2010 Blu-ray Sales Metrics Stats: Nielsen/Videoscan/HMM Charts/Ratios/Bestsellers Etc

[Kosty]

GE: ‘DVDs Had a Good Quarter’
...

Universal Studios Home Entertainment’s DVD/Blu-ray Disc release of comedy Couples Retreat proved a retail champion, selling 5 million units since its Feb. 9 bow and helping NBC Universal boost first quarter (ended March 31) operating revenue 23% to $4.3 billion.

Unfortunately, the film starring Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau could not overcome poor TV ad sales and related cost associated with the Vancouver Winter Olympics, which contributed to NBC Universal reporting operating income of $199 million – down 49% from operating income of $391 million during the previous-year period.

TV ratings for the Vancouver Games were up 14% from the Turin Winter Games in 2006.

Without the Olympics, NBCU, which is in the process of being spun off by corporate parent General Electric to Comcast for $30 billion, would have reported an operating income increase of 1% and flat revenue.

“DVDs had a good quarter,” said GE CFO Keith Sherin in an April 16 investor call.

Sherin said the media segment continued to be scrutined with the TV ad market remaining challenged in an economic recession, and Universal Pictures struggling to find a box office winner.

Indeed, the studio is ranked fifth among major studios at the domestic box office in 2010, generating $209 million (6.8% market share) with seven theatrical releases through April 15, including The Wolfman with $61.9 million in ticket sales, according to BoxOfficeMojo.com.

The studio ranked sixth in 2009 with 20 releases, including Couples Retreat, which was released Oct. 9, and generated $109.2 million at the domestic box office. Universal's top grossing movie in 2009 was Fast and Furious with $155 million in U.S. ticket sales.

Without a strong box office, home entertainment has suffered. USHE, which had the second highest selling packaged media release in 2008 with Mama Mia!, has been roling out dual-format “flipper” catalog/new releases that include DVD/Blu-ray versions of a movie on opposite sides of a single disc.

Upcoming "flipper" disc releases include Out of Africa 25th Anniversary Edition, Traffic and The Jackal on April 27.

“Film remains challenged but we should see growth in NBCU through the balance of the year,” Sherin said.

http://www.homemediamagazine.com/uni...-quarter-19114

[Kosty]

Working on new chart for the set, relevant for this discussion of 1Q 2010

Its the year to year comparison of the DVD and Blu-ray units that are on the weekly Top 20 Sellers charts that Home Media Magazine creates of the Nielsen Videoscan first alert data.

[Kosty]

HMM is up with the rest of the data from the week ending 4/11/10.



The lack of any sales for new releases, because there really was no major new release, as shown in the graphic above for the Top 20 unit sales, really explains a lot of the revenue fall in the year to year comparisons. As stated above its also a calender quirk that last years Easter holiday sales week in 2009 is being compared to this years week after Easter slow release week in 2010. The lack of new releases to home video for the week ending 4/11/10 magnified that seasonal YTY comparison artifact.






http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ques...startid=Cover2

[Kosty]

Projections: ‘Holmes’ Should Be Top Title Again (week ending 4/18/10)

By : Kelly Burner | Posted: 19 Apr 2010

For the second consecutive week there were no major theatrical releases debuting on DVD and Blu-ray Disc. Last week (ended April 11) the title with the highest box office gross was the Vivendi horror flick The Collector, with only $7 million in theatrical revenue. This week was a similar story, with Universal’s comedy Pirate Radio the highest box office performer, grossing $8 million in theatrical revenue.

With no strong competition, it is likely that a holdover title will again grab No. 1 on the top sales and rental charts for the week. The most likely candidate is Warner’s Sherlock Holmes, which took the top spot on both the sales and rental charts for the week ended April 11.

The week ending April 18 did see the Blu-ray debut of Ron Howard’s 1995 film Apollo 13, which will likely debut high on the national top Blu-ray sellers chart.

Projected Top 3 Sellers for Week Ending 4/18/2010

1  Sherlock Holmes Warner 3
2  The Blind Side Warner 4
3  Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel Fox  3

http://www.homemediamagazine.com/res...le-again-19085

April 13, 2010 BD

Apollo 13 (Universal)
Crazy on the Outside (20th Century Fox)
Gone with the Wind: Scarlett Edition (Warner Brothers)
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) (New Line Cinema)
Pirate Radio (Universal)
The Slammin' Salmon (Starz/Anchor Bay)

http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/rele...istorical.html

Street	Title	          Box Office

4/13/10	Pirate Radio  	        $8.02
4/13/10	Defendor	        $0.04
4/13/10	The Slammin' Salmon	$0.04
	
	Total Box Office Power:	$8.10

New Releases: April 13, 2010

Theatrical and Direct-to-Video
Pirate Radio (Universal, DVD and Blu-ray)
Tenderness (Lionsgate, DVD)
Defendor (Sony Pictures, DVD)
The Slammin’ Salmon (Anchor Bay, DVD and Blu-ray)
Haunted (Phase 4, DVD)
The Madeline Movie: Lost in Paris (Shout! Factory, DVD)
Creature of Darkness (MTI, DVD)
Storm Seekers (Image, DVD)
Tenure (DVD)
The Indomitable Teddy Roosevelt (Reality, DVD)
Danny the Dragon Meets Jimmy (Victory Multimedia, DVD)
Plunder: The Crime of Our Time (Disinformation, DVD)
Crimes of the Past (Osiris, DVD)

Re-Releases
Apollo 13: 15th Anniversary Edition (Universal, Blu-ray)
The Great Mouse Detective: Mystery in the Mist Edition (Disney, DVD)
A Nightmare on Elm Street (Warner, Blu-ray)
Gone With the Wind: Scarlett Edition (Warner, Blu-ray)
The Best Man (MGM, CreateSpace DVD)
Essential Arthouse: Kapo (Criterion, DVD)
Essential Arthouse: 8 1/2 (Criterion, DVD)

TV DVD
Dallas: Season 13 (Warner, DVD)
Emergency! Season 6 (Universal, DVD)
Alias Smith And Jones: Seasons 2&3 (Timeless, DVD)
Dora the Explorer: Explore the Earth (Paramount/Nickelodeon, DVD)
Tom and Jerry Tales: Season 1 (Warner, DVD)
The Official Inauguration Celebration (HBO, DVD)
Riddles of the Sphinx (PBS, DVD)
Gospel Calling: Mahalia Jackson Sings (Infinity, DVD)

[cleeve]

I'm thinking the week ending 4/18 might be pretty rough for BD.

[Kosty]

The new release total box office power really really is bad but sales usually rebound a bit in the 2nd week after Easter. The YTY comparison will be helped by the week after Easter bunny hangover effect in 2009. Apollo 13 should do some Blu-ray sales as well. But overall yeah, it should pretty much suck as a sales week too.

[Kosty]

The week ending 4/11/10 had the TBO was 9.41 M for the week which was down by their revised total of $96.40%

Street	Title	Box Office

4/6/10	Bad Lieutenant	$1.70
4/6/10	The Collector	$7.71

	Total Box Office Power:	$9.41

Last weeks charts also had that the week ending 4/18/10 also had a very low $8.10 M total box office take which is also way down -84.97% from the comparable week in 2009.

Street	Title	          Box Office

4/13/10	Pirate Radio  	        $8.02
4/13/10	Defendor	        $0.04
4/13/10	The Slammin' Salmon	$0.04
	
	Total Box Office Power:	$8.10

Thats next week ending on 4/25/10. Where Avatar makes things go off the charts.

Street	Title	     Box Office

4/22/10	Avatar	               $743.85
4/20/10	Crazy Heart	        $38.83
4/20/10 The Young Victoria	$10.91
4/20/10	The Lovely Bones	$44.03
	
	Total Box Office Power:	$837.62

[Kosty]

I think Avatar will get 35% minimum. It should be a hardware driver, meaning that even folks without BD players will by the Blu-ray version (with DVD) in anticipation of their next disc player being BD.

Thats my guess too. But I would not be shocked if a huge huge number of DVD sales depressed somewhat those Blu-ray revenue and unit marketshare percentage metrics even if a very large amount of Blu-ray discs were sold. Blu-ray and DVD revenues should both obviously be records for 2010, its a question on how will compare to a 4Q holiday week thats going to be interesting.

[Kosty]

From Nikki Finke's Deadline Hollywood

Forecast: Online Movie Pot Of Gold Fading

Uh-oh. You know how online movies are always being held up as the pot of gold waiting at the end of the rainbow? How downloading movies, or streaming them over the internet, will more than make up for dwindling DVD revenue? Well, London-based consultancy Screen Digest has downgraded its digital film sales forecasts by one third.

The consultancy, whose forecasts all the Hollywood studios subscribe to, has slashed its digital film revenue estimate from $1.5 billion in 2014 to $943 million.

It seems we’re just not as keen to watch movies on PCs and on our Xboxes as Hollywood wants us to be.

Alarm bells rang when last year’s digital film sale revenue was off by 19%. Screen Digest had predicted $360 million in sales. The reality was $291 million. This is the first time that Screen Digest has restated its forecasts for the sector since 2006.

Senior analyst Arash Amel tells me that 2009’s results hide a more troubling figure. The drop off in interest in downloading movies to own is even steeper. The consultancy expected DTO to generate $250 million last year. Now it believes the industry struggled to pass $199 million.

Amel says, “Download-to-own has always been seen as the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, just out of reach. Well, that pot of gold is fading.”

Deadline Hollywood

[Kosty]

What's next for the home video market?
Commentary: DVD's decline is spurring new business models

By Jeffrey Korchek
April 19, 2010, 10:18 PM ET

Oh DVD, you used to be so big. You arrived in 1997, with your roots in the optical videodisc system, DiscoVision, first developed by the former corporate parent of Universal Studios, MCA. In no time you bested VHS, which itself had not only transformed the movie business by providing both a new revenue stream and a convenient way to watch movies at home whenever people wanted, wearing whatever, but had also created an entirely new business: the video store.

You and your bonus features -- Commentary! Outtakes! Alternate endings! We never knew there was so much to "Cabin Boy"! -- eventually became more than 50% of a motion picture's revenue. And, you even had your own release day: Tuesday.

Even better, the studios got to make 80% of the revenue from your sales totally disappear from participation and guild residual statements because everybody accepted the concept of a 20% royalty. Genius. More so because the actual cost to make you was less than $1, and your wholesale price is now around $15 (though don't get all grand on us about that because your revenue is just part of the calculus of greenlighting a picture).

But then the economy tanked; your sales dropped 30% from your peak; Wal-Mart, representing over 40% of domestic DVD sales, decided it wanted a clean store and that you were cluttering it up -- not to mention that it sold you below cost anyway. And the new you, Blu-ray, which was going to cause everyone to buy the same movies all over again at a higher cost has yet to live up to expectations.

You used to be big, and it's not like the pictures have gotten smaller. Actually, they got bigger because of you. So what's next?

Inspired by the dismal economy and the drop in DVD revenue, studios are rethinking how they make talent deals -- eliminating first-dollar gross, limiting writers to one guaranteed draft and generally doing what they should have been doing years ago when DVD revenue was at its peak: trying to run their business like a business instead of a lottery. Because it's the movie business, there always needs to be the dream of a windfall in the future, and this year's entrant in the everything old is new again category, 3D, is the next best hope. But the decline in the DVD business has broader implications that are not answered by converting every movie to 3D, and in the same way that the introduction of DVD changed the face of the business, the migration away from the format is changing it again.

Although the dollar volume of DVD sales is down, when you add the sell-through numbers to rental sales, the total number of transactions demonstrate consumers' continuing love affair with watching movies at home. The success of "Alice in Wonderland," despite the well-publicized controversy of its shortened exclusive theatrical window, could show that good movies always attract people. Even though the "Alice" DVD is coming out almost before patrons get out of the multiplex parking lot, it does give hope to studio marketing executives that they can take advantage of all the theatrical ad spending since about 80% of DVD sales take place in the first four weeks of release.

Or maybe it's that there isn't an acceptable mass home-viewing alternative for 3D at the moment, and "Alice's" grosses are inflated by the 3D upcharge. Whether 3D will pick up the slack in the home entertainment market from 2D DVDs remains to be seen. This is the year for introducing 3D TVs into the home, but it will take awhile to get penetration, not to mention the issue of no single standard for glasses. (You would think by now they'd get together on this sort of thing.)

As far as converting older movies to 3D, similar to the question of converting to Blu-ray, it's not certain that the market is there. In addition to the technical issues that most of those older movies aren't good enough to convert, there are the movies themselves. Want to see "Casablanca" in 3D? It should be against the law. But Russ Meyer's "Super Vixens" in 3D? Absolutely.

What should have everyone's attention, however, isn't the technology but the delivery mechanism that people will use to get the movies into their homes. As DVD sales have fallen and a trip to the video store is less appealing, Netflix and Redbox have taken off, with VOD right around the corner. And all three have dramatic revenue implications for studios -- as well as talent and the guilds -- that love them.

For studios, the revenue-share deals on Redbox and Netflix are not particularly lucrative. Netflix tends to commoditize movies with its subscription basis, so that the consumer views it as free. Since 70% of the titles that are viewed on Netflix are catalog, which earn nothing for studios after six months of availability, it actually becomes free.

From the studio perspective, Redbox is worse because like Napster it degrades the value of the product. Consumers might have a different view of $1 rentals.

VOD may be the better alternative for consumer and studio alike. For consumers, the below-$5 price point is affordable, and how many movies are worth owning anyway? For studios, a VOD transaction is a license, affording them more control like theatrical distribution. But there are alternatives: Sony and Microsoft are talking about putting your movies in a cloud, just like Jell-O did with pudding, so that consumers can watch their movies on any of their multiple platforms. That pits them against Apple and its proprietary system, which manages 75% of the VOD market and 95% of download-to-own transactions.

But there's a catch: Although there is some lack of clarity among studios, VOD generally is treated as television distribution in profit definitions and for guild residual purposes, meaning that 100%, not 20%, of studio revenue is included in gross revenue for those purposes. As consumers migrate to in-home transactions like VOD, the financial implications are more complex than merely replacing one purchase transaction with another.

Fox and Universal recently joined Warner Bros. in signing a deal with Netflix that allows for a 28-day delay on new releases in exchange for better purchase terms. Netflix also will buy more movies to allow for more availability of streaming. But then, streaming generally is treated as a television exhibition, so now studios are back to sharing more of the proceeds. See, it's complicated and a lot messier than a house in a Nancy Meyers movie.

The issues facing the motion picture business and the economic system surrounding it are enormous and complex because nothing about the pictures is ever small. Unfortunately, planning for the future often is orphaned when the next big hit or new technology comes along. Without a comprehensive plan, though, the business is in danger of its dreams of a brilliant future being already behind it, and as Nick Carraway would note, studio executives -- so slavishly devoted to the green light -- will be thinking they are moving forward as they are borne back ceaselessly into the past.

Jeffrey Korchek, vp legal and business affairs at Mattel, worked at Universal as executive vp business and legal affairs. He is an adjunct professor at the USC School of Cinematic Arts.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/...835161e772c7ed

[ack_bak]

But there's a catch: Although there is some lack of clarity among studios, VOD generally is treated as television distribution in profit definitions and for guild residual purposes, meaning that 100%, not 20%, of studio revenue is included in gross revenue for those purposes. As consumers migrate to in-home transactions like VOD, the financial implications are more complex than merely replacing one purchase transaction with another.

Interesting. I expect to see another strike as hollywood studios try to reclassify VOD in the future to be closer to that 20% transaction like DVD.

[Malanthius]

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/...835161e772c7ed

"And the new you, Blu-ray, which was going to cause everyone to buy the same movies all over again at a higher cost has yet to live up to expectations"

OMG! There are others besides myself who think this was a common expectation?


Who are these people?!

[vinnie97]

With the way things are going (economically speaking and in the realm of BD uptake, which I do think are interrelated), I expect many of those remaining HD DVD exclusives to never arrive.

[Kosty]

Both of them?

[Kosty]

I'm working on the week ending 4/11/10 top 20 units charts and graphs now.

The last week ending 4/11/10 look interesting like watching a train crash or slow drive by a car accident sort of macabre kinda of way.

The impact of no major new releases and the poor new release total box office numbers affected the Top 20 units even worse than the revenue comparisons.

Yuck.