Monday December 22, 2009 – Maya Jasmin
So Black Friday has come and gone and holiday shopping has officially entered the last minute stage and while hunting down my son’s Christmas requests I was stopped in my tracks by one seemingly harmless item. Now you may think it’s because I combed the world (both physical and cyber) over and couldn’t find the new hot “it” item, good guess but you would be wrong. My problem was quite the opposite; I had too many options from which to choose to grant this particular wish to my child
You see, I was trying to decide in which format I should purchase his favorite movie and apparently the makers of the movie weren’t too sure in which format (DVD, BD, electronic download) consumers want to have it either. My 4 year old has numerous video playback options – laptop, DVD, and BD.
Now maybe I was just delirious from continuous days of holiday shopping but this dilemma kept the movie on my list way longer than need be and got me to thinking how these various avenues of video distribution are faring in today’s marketplace.
According to DTC DVD is still king, currently DTC estimates that over 5 billion pre-recorded units will ship by year end 2009 and 4.8 billion units will ship in 2010. While decline is projected throughout the entire forecast period 3.5 billion units are still expected to ship in 2014, hardly a number to frown upon. Internet program buys also boast impressive estimates, coming in at 255 million in 2009 growing to 416 million and 946 million in 2010 and 2014 respectively. So while this toddler- phased content delivery option has a tall order to fill before it outpaces pre-packaged optical disc shipments, it’s faring pretty well.
Then there’s BD, the once thought heir apparent to DVD. DTC expects that 262 million BD will ship in 2009 growing to 591 million in 2010. By 2014 DTC expects that 1.9 billion BD will ship in that same year. So while BD shipments may never reach the success its predecessor, DVD, reached in its peak, BD is making a name for itself. Now armed with an arsenal of data and analysis I revisited my movie dilemma and what did I do?
I purchased the BD bundle that comes with a DVD and an electronic download version of the title; I figured there was no way I could go wrong with that. But I wonder how much longer I’ll be met with that option when purchasing video entertainment. The fact that the studio bundled an electronic download can’t be a good sign for packaged media. The day may soon come when I won’t even bother with the disc and just buy the electronic version. But then I can’t wrap it up, put a red bow around it and put it under the tree.
