Movie studios had better be glad that people retreated to the theater to forget their woes in 2009, because it's the one thing that helped balance out the dive in DVD sales for the year. A new report from Adams Media Research details the movie-watching habits of US consumers in 2009, noting that people were much more willing to venture out of the house to catch a flick than they were to invest in a movie in disc form, even if it was in Blu-ray.
Disc sales took a nosedive among US viewers in 2009; Adams said that the number dropped 13 percent year-over-year to just $8.73 billion, down from $10.06 billion in 2008. At the same time, however, there was a 10 percent increase in box office spending compared to 2008—from $8.99 billion to $9.87 billion. Disc rentals remained almost flat while video on demand rentals increased very slightly, as did online purchases.
It doesn't take a mathematician to run the numbers and see that the increase in box office spending almost—but didn't quite—make up for the loss in DVD sales. Adams notes that overall film spending in the US was down a "fractional" 0.3 percent, but that's not taking into consideration the cut theaters take before the movie studios get their money. The firm also pointed out that Blu-ray (isolated from other disc sales) actually grew in 2009, but because the percentage is still tiny when compared to overall DVD sales, it was not enough to offset the overall decline.
Clearly, the studios are still fumbling around for a way to make up for the continuing decline in DVD sales. As we detailed last week, some studios have begun experimenting with digital distribution ahead of DVD release, while others are trying to close the window between DVD and video on demand availability. Both of these are positive trends, though they are hardly the norm, with most studios still fighting to milk every dollar out of disc sales before even so much as glancing at digital distribution and rentals.
reader comments
61