Blockbuster and Enron Broadband Services have begun testing a movies-on-demand service in Seattle, Salt Lake City and Portland, OR, they said Monday. The service employs Enron's $600-million fiber-optic network system, allowing consumers to watch movies at any time -- as if they had rented them from a Blockbuster store -- and to pause, rewind and fast-forward them. It was not clear what sort of deal the companies had signed with the studios. When they initially announced their partnership last July, analysts noted that Blockbuster had not secured rights from any major studio for movies to be shown on the service. Blockbuster is controlled by Viacom, the parent company of Paramount.

Source: Studio Briefing