Hollywood in turmoil as DVD sales drop and downloads steal the show -- Dan Sabbagh
The sale of DVDs has been falling since 2007, but the Digital Entertainment Group (DEG) reported that physical sales collapsed 19% to $2.2bn (£1.3bn) in the first quarter, while high-street rental also plunged by 36% to $440m, in a period when Blockbuster was in Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Online downloads and streaming through services such as Netflix, by contrast, grew quickly, although not enough to avert a 10% decline in the total home entertainment market to $4.2bn.
Ephemeralization of movies will lead to huge swaths of the entertainment marketplace collapsing, like Blockbuster. Redbox and its competitors have a way to go, but they are strictly transitional, too.
Just as big will be the death of DVD/Blu Ray players, as streaming becomes the principal distribution, and then TVs, as more and more of streamed movies and entertainment is watched on mobile devices and PCs.
Sell everything, like Sony, Panasonic, and all the others. They are walking dead.
