2012 Blu-ray Sales Metrics Stats: HMM/Nielsen/Videoscan/The-Numbers Quarterly DEG etc

[Kosty]

Summary article from USA Today

CES 2012 Notes
Blu-ray grows, but DVD slide nips home video sales
By Mike Snider, USA Today - Jan. 10, 2012

LAS VEGAS – Sales of movies on Blu-ray discs and films delivered digitally and on demand rose in 2011, but not enough to make up the gap in falling DVD sales.

Consumers spent $18 billion buying and renting discs and on digital movies in 2011, a 2% decrease from 2010, the Digital Entertainment Group (DEG) will report Tuesday.

Sales of Blu-ray discs topped $2 billion for the first time, up 19% from 2010. But DVD sales dropped 20% to $6.8 billion.

Still, home video executives were satisfied with the results considering the economic challenges of the past year and an underwhelming box office slate of films hitting retail.

New releases coming to home video in 2011 had total box-office revenue about 9% below those in 2010, said Warner Home Video President Ron Sanders, who is also president of the DEG.

Total movie sales dropped 12% to $9.5 billion, from 2010. Total movie rentals remained steady at $7.5 billion, down less than 1%. Digital sales, including streaming movies, rose 50% to $3.4 billion.

The number of U.S. homes with Blu-ray players grew to 40 million, 38% higher than in 2010. Also on the rise: the number of homes with HDTVs, which now tops 74.5 million. "Consumers and movie lovers are really investing in HDTVs and Blu-ray players to get their home theaters the best they can possibly be," DEG Executive Director Amy Jo Smith says.

Hollywood hopes to keep Blu-ray disc momentum rolling in 2012 with increased portability of purchased films. The first discs supporting the industry's UltraViolet format were launched in 2011. That format allows for downloading a digital version of a film into a cloud-based online locker that can be accessed via smartphones and tablets at no extra cost.

"Consumers want to consume different movies in different places" says Craig Kornblau, president of Universal Studios Home Entertainment and DEG vice president. "There are consumers who are more interested in (only) having movies in the cloud. They can actually start that collection today. That doesn't mean physical discs will go away completely." Among the first studios in 2011 with UltraViolet discs:

Universal (Cowboys & Aliens), Sony (Friends With Benefits) and Warner (Green Lantern). Studios plan to announce Tuesday more than 100 UltraViolet discs due this year, including releases from Paramount and Fox.

"We see UltraViolet as kind of icing on the cake," says Fox Home Entertainment President Mike Dunn. "Once that ecosystem is in place, you have the opportunity … to go from a niche market to mass market."

Adds Mike Vorhaus of Frank N. Magid Associates, "One of the top features digital consumers value is transportability across devices."

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/st...011/52473310/1

[Kosty]

From the DEG release:

Hollywood’s home entertainment recovery continued in 2011 as consumers bolstered their home viewing experience with HDTVs, Blu-ray Disc players and discs, as well as the expanding offerings through electronic sell-through (EST) and video on demand (VOD) services.

Total consumer spending on home filmed entertainment for the second half of the year rose nearly one percent, fueled by a strong third quarter in which spending was up five percent, which marked the first quarterly increase since 2008. While overall spending for the category was slightly down two percent for the year, the industry’s performance clearly stabilized in 2011.

The recovery continues to be driven by high margin products that are gaining a foothold among consumers, a further indication that the home entertainment market is rebounding and in a healthy state. Among the various services and platforms delivering filmed entertainment, these higher margin businesses — Blu-ray Disc, EST and VOD — showed the strongest growth rates. Some highlights for the year:

• Blu-ray Disc and EST continued to perform remarkably well with consumer spending on Blu-ray sell-through up 20 percent and EST up nine percent for the year. Additionally, consumer spending on VOD was up seven percent.

• Blu-ray Disc has evolved to become the standard for home entertainment. Impressively, both new release and catalog sales saw double digit growth of 20 percent in 2011.

• Increasing the value of ownership for movie lovers, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Universal Studios Home Entertainment and Warner Home Video launched their first Blu-ray Disc titles with UltraViolet in 2011. The DEG estimates that more than 100 UltraViolet titles will be available in 2012. Paramount Home Entertainment also has plans to launch titles in 2012.

• The number of Blu-ray homes continues to grow rapidly as Blu-ray players offer consumers increased versatility and affordability. Total Blu-ray penetration in 2011 jumped 38 percent (including BD set-tops, PS3s and HTiBs) with total household penetration of all Blu-ray compatible devices now at nearly 40 million U.S. homes.

• Further, consumers enhanced their home viewing experience by purchasing more than 27 million HDTVs during 2011. HDTV penetration is now at more than 74.5 million U.S. households.

• Consumers continue to show a keen interest in 3D TV, with a dramatic year-over-year increase in titles and unit sales of 3D Blu-ray Discs. Available 3D Blu-ray Disc titles more than tripled in 2011 compared to 2010, growing from 20 to 65, while unit sales increased more than six times in the same period. Some of the major movies now on 3D Blu-ray disc include Avatar, The Lion King, Cars 2, and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. Source: The Nielsen Company, VideoScan

• The bestselling Blu-ray Disc titles of the year hit major milestones with five titles selling in excess of two million discs. The overall top 10 bestselling home entertainment titles this year, according to Nielsen VideoScan First Alert are:
1. Harry Potter – Deathly Hallows, Part 1
2. Harry Potter – Deathly Hallows, Part 2
3. Tangled
4. Cars 2
5. Transformers – Dark of Moon
6. Bridesmaids
7. Rio
8. The Help
9. Lion King
10. Hangover Part 2

http://www.deadline.com/2012/01/blu-...ideo-recovery/

[Kosty]

Twice

BDA Sees Blu-ray Growth For Years To Come

By Greg Tarr -- TWICE, 1/10/2012


LAS VEGAS — The future of home video entertainment may be coming from the Cloud, but the trusty Blu-ray Disc player continues to drive volume sales growth and revenue opportunities today.

That was the assessment of Andy Parsons, Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) U.S. promotions committee chairman and Pioneer Electronics communications and advanced product development senior VP. The BDA is a multi-industry-supported promotional group that is dedicated to promoting developments in the Blu-ray Disc (BD) format.

“While it seems so logical and so obvious to many casual observers that all SD and HD programming will soon be distributed via the Internet, this all-or-nothing argument is too simplistic. What about bandwidth limitations of typical households?” Parsons asked, while comparing the prophesied extinction of optical discs to past predictions of the paperless office.

He pointed out that the average broadband connection speed in the U.S. today is about 5Mbps, which is not enough to support all the content being delivered on discs, including the HD quality and extra content afforded the 50GB Blu-ray platter.

Consumers are also attracted to the ease of use and collectability of physical media. Meanwhile, the continued growth of HDTV penetration and dramatically lower prices for BD players bodes well for demand sustainability, he said.

As for today’s software business, Blu-ray content sales grew 58 percent year over year in the third quarter of 2011, contributing to a cumulative 33.6 million unit U.S. household penetration, according to the Digital Entertainment Group (DEG).

Its latest industry report even showed significant growth in the rental of packaged media, despite the disappearance of numerous mom-and-pop stores.

“I think one key reason for this is that you simply can’t get access to most of the newest content via streaming,” Parsons added. “If I want to see a film that was just released on disc a month or so ago, I probably won’t find it on any of the legitimate streaming services that consumers subscribe to, but I can buy it or rent it on disc.”

Disc-by-mail services should be sufficient to carry the load for the foreseeable future, Parsons added, and they often provide availability and convenience that the momand- pop stores lacked.

Even as Netflix and Blockbuster expand their streaming and download services, renting physical media appears to be in their cards for some time to come.

“I just can’t see how any online rental service can provide a full range of content to their customers without discs, at least not anytime soon,” he said. “I don’t think streaming can really replace discs until it’s truly ubiquitous, matches the content availability, and works as reliably as discs.”

Still, Parsons said, streaming can be very convenient, and “it would be foolish to say that it’s not important. Our position is that it will take far, far longer to fully replace physical media than some people are predicting. Both disc and Internet consumption can coexist for many years to come.”

As for the future of Blu-ray 3D format, Parsons said it’s growing and is “as much a content-driven business as regular Blu-ray and DVD have been, so as the population of titles continues to grow, the interest level among consumers should continue to grow as well.”

He added, “The growth is also somewhat regulated by the adoption rate of 3D HDTV sets, which has grown at a very decent rate — up to about 3 percent penetration, I think — considering that these sets haven’t been on the market very long.”

Still, as prices on BD players drop below the $100 mark, the future for category feature advancement seems limited.

Parsons, though, said, “Bluray players deserve more credit than they get for being the most versatile content nerve center you can buy for your living room.”

At the same time, he said he still sees a promising market for “more upscale players that emphasize quality more than quantity of content.”

For the future, “I think we’ll continue to see new features appear initially at the higher end, such as 1080p-to-4K up-conversion as these displays begin to enter the market. It also may be possible to improve streamed content picture quality with realtime signal processing, much as we do with highly compressed audio streams in some home products.”

Another promising recent development was the introduction of the Ultraviolet virtual content locker system that enables consumers to pay one price to buy conforming Blu-ray Disc movies along with the rights to access the title in streaming, download and digital copy form for playback on other devices.

“We see Ultraviolet as a way of expanding the functionality of Blu-ray content, as it adds value to the ownership model,” Parsons explained. “I’m personally a big fan of Digital Copy because I travel a lot and like to watch movies on my iPad. Spending a couple of extra dollars for this feature is well worth it to me. Ultraviolet is very similar, except that it encompasses a larger array of platforms through both streaming and downloads.”

As for the future of the BDA, the promotional group will be helping to explain what Ultraviolet is and does as “another compelling reason to invest in Blu-ray titles,” he said. It will also be leveraging online and socialmedia tools in the coming year to present the creators of the BD software and hardware “to explain why they are passionate about the format.”

They will also work with influential “mom bloggers” who have followings outside of the usual technology audience to help explain why recordable Blu-ray is a great way to enjoy and archive personal content.

http://www.twice.com/article/478896-...rs_To_Come.php

[Kosty]

Blu-ray Sales Up 20 Percent in 2011; Brick-and-Mortar Rental Activity Down 28.8 Percent



11:27 AM PST 1/10/2012 by Thomas K. Arnold




Courtesy of Warner Bros.
"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I"

"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1" and "Part 2" were the top-selling titles of the past year, according to Digital Entertainment Group data.

Blu-ray Disc continued to post remarkable gains in 2011 as overall consumer spending on home entertainment stabilized after several years of precipitous drops, according to numbers released this morning by DEG: The Digital Entertainment Group.


Consumers spent a total of $18.04 billion on Blu-ray Disc, DVD and digital sales and rentals during the year, about 2% less than the $18.43 billion they spent in 2010, according to DEG, which bases its figures on studio and retail data.

The box office value of films that came to home entertainment during the year, by comparison, was down 8.7%.


Blu-ray sales soared above $2 billion for the first time ever, rising 20% in the year, as the number of U.S. households with at least one Blu-ray playback device rose to nearly 40 million, a 38% gain from the prior year.

Total consumer spending on packaged media, Blu-ray and DVD, slipped slightly more than 13% to $8.95 billion from $10.52 billion in 2010.

Rental spending (packaged media only) was down 3% to $7.54 billion from $7.6 billion the previous year, with a 28.8% drop in brick-and-mortar rental activity offset by a 31% uptick in the kiosk rental business, mostly Redbox vending machines.

But those declines are to be expected, observers say, as consumers transition to digital delivery, mostly streaming. Overall spending on digital delivery rose 51% to nearly $3.42 billion, up from $2.26 billion in 2010.

The largest chunk of that went to VOD ($1.87 billion) and the new category of subscription streaming ($993.6 million), while electronic sellthrough remained a nonstarter at $553.7 million.


DEG also announced the 10 best-selling titles of 2011, although no specific unit sales totals were provided. The top sellers are, in order, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, Tangled, Cars 2, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Bridesmaids, Rio, The Help, The Lion King and The Hangover Part 2.TE]

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/new...-potter-280185

[Kosty]

DEG: Blu-ray, Digital Helped Lift 2011


10 Jan, 2012
By: Chris Tribbey, Thomas K. Arnold




Higher-margin products and strong consumer spending on Blu-ray Disc helped stabilize the home entertainment industry in 2011, according to full-year figures released Jan. 9 by DEG: The Digital Entertainment Group.

While overall spending on packaged media and digital delivery was down 2% for the year to an estimated $18.04 billion, down from $18.43 billion in 2010, a 20% jump in Blu-ray spending and a 51% jump in digital spending point to a sustained recovery for the industry, DEG reported.

The box office value of films that came to home entertainment during the year, by comparison, was down 8.7%.

The second half of 2011 saw consumer spending on home entertainment up 1%, and the third quarter saw a 5% rise, the first quarterly increase since the first quarter of 2008.

Annual spending on Blu-ray software hit $2 billion for the first time, and Blu-ray players are now in nearly 40 million homes, a 38% rise from 2010.

Electronic sellthrough spending was up 9% for the year, while VOD saw a 7% rise. 3D Blu-ray Disc unit sales were up sixfold year-over-year.

Helping drive Blu-ray spending was the further adoption of HDTV, with more than 27 million HDTVs purchased in 2011, bringing household penetration to more than 74.5 million American homes, DEG reported.

Total consumer spending on packaged media, Blu-ray and DVD, slipped slightly more than 13% to $8.95 billion from $10.52 billion in 2010. Rental spending (packaged media only) was down 3% to $7.54 billion from $7.6 billion the previous year, with a 28.8% drop in brick-and-mortar rental activity offset by a 31% uptick in the kiosk rental business, mostly Redbox vending machines.

But those declines are to be expected, observers say, as consumers transition to digital delivery, mostly streaming. Overall spending on digital delivery rose 51% to nearly $3.42 billion, up from $2.26 billion in 2010. The largest chunk of that went to VOD ($1.87 billion) and the new category of subscription streaming ($993.6 million), while electronic sellthrough remained a nonstarter at $553.7 million.

Five of the 10 best-selling titles of 2011 (in order, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 1, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 2, Tangled, Cars 2 and Transformers: Dark of the Moon) sold more than 2 million discs, according to the data. The rest of the top-selling titles were Bridesmaids, Rio, The Help, The Lion King and The Hangover Part 2.

Looking at 2012, DEG says UltraViolet — the buy-once, play-anywhere, cloud-based digital copy platform — will help keep disc sellthrough relevant, with an estimated 100-plus UltraViolet-enabled titles released during the year.

http://www.homemediamagazine.com/mar...ift-2011-26070

[Kosty]

The Bleeding In The Home Entertainment Business Slowed In 2011


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The home-entertainment business has been pummeled in recent years, with revenues falling for seven years in a row, in one year a full 8 percent. But last year, according to the latest numbers from a research group, things brightened slightly, thanks mostly to the rapid growth of digital streaming.

The Digital Entertainment Group, a research consortium backed by Hollywood’s major studios, released data Tuesday showing that overall home entertainment revenue declined only 2 percent in 2011.


As shrinkage goes, it was the smallest since 2008 for the challenged entertainment sector, which tallied $18.4 billion in total rentals and sales for the year, according to DEG.

That $18.4 billion includes the revenue for everything from DVD and Blu-ray, to cable and satellite VOD, to downloads and streaming, of movie and TV content. Interestingly, in the second half of 2011, the DEG reported that revenue from rentals and sales of “home filmed entertainment,” physical and digital alike, actually rose 1 percent.

Even though the DEG is backed by the studios, its revenue numbers are often cited as official benchmarks of industry performance.

According to the DEG, the home entertainment market has declined every year since 2004, when it peaked at $21.8 billion, mainly because of the decline of DVD sales.

One caveat to the latest numbers from the DEG: They were helped by a change in the group’s equation. For the first time, the DEG included revenue from subscription streaming services, which resulted in nearly $994.6 million in additional revenue for 2011.

Overall digital spending for home entertainment – which includes VOD through various carrier services like DirecTV (NYSE: DTV) and Comcast, and electronic sell-through via vendors like Apple’s iTunes – was up 50 percent, according to the trade group, to $3.4 billion.

SEE ALSO: Interview Part 2: Netflix’s Hastings Hurt By Criticism But Over Transition

The kiosk business continued to grow, too, with rentals through outlets like Redbox increasing 31 percent to $1.66 billion. And rentals of Blu-ray and DVD through subscription services like Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX) kept on growing, as well, increasing 4.1 percent to $2.36 billion.

As the studio-backed trade group is prone to do, it touted the performance of high-margin physical media, noting that Blu-ray sales and rentals had increased 20 percent in 2011, reaching $2 billion for the first time.

Still, the market’s legacy revenue streams remain in steep decline. Rental through brick-and-mortar outlets continued to circle the drain, declining 29 percent to just $1.64 billion. And overall sales of “packaged goods” – DVD and Blu-ray – declined 13 percent to $8.9 billion, brought down by the continued cratering of the older format.

http://paidcontent.org/article/419-t...lowed-in-2011/

[Kosty]

LA Times

Company Town
THE BUSINESS BEHIND THE SHOW

Ben Fritz and Dawn C. Chmielewski



Studios tout UltraViolet as home entertainment revenue falls 2%

January 10, 2012 | 6:42 pm


Photo: Customers shop for DVDs at a Target store

Hollywood's seven year decline in total home entertainment revenue continued in 2011, but slowed to a modest 2% drop thanks to booming business from kiosks, Blu-ray discs and the Web.

However, movie sales, as opposed to rentals, dropped 12%. That's a problem for film studios, as DVD sales have represented their biggest source of profit over the last decade.

To address the issue, all of Hollywood's major studios except Disney have been working with a coalition of technology companies and retailers on a new initiative called UltraViolet. To spur ownership of movies online, the technology allows consumers to store copies in a digital "cloud" that can be accessed on a variety of devices.

UltraViolet had a troubled launch in October, with technology that some consumers found cumbersome because of the numerous registration steps and new pieces of software that had to be installed. Reactions on message boards, technology blogs and Twitter were overwhelmingly negative.

At a news conference Tuesday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, backers said that 750,000 households have registered to use UltraViolet, but admitted there were some early stumbles.

“The best way to describe the launch is we built this great house, it had an incredible foundation, and in our excitement to move in there was some finished carpentry that still needed to be done,” said Sony Pictures Chief Technology Officer Mitch Singer.

Also announced were some new developments that could help UltraViolet pick up steam. Panasonic and Samsung are both launching Blu-ray players that can read a compatible disc and automatically add the film to a user's digital locker online.

The Samsung device will even let consumers add certain movies they bought on DVD or Blu-ray before UltraViolet existed to their online collection for what a news release described as a "nominal amount" of money.

In addition, Amazon.com announced that it will soon start selling digital downloads of movies from one studio in the UltraViolet format. That's a significant step because previously UltraViolet copies have come as codes with Blu-ray discs and DVDs and could only be accessed online with software from Warner Bros.-owned Flixster.
Amazon Executive Vice President of Digital Content Bill Carr said the partnership with a studio that he declined to identify was signed in the last few days.

According to data released late Monday by the Digital Entertainment Group, total home entertainment revenue in 2011 was $18 billion, down from $18.4 billion the previous year and a high of $21.8 billion in 2004.

Among the businesses that grew significantly were Blu-ray discs at 20% to more than $2 billion, rentals from kiosks such as Redbox to $1.7 billion, and digital downloads and video-on-demand rentals, which grew a combined 7% to $2.4 billion.

Online subscription streaming, a business dominated by Netflix, hit $993 million in 2011, the first year that the Digital Entertainment Group broke out the business into its own category.

However, all of that growth was not enough to make up for the loss of $1.3 billion in spending on movie purchases, as well as a 29% drop in spending at retail stores such as Blockbuster, which shuttered hundreds of store locations last year as it emerged from bankruptcy reorganization.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/

[Kosty]

UltraViolet backers get ready to make more noise in 2012



Mon, Jan 9 2012
World's biggest tech show searching for "wow"
Mon, Jan 9 2012

Jan 10 (TheWrap.com) - UltraViolet launched last fall with a murmur, not a roar, but its backers plan to make more noise about the format once hailed as a potential savior to the sagging home entertainment business this year.

Tuesday at CES, backers of the cloud-based platform announced a multi-million dollar awareness campaign and a tentative Amazon deal, while also disclosing the number of accounts that have been activated since its soft launch in the fourth quarter.

Roughly 750,000 UltraViolet accounts have been set up following a modest promotional push. Roughly 20 films have been released in the video anywhere format thus far, with more studios coming on board this year.

To build awareness, the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem, the consortium behind the format, said it will partner with the Digital Entertainment Group to create the awareness campaign.

The tagline: "Your movies in the cloud."

In interviews with TheWrap, DECE members said they were enthusiastic about the response among consumers even without heavy marketing.

They believe that UltraViolet is poised to take a big leap in the mainstream, with more retailers, devices and studios ready to come on board in the coming months.

"We see 2012 as being the year when we move from the accomplishments made in 2011 into mass consumer adoption," Mark Teitell, general manager and executive director of the DECE, told TheWrap. "Looking ahead, we're going to have hundreds of titles coming on the market, so we fully expect to see exponential growth."

Teitell said that the number of accounts does not directly correlate with the number of discs sold with UltraViolet. He said more accounts could be set up as disc owners get around to signing up for the cloud-based format in coming months.

The cloud based video-anywhere platform was unveiled just in time for the holidays, but aside from a few mentions in commercials for UltraViolet copies of Blu-rays for such Warner Bros. titles as "Horrible Bosses" and "Green Lantern," it was in essence a soft launch.

Sony and Universal also debuted a handful of titles in the format, but nearly three months after opening, UltraViolet is still not a household word.

Many consumers are still a little hazy on the platform, but in essence it allows users to stream and store movies and TV shows they purchase on multiple devices. The hope is that UltraViolet will tilt the equation back in favor of owning content rather than renting movies and TV programs through Netflix or Redbox.

Although all of the major studios except Disney have backed UltraViolet, it has to move forward without the participation of one massive entertainment provider, Apple and its iTunes store.

To that end, DECE is excited that Amazon has signed an agreement with a major studio that includes granting UltraViolet rights, giving the consortium, an important digital partner. Bill Carr, executive vice president of digital media at Amazon, announced the pact at CES, but did not name the studio or tip his hand about the extent of the online retailer's involvement.

Helping to further compensate for Apple's absence, Samsung is rolling out new features on its Blu-ray players that streamline the process for customers looking to add their discs to the cloud.

Moreover, UltraViolet has taken its first steps toward being global in nature, launching with copies of "Final Destination 5" in the United Kingdom. DECE plans to begin UltraViolet roll-out in Canada in the coming months and other territories in 2012 and 2013.

And an important new studio partner has joined the fray. Paramount has quietly announced that it will launch its first UltraViolet titles, beginning with "Paranormal Activity 3" on November 24, and Fox and Lionsgate are expected to roll out films in the near future.

Though the excitement for UltraViolet is measured, the movie business is likely heartened by the most recent Digital Entertainment Group study that show the smallest slide in home entertainment revenue since 2008.

Though the sector constricted by 2 percent to an estimated $18.04 billion in 2011, there was a 20 percent jump in Blu-ray spending and a 51 percent jump in digital spending. Those two trend lines augur well for UltraViolet and its mission to encourage consumers to keep buying movies for their home libraries -- whether they exist in the digital cloud or in wooden shelf form.

So why not launch with a bigger bang?

Studio executives say that the slow-burning rollout is analogous to Blu-ray, which was launched in 2006 with modest fanfare against the competing HD DVD format. Since then it has grown steadily, if not stratospherically.

"We consciously followed a path to build up an organic and gradual adoption," Teitell said. "We think that as positive word of mouth starts and more studios and more content and more devices come out, we'll start to grow faster. Those things are going to happen as we build more awareness about what UltraViolet does."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...80A08S20120111

[Kosty]

Daniel Frankel Jan 10, 2012 3:56 PM

The Bleeding In The Home Entertainment Business Slowed In 2011


The home-entertainment business has been pummeled in recent years, with revenues falling for seven years in a row, in one year a full 8 percent. But last year, according to the latest numbers from a research group, things brightened slightly, thanks mostly to the rapid growth of digital streaming.

The Digital Entertainment Group, a research consortium backed by Hollywood’s major studios, released data Tuesday showing that overall home entertainment revenue declined only 2 percent in 2011. As shrinkage goes, it was the smallest since 2008 for the challenged entertainment sector, which tallied $18.4 billion in total rentals and sales for the year, according to DEG. That $18.4 billion includes the revenue for everything from DVD and Blu-ray, to cable and satellite VOD, to downloads and streaming, of movie and TV content. Interestingly, in the second half of 2011, the DEG reported that revenue from rentals and sales of “home filmed entertainment,” physical and digital alike, actually rose 1 percent.

Even though the DEG is backed by the studios, its revenue numbers are often cited as official benchmarks of industry performance. According to the DEG, the home entertainment market has declined every year since 2004, when it peaked at $21.8 billion, mainly because of the decline of DVD sales.

One caveat to the latest numbers from the DEG: They were helped by a change in the group’s equation. For the first time, the DEG included revenue from subscription streaming services, which resulted in nearly $994.6 million in additional revenue for 2011.

Overall digital spending for home entertainment – which includes VOD through various carrier services like DirecTV (NYSE: DTV) and Comcast, and electronic sell-through via vendors like Apple’s iTunes – was up 50 percent, according to the trade group, to $3.4 billion.

SEE ALSO: Interview Part 2: Netflix’s Hastings Hurt By Criticism But Over Transition

The kiosk business continued to grow, too, with rentals through outlets like Redbox increasing 31 percent to $1.66 billion. And rentals of Blu-ray and DVD through subscription services like Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX) kept on growing, as well, increasing 4.1 percent to $2.36 billion.

As the studio-backed trade group is prone to do, it touted the performance of high-margin physical media, noting that Blu-ray sales and rentals had increased 20 percent in 2011, reaching $2 billion for the first time.

Still, the market’s legacy revenue streams remain in steep decline. Rental through brick-and-mortar outlets continued to circle the drain, declining 29 percent to just $1.64 billion. And overall sales of “packaged goods” – DVD and Blu-ray – declined 13 percent to $8.9 billion, brought down by the continued cratering of the older format.

http://m.paidcontent.org/article/419...lowed-in-2011/

[Kosty]

DEG Numbers Are Good News for Home Entertainment


10 Jan, 2012
By: Thomas K. Arnold



Consumer home entertainment spending numbers, released Jan. 9 by DEG: The Digital Entertainment Group, should have Hollywood studio executives jumping for joy.

Sure, total consumer spending on home entertainment for 2011 was down about 2% from the previous year, with a surprisingly strong third quarter followed by a disappointing fourth quarter.

And, yes, spending on packaged media — still Hollywood's bread-and-butter — once again declined in the double digits, albeit not as dramatically as in the last two or three years.

But let's take a big-picture view of what happened. For starters, a 2% drop is virtually inconsequential, given the explosion of the app market in 2011 and all those eyeballs caught up in the novelty of playing Zombie Highway or Tiny Towers on their iPhones and iPads.

What's more, the box office value of movies that came to home entertainment in 2011 was off 8.7%, and that's traditionally been a spot-on indicator of how the home entertainment sector will fare.

As for the decline in packaged-media sales, I wish to make two points: First of all, did any of you happen to wander into a Walmart, Target or Best Buy during the holidays? Recent Blu-ray releases were selling for less than $10, while DVDs could be bought for as little as $3. Heck, I'm surprised consumer spending isn't down a lot more, given the record deep-discounting we saw in the last three months of 2011.

Each year we talk about the "race to the bottom," but based on what I saw on my own excursions to retail land in the weeks leading up to Christmas I fear next year we might find retailers giving consumers free discs just for walking through their doors.

Secondly, consumers are firmly in a state of transition. The movie collecting habit, fueled by the novelty of DVD a decade ago, is definitely waning — a product, I believe, of consumers opening their cupboards and seeing stacks of movies still in their original shrinkwrap. DVD triggered a feeding frenzy, and today, consumers, older and wiser, have simply come to realize they don't need to buy every movie that comes out just because they can.

That's why the biggest gains in 2011 were on the rental side, both physical (kiosks) and digital (VOD). Those gains, in fact, prevented the year from being a disaster, faithfully offsetting declines in sellthrough.

So, in a nutshell, consumers are by no means turning their back on bringing movies into the home. In fact, in terms of sheer transactions, I have a hunch the numbers are up, way up, despite apps, iPads and all the other distractions.

It's just the delivery method that's changing, with consumers opting to watch movies instead of also choosing to own them.

The mainstream media, no doubt, will again zero in on the drop in disc sales and proclaim the home entertainment industry to be at death's door. It's what they do.

But we know better. And if you happen to run into any skeptics, pass this column along to them. A little education never hurt.

Related Links :
DEG: Blu-ray, Digital Helped Lift 2011

http://www.homemediamagazine.com/tks...-entertainment

[Kosty]

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[Kosty]

Thank you for your consideration.

I may have this thread open from time to time in preparation of it opening. Please do not post in this thread until its made ready.

Thread closed for the moment.

Please continue the discussion in the current 2011 thread until this thread is ready.

Kosty


2011 Blu-ray Sales Metrics Stats: Weekly-HMM Nielsen/Videoscan Quarterly-Rentrak/DEG

[Kosty]

2012 weeks now posted below.

[Kosty]

reserved x 1