Disc sales continue to plummet

[Smokey]

Disc sales continued to plummet throughout the first half of the year, as more consumers opted to rent or stream movies rather than purchase them on DVD or Blu-ray. Overall rental market jumped nearly 11 percent to $4.2 billion.

Digital Entertainment Group reported an 18 percent drop in disc sales to $3.9 billion in the first six months of the year. Overall spending dipped 5 percent to $8.5 billion during the period, with a double-digit gain in rental spending making up for much of the decline in disc sales.

According to the DEG report, Blu-ray spending rose more than 10 percent in the period. Another source of growth was the subscription and kiosk business such as Netflix and Redbox. The subscription market grew 46 percent to $1.6 billion while the kiosk sector jumped 40 percent to $805 million.

Entire digital catagory-including downloads and video on demand , rose 4% to reached $1.2 billion during first six months of the year.

Disc sales continue to plummet but rental sales rise - Yahoo! News (http://old.news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110806/media_nm/us_media_homevideo)

[TheHills44060]

I stopped in to Best Buy yesterday and was shocked to see that there were more video game discs on the shelves than music/video discs.

[Feanor]

I've been buying a lot fewer discs since I retired a year ago -- mainly just a little less disposable income.

But also, I have a pretty comprehensive collection of classical music which I like most, i.e. the major works by the major composers. Consequently I don't have quite the same motivation to add more although there are always different performances of my favorites.

I have started to down load hi-rez from, e.g., HDTracks. So far I've found the sound quality, especially resolution & air, to be better than (typical) CDs.

[Jack in Wilmington]

I've been buying a lot fewer discs since I retired a year ago -- mainly just a little less disposable income.

But also, I have a pretty comprehensive collection of classical music which I mostly listen to, i.e. major works by major composers. Consequently I don't have quite the same motivation to add more although there are always different performances of my favorites.

I have started to down load hi-rez from, e.g., HDTracks. So far I've found the sound quality, especially resolution & air, to be better than (typical) CDs.

That's what I've been doing also. Since I got my DAC it has opened up a whole new world of music. The 96/24 downloads are especially impressive. I had been looking to possibly add a tuner to my system but now I have internet radio. I've found a classical radio station from Vienna Austria that is excellent.

[Smokey]

I stopped in to Best Buy yesterday and was shocked to see that there were more video game discs on the shelves than music/video discs.

I am not sure if the figures include video games discs or not as the report didn't mention anything about game industry. And games seem to be more expensive than movie discs.

Feanor and Jack in Wilmington pointed out some facts about music downloads, although I think the figures are related to video dics only. But music industry probably follow the same trend as movie industry as far as physical discs are concerned.