I want to talk about the state of physical media right now. By physical media, I mean DVD/Blu-Ray/4K UHD. I also want to talk about why physical media isn’t dying. I’ve been seeing a lot of pundits on YouTube crying about the “death of physical media.” Here’s a statistic for you, and this comes from The NPD Group, a research company as of May of 2023: Physical media is still generating $1.34 billion dollars annually in the United States alone. You know what means? People are still buying physical media. Now, here’s another statistic: According to Media Play News, total disc sales dropped 22.72 percent from last year during the last week of September. So, why the discrepancy? Well, the fact of the matter is that the market has changed. With the dawn of the streaming age, people are subscribing more to streaming services which offers a massive ton of content for a steady price. Whereas, with physical media, people have to shell out for each copy of the film or TV show. As streaming has become more prevalent, physical media has begun seeing a decline. In fact, physical media has been seeing a decline of at least 25 percent each year, which is around 20-23 million. These are the facts.
What is also a fact is that streaming hasn’t been as profitable for major studios as they’d had hoped. There are only so many households on the planet that you can reach, and if you somehow reach them all, your revenue stream will hit a plateau, where you won’t be making anymore money. A lot of streamers now are offering tiers of service that include ads. But that’s not enough, and we’re seeing movie studios just drop content from their services if they don’t bring in enough subscriptions. That’s the only way these services make money. Netflix’s entire revenue structure is based around its streaming content. Companies like Amazon and Apple can afford to do streaming because that’s not their core service or industry. It’s just another revenue stream. The reason I bring all this up is because earlier this week, it was announced through Variety and other trades that Best Buy was going to pull all of its physical media out their stores next year. They’ll still be selling video games, though. Movies and TV show? Not so much. When this hit the interwebs, everybody was crying wolf, saying this heralded the end of physical media. No. If anything it’s heralding the end of Best Buy, which has become nothing more than a glorified phone kiosk which also happens to sell appliances, TVs, and computers. That’s it. If you’ve been in a Best Buy over the past 5 or so years, you have seen their movie selection shrink from AISLES of titles to one set of shelves and a couple of displays.
Best Buy really isn’t doing well. Their revenue has been decreasing year after year. I honestly don’t expect them to survive another decade. I really don’t. Target is also removing physical media from some of its store, because they aren’t generating enough to make it worth stocking and displaying them. The reason for that is that the audience is different. Younger audiences aren’t as interested in collecting physical media as the rest of us. BUT: There’s reason to hope. There are still brick and mortar stores like Walmart that will continue to stock physical media. Boutique labels like Shout Factory, Criterion and Kino Lorber are picking up the slack. There are also online retailers that specifically deal in physical media like DiabolikDVD and Gruv. I’ll post links at the end. Physical media isn’t dying. It’s shrinking. It’s going back to the niche market that it used to be in the 70s and 80s with VHS and Betamax. Physical media didn’t really explode until Tremors hit the shelves in 1990. Then it took off. When DVD entered the picture in 1997/98, it was all the rage. Same thing with Blu-Ray. The way audiences have consumed media has evolved over the last 40 years. But studios like Disney are starting to realize that they can’t just dismiss physical media out of hand, because the money they get from those sales is not insignificant.
That brings up another issue: What happens when optical disc players are no longer being manufactured? We’ve seen multiple companies exit the optical player industry. But there are still companies out there that still build these things, even if it is at a loss. Sony has their PlayStation 5 which is also a 4K player. Same deal with the Xbox Series X, although, Xbox just introduced a refreshed system that doesn’t have an optical drive. PS5 is also getting a “slimmer” version, but it does give the consumer the option of having the optical drive or not. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that all these companies decide not to build anymore of these players? What happens then? Well, someone on YouTube, I forget who, said that some of these boutique labels would be willing to pick up the slack, by manufacturing their own. Physical media is going to be around for quite a while. Yeah, most brick and mortar stores are getting out of that, but most people these days are buying stuff online anyway, whether it’s through Amazon or Walmart. THAT’S where physical media’s going. It’s going to be for those of us that really do care about preserving movies in any format. There’s a lot of us collectors out there that are willing to pay good money for quality products. It’s just good business. Make US happy, we make YOU happy. So, NO, physical media ISN’T dying. It’s slowing down, but if I’m being honest, there are more movies being announced for Blu-Ray/DVD/4K then there have been in the past year or so. There’s STILL a market for this stuff, you just have to look. You wanna know something that’s really funny? Of the three formats, basic DVD is outselling Blu-Ray AND 4K combined. I still buy some movies on standard DVD. So, don’t believe the hype that physical media’s going away anytime soon. It’s not. The market is simply changing as per the technology. Honestly, if these big-ass studios continue to erase content that people watch from their services, audiences will leave those services. If anything, I expect physical media to make a pretty big comeback in the next year or so. I’ve got no evidence on that, it’s just a gut feeling.
I almost forgot: Here are some links to various boutique labels and online retailers aside from Amazon and Walmart that you should check out:
DiabolikDVD
Gruv
Deep Discount
Synapse Films
Shout Factory
Criterion
Kino Lorber
MVD