost video hosting service can let anyone sell videos online without sharing revenue to a platform (in fact, there are many companies that just wrap private Vimeo videos with their own paywall). I believe that TVOD platforms should cap their transaction fees at the actual cost of the service. Hosting a feature-length movie costs around $0.30 per month, and the bandwidth to stream a movie starts at around $0.10 per view. Charging any more than that seems greedy unless the platform is doing actual work to bring viewers to the movie.
Someone with modest technical skills can set up a simple paywall in front of a streaming video for only the cost of hosting, bandwidth and payment processing. I have been toying with the idea of launching an open-source all-in-one package to make it easier for filmmakers and distributors to run a self-hosted TVOD store, but after discussing this with a lot of people, I’m not convinced there’s enough demand. Earning an extra 10% on every sale sounds great, but most filmmakers don’t sell enough for that to be meaningful, so the hassle of maintaining a web-server likely makes full-service platforms like Vimeo/Gumroad/Kinema/etc. a reasonable trade-off for most people.
Some of us who have been in the space for long enough share nostalgia for a time when Vimeo’s brand represented quality short films and hoped that could be translated into a destination (and source of revenue) for indie film. Unfortunately the competitive landscape led to a different strategy for Vimeo - one that is focused on charging for video hosting and related tools - not on viewers. Black finished her statement with “Our Vimeo On Demand and OTT offerings provide filmmakers, big and small, with the tools to monetize their content and reach audiences on their own terms.” This makes clear Vimeo’s approach: while the company will continue to provide various selling tools, just like with other similar platforms, you need to do the hard work of reaching audiences yourself.
Jon’s Notes - The Holy Grail of Discovery
It is truly unfortunate that Vimeo turned away from trying to help filmmakers find audiences with their wonderful platform that had so much potential. They obviously have massive amounts of viewing history data. They were also early curators - which is an essential component of discoverability (Brian Newman talks about this quite a bit). Data and Curation: two essential components of The Holy Grail of Discovery. On top of this, they had the advantage of Apple and smart TV apps which they have abandoned. These apps gave the ability for anything on Vimeo to be watched on other devices. (Perhaps I’m a dinosaur wanting to watch on the biggest screen possible. Some data overheard at Sundance would support my antiquity in this regard.) Those three attributes could have been very beneficial to filmmakers going DTA. Who knows what else Vimeo could have come up with (especially with Peter on board).
Someone I met at Sundance for example mentioned a conversation years ago as Vimeo was struggling to find its way in which he suggested to one of their large investors that Vimeo had the potential to be an Avis to YouTube’s AVOD/Netflix’s SVOD Hertz (or perhaps Sixt instead of Avis- but look at Sixt now). But Vimeo wasn’t interested. They seem determined to be a hosting platform focusing on white label SVOD. This disinterest though leaves room for more cutting edge platforms such Eventive, Kinema, Jolt, with more on the way including a platform incubated by Sundance Institute led by a trio of filmmakers who I also had great convos with at Sundance. With some notable exceptions TVOD numbers, especially on conventional platforms, have cratered for indies in the past few years. But as audiences grow hungry for adventurous content and seek alternatives to the bland offerings of the major streamers - perhaps those same consumers will start cancelling subscriptions and use those dollars on renting individual films. There are some signs that this can happen.
Peter’s bio:
Peter Gerard is a film producer and entrepreneur. He has produced and directed a number of award-winning films, earning a BAFTA Scotland New Talent Award. Gerard started mid-Missouri’s first film festival and founded Distrify, a direct-to-fan video-on-demand service and social cinema-marketing suite, for which he earned the British Council and The Guardian’s Creative Entrepreneur Award. He worked at Vimeo as VP & GM of Entertainment, overseeing content strategy, curation, and marketing for Vimeo’s Originals and Vimeo On Demand. Gerard was responsible for the launch of High Maintenance, Alan Tudyk’s Con Man, an Emmy-nominated Garfunkel & Oates special, and the Oscar-nominated Pear Cider & Cigarettes, among many other series and films. He currently consults on technology, streaming and distribution for a range of clients, including Adventr, Metrograph and various others.
Earning Revenue on Youtube AVOD with Filmhub’s Alan d’Escragnolle
Join us on February 6th at 1pm PT/4pm ET to see how YouTube Movies and TV has emerged as a dominant revenue stream for filmmakers. Alan will outline Filmhub’s best practices and open the hood to reveal transparent numbers. I’ve had a number of chats with Alan about this topic - and I’m excited about its potential and how this can affect filmmakers’ bottom line. Hope to see you there.
“Filmmaking Doesn’t End With Picture Lock” Distribution Case Study of Generative Documentary ‘Eno’
From the amazing people at Distribution Advocates (note I’m a huge fan of Distribution Advocates and Gary Hustwit (both have great Substacks): “At a time when documentaries are said to struggle in theaters, Gary Hustwit’s Eno, a groundbreaking generative documentary about musician and artist Brian Eno, has defied expectations, grossing over $1 million in theatrical revenue and earning a spot on the 2024 Oscar shortlist.
This case study written by Jessica Edwards and Emily Rothschild (who as I said above I am hoping to do a live case study webinar about Eno here) as part of Distribution Advocates Film-ade Fund, highlights the power of reimagining distribution models, proving that collaboration, innovation, and a deep connection with audiences can redefine success for independent films.
Until next time…
Excellent piece, Jon. Filmmakers need a place where they can post work, be legitimized, put their work in context, and create revenue from their work.
If you haven't yet checked out what we're doing at Metalabel, worth a look.
I probably abandoned Vimeo 7 years ago… for some reason, I forgot why. I still have over 100 private videos on there — most of which exists nowhere else - it’s just another time capsule vault.
I think if we know anything, we have to be honest and say we know nothing about what’s to come between the next 5 minutes and 5 years.
Open-source tools and 100% ownership of your niche community are non-negotiable, and that’s really where it’s at to give your personal film works and it’s viewers the best experience. I see the next iteration of getting work made and out there should include incrementally eliminating the middlemen from our lives that isn’t a protector of the works— from the platform builders and fee collectors who see your works as just general commodities they could live with or without, to the nickel-and-diming payment process fees that are so 20th century.
We’re in the rambling dust bowl age of the digital-maker economy. Setting up roots anywhere now could be perilous. Right now I see posting a work on Substack behind a sub wall being more advantageous than putting it on Vimeo - at least for 2025.