http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/no ... mp-blu-ray
Even my beloved Doctor Who is not safe (after being mentioned regarding iTunes before)The home entertainment experience is being transformed, with content delivered on-demand through web-enabled set-top boxes, games consoles, and now the iPad, which has stolen the DVD's crown as the fastest-adopted consumer device. The recession has driven consumer spending towards cheaper rentals, depriving studios of those juicy box-set profits. The income generated by the arrival of Blu-ray, the ability to download episodes of Doctor Who on iTunes at £2.49 per escapade and stream films on demand, has so far failed to offset the decline in physical sales, a pattern that resulted in a shrinkage of the recorded music industry.
But its not just the BBC and/or UK that is hurting...Even the biggest British brands, with an army of obsessive followers, are struggling to make an impact. In spite of the extensive marketing campaign surrounding all things Doctor Who, the Guardian understands that sales of the current series five DVD and Blu-ray box-set combined stand at just 17,000. Sherlock, this year's breakthrough BBC1 drama hit, has managed 54,000 sales so far, hardly sufficient for a silver disc in the music chart equivalent.
[ as an aside, MGM has the largest library of film classics? Isn't that Warner Bros?]Viacom, the owner of Paramount Pictures, reported a 43% drop in home-entertainment revenue this year, citing a slump in the number of releases. Time Warner, the owner of Warner Bros, faced an 8% decline while Lions Gate reported a 22% drop.
The Motion Picture Association of America said the number of features produced in the US fell from 928 in 2006 to 677 in 2009. Revenues from MGM's 4,000-title library of film classics, the biggest in Hollywood, almost halved over the last year, the final blow in the studio's fight to stave off bankruptcy. Online video on-demand, dominated in the US by Netflix, which has 17 million subscribers and is soon to launch in the UK, sounded the death knell for Blockbuster, the video rental giant, which followed MGM into the bankruptcy courts in September.
Chilling news indeed. It seems the problem isn't Blu-ray (which is slowly gaining ground - at a much slower pace than when DVD was introduced at the end of the previous decade) but from various streaming services. Anyone with a laptop, games console or even a web enabled TV can stream/rent movies for a small fee.James Cameron's Avatar sold 6m copies in three weeks, prompting an 86% Blu-ray surge. Richard Cooper, Screen Digest's senior video analyst, says: "This is the first decline the DVD market has seen on a global basis. But even though you wouldn't want to launch a premium product like Blu-ray in a recession, the format is now beginning to compensate for the revenue decline, after a difficult start."
Yet even Fox is finding the 3D Avatar spectacular a difficult act to follow on its balance sheet. Despite a strong Christmas release schedule, featuring Inception and Toy Story 3, and the Blu-ray infusion, industry analysts predict that the UK DVD market will still fall by 2% in 2010.
Supermarkets are piling up copies of Toy Story 3 but they are using the film as a loss-leader, flogging the discs for a cut-price £8 in Asda and £5 in Morrisons, as part of wider Christmas promotions.
And in tough economic times, who needs a £20 Clash of The Titans Blu-ray/DVD combo pack, when you can stream it directly through a PlayStation 3 console and watch it on your TV as part of a £6-a-month subscription from the LoveFilm rental service?
I always wondered if Hollywood wasn't perhaps digging a hole for itself with such services. I suppose on the plus side, they will remain strong income streams in the future, and perhaps the studios were worried about DVD sales dropping off once most of their back catalogue titles had been released a couple of times or more. But some of these pricing options are incredibly cheap for the hours of entertainment available. LoveFilm (basically a UK NetFlix) is outstanding value for money, and is available on PCs, the PS3 and certain web-enabled TV sets.
Now to me, this means that prices for DVDs and Blu-rays have to come down - much as I love Doctor Who, the UK sets were overpriced which is no doubt contributing to the slow sales. But it also means that content producers need to make much more imaginative discs. Special features need not only to be present in spades, but producers need to look beyond the obvious. Promoting and experimenting with the positives of physical media can only result in more sales.
