DVD Sales Drop 20% in Q1 2011, Netflix May be to Blame
DVD Sales Drop 20% in Q1 2011, Netflix May be to Blame
Posted 05/04/2011 at 2:48pm
| by Ryan Whitwam
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When was the last time you bought a DVD? Net-who – oh, Netflix? Yeah, that's what we thought. You aren't alone in your gradual migration to streaming video content. A new report indicates that DVD sales have dropped off 20% in the first quarter of 2011 when compared to a year ago.
The studios have attempted to brush this off as a quirk of release cycles, but many observers are not so sure. At the same time DVD sales are dropping precipitously, Netflix subscriptions have shot up 33%. More and more, consumers prefer to pay a flat fee to get unlimited content, much of it streaming. This is a lesson Blockbuster has learned the hard way, one has to wonder how studios will cope.
It's not all gloom and doom, though. The first weeks of the second quarter of 2011 is off to a good start. Sales are up 20% so far. There were four hugely profitable releases in the first part of 2010, but no film made that same impact this year. Do you think Hollywood will see any movie releases later this year to make up the difference?
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Jims45wow
May 09, 2011 at 1:05pm
What was it that Billy boy told George I?
Oh, yes: It's the economy, stupid.
Slugbait
May 04, 2011 at 9:17pm
I think that it is partially due to release cycle...not a lot of "must-have" movies released lately.
But I also think HD has a little to do with it...a lot more people are buying HDTVs now that prices have dropped so low, and they subsequently need a source to take advantage of the resolution, so their "must-have" movies are being purchased on the Blu-ray platform.
Netflix has been around for a long time now, and I think I read something a couple of years ago that blamed their DVD rental schema for sales drops of DVDs. But most people I know recently subscribed to Netflix for other content as well, helping them to reduce (or cut) the high cable fees.
Of course, there is also all of those people "getting back to work" after the recession, working for much lower salaries/wages than they made previously. People are being more conservative with their in-home entertainment expenses. If you are only going to watch a movie three or five times, it's much cheaper to go Redbox than to buy the disc...or just add it to the queue again with Netflix.
In answer to the question: some good movies being released this year, so Hollywood should make up some ground with Christmas sales.
Neufeldt2002
May 04, 2011 at 6:23pm
Actually, the last DVD I bought was just the other day. I would rather have the DVD then stream things on Netflix as I have a BW Cap that I don't want to go over.
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Caboose
May 05, 2011 at 8:59am
You have a data cap, not a bandwidth cap. Unless your ISP throttles your speed when you reach a set amount of data, yet doesn't charge you for more data.
I somewhat agree w/your statement. There are some movies that I would rather have the physical copy of instead of streaming, however there are also some movies that are just so hard to find these days, or find a proper copy of, that Netflix is the next best thing. Plus Netflix doesn't take up space in my movie cabinet.
And once Netflix has been released for Android, my conversion to mobile computing will be complete. (now read that sentence in The Emperor's voice)
Ok, no, I'll still use a desktop and laptop, but my Netflix account will really get a workout then.
Luminosity47
May 04, 2011 at 7:06pm
Hopefully it was only 1 DVD as buying a load of DVDs would be just as costly as going over your BW cap, eh? Just a thought..
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