Sohu, Spending Big on Video Content, Licenses 400 More Hollywood Titles

A trailer for Rio on Sohu's movie portal - the licensed full movie will arrive soon.

Chinese web portal Sohu (NASDAQ:SOHU) is splashing the cash this week, licensing 400 movie titles from Hollywood studio, 20th Century Fox. The agreement stretches over the next three years. In the nearer term, it’ll bring brand-new films such as Rio (pictured above) – the Angry Birds themed animation – to its TV/movie portal very soon.

Whilst some of Sohu’s licensed film and TV series content is free and ad-supported, many require a small fee – generally just 3 to 5RMB (just 50 to 75 US cents). Monthly streaming subscriptions are available for 20 RMB.

This isn’t the first paid deal between Sohu and Hollywood – the company starting licensing content back in 2009, although only after being hit with a lawsuit in 2007 for 1 million RMB that also saw its initial movie section shut down. The new version – such as with Baidu’s evolution of its MP3 portal into a mostly legitimate music site – features only paid content.

Earlier this year, Sohu also bought the rights to stream the X-Men movie, and other blockbusters. The company has previously struck deals with Disney and Warner Bros – as has larger Chinese rival, Youku.

Sohu, despite its tiny share of the video market, is a big spender on video content. Earlier this month we looked at all-time high prices for Chinese TV serials, and saw that Sohu paid a record-breaking 30 million RMB for one drama series. It’s not clear how much Sohu is paying this time for 20th Century Fox’s catalog of 400 titles.

Who are China’s largest video sites? Here’s a graph my colleague made last week, using iResearch data for 2011 Q2:

[Source: Marbridge]