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Netflix is 'Killing' DVD Sales, Research Finds (torrentfreak.com)
Netflix has become the go-to destination for many movie and TV fans. The service is bringing in billions for copyright holders, but it also has a downside. New research shows that the availability of content on Netflix can severely hurt physical disc sales, which traditionally have been the industry's largest revenue source. From a report: A new study published by researchers from Hong Kong universities provides some empirical evidence on this issue. Through a natural experiment, they looked at the interplay between Netflix availability and DVD sales in the United States. The experiment took place when the Epix entertainment network, which distributes movies and TV-shows from major studios including Paramount and Lionsgate, left Netflix for Hulu in 2015. Since Hulu has a much smaller market share, these videos no longer reached a large part of the audience. At least not by default. The researchers used difference to examine the effect on DVD sales, while controlling for various other variables. The results, published in a paper this week, show that DVD sales increased significantly after the content was taken off Netflix, almost by a quarter. "Our difference-in-difference analyses show that the decline in the streaming availability of Epix's content leads to a 24.7% increase in their DVD sales in the three months after the event," the paper reads.
Video killed the radio star.
I'll go first: zero
I don't even have a Netflix account.
I don't give a shit about movies.
At least not at Walmart.
Fewer useless discs of plastic in the world is no bad thing, not to mention the associated transportation and packaging that goes with it. Good riddance to the physical media formats (well except for 8-track ... that will always be groovy).
I don't see this as a downside at all, or even an upside for that matter. Should I care? I don't like to own dvds, I rarely watch the same movie multiple times. If I can rent and watch it, so much the better - less cost, less waste. Clearly, I'm not alone in this, given the figures. If dvd sales are replaced with streaming rentals, who is affected adversely? Apart from the handful of companies that produce the dvds and their packaging?
They no longer have to pay the cost of shipping physical media... As long as they can shift their revenue source over to the digital platform, who cares? The money saved on DVD's / shipping / labor more than make up for it.
DVDs are a dying business. The future is streaming. Who doesn't know that?
You can't sell someone a physical copy they can watch whenever they want while simultaneously getting them to pay you for it continuously. You can get one or the other. The studios wanted this "pay to play" system because all they saw was "Oh, wow, people will pay us for indefinite rentals! Infinite money! And we can do this for all the movies we don't sell too!" only to learn that the rate at which they will do so is far less than what they get on impulse and short-term need purchases. People will buy a physical copy because they get excited about a title momentarily; they don't watch it more than a few times and ultimately regret or just realize the purchase wasn't really necessary. Now that rush of excitement is spent by the first or second Netflix watch and they don't see the need to purchase the thing.
So the concept of "selling" the same content again, again and again is no longer working? And even more important, why is it piracys fault?
Why the hell do people want to own expensive cows and manage barn inventories when milk is cheap and fresh for $10 a month? Netflix is to DVD sales as internal combustion is to horse buggies. Research is limited to finding what research looks for.
I can't wait for this medium (and its high resolution counterpart) to die. Not only it is a fragile PoS - unlike what we were told initially, that you could scratch it with a screwdriver and it would keep working regardless - but, in addition, they tend to be shipped with unskippable junk that you have to watch every single time, before watching the material you are interested in.
DVD ownership has always been a tax on the stupid. You don't need to own films. It's not like music; the vast majority of films don't need to be watched more than once.
Whether I have Netflix or not, outside of a few documentaries, I would not purchase a single movie. They're just not worth the expense.
If I didn't see it in the theaters and it isn't on Netflix I generally wait until it shows up in the bargain bin if I buy it at all. And that's a big if. I'd rather rent than buy, 99% of the time. They aren't maximizing their profits when it comes to customers like me and I know I'm far from alone on this. And they don't have an example of a streaming service negotiating a better contract with a bigger distributor, like going from Hulu to Netflix, with a correlating decrease in DVD sales. The 'study' is purely anecdotal.
Next thing you know they'll be saying that automobiles are killing off the buggy-whip market.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
I'd like to see what arm twisting or logic leaps went into "24.7% increase in their DVD sales in the three months after the event", that's not how streaming works guys.
This is not a "I will or I won't", much like Comic book sales and Video game sales. There are people who want the physical product, and there are people who don't have a lot of space in their apartment and don't want any physical products at all if they can help it. When you put something on Netflix you are ADDING to the revenue you would otherwise not get at all. If you make it exclusive to Hulu or Amazon, you're also cutting out the rest of the world, since only US residents can watch those streaming services. So the "increase" seen is from the DVD's being made available in the first place, not because they weren't streaming.
I don't know about everyone else, but if I have the physical disc, I will watch the physical disc, even if I have the option to stream it. BUT, if I do not have the physical disc, and it's available on Netflix, I will watch it on Netflix and not order it off Amazon.com or go to Walmart and get it because those take time, and unless I buy $100 worth of stuff at the same time, it's not worth the effort. That is how I buy DVD/Blueray discs. I wait till I have $100 in my shopping cart. That can take 6 months or 6 days. I watched X-files on Netflix, but it was standard-def, so I was all ready to buy X-files on Blueray, but wasn't able to figure out if they were in HD or if they just dumped the same content I watched on Netflix.
Now with 4K stuff, Netflix might be the preferred choice, because nobody has 4K blueray players, and if they know it's available in 4K they are not going to buy a HD Blueray or SD DVD.
As for, is it good enough? Look, one family member pirates movies and tv series with impunity, other than giving them a dirty look when they brag about it, they pirate the 720p content. That's good enough for them. If you want to spank the pirates at the same time you need to put extras on the disc that actually make it worth buying (Disney BD discs are worth buying for the extras alone) but most TV series don't have commentary tracks, only have it for one episode, which makes buying it a not a great value.
Now if you want to know my opinion, put the commentary tracks on Netflix too on "downloaded" movies. That way someone can save their bandwidth and watch the video twice if they want offline.
We owned media in a time where the burden of re-acquiring it was too great. Now that I can rent just about anything from Amazon or iTunes from the comfort of my couch precludes the need for me to permanently store it on site. Very few of the films I still own are available on Netflix. I doubt Netflix is solely to blame, it is the ubiquity of media on all the various services many of us subscribe. And if we've learned anything from the music industry, the film industry should be cheering this since subscription services are outstripping the revenue once seen by the music industry from media sales alone.
Market clearing price to watch a movie – once, or 100 times by streaming – is lower than the cost to own it on Blu-Ray or DVD.
Studios may try to raise that price – temporarily – by not releasing the movie to Netflix streaming. But eventually they will, after disc sales fall off.
I'm in no hurry.
The owning economy as opposed to the sharing/renting economy. And as past analysis have shown, the Netflix movie catalog is shit.
Even so, at one time you could at least rent a DVD from netflix of an "old" movie. No more. And nowhere else either, streaming or physical. In effect, a huge percentage of the movie catalogue is no longer available.
... and DVD sales really cut into VHS sales.
-USR1
Which is why I convert my DVD's to ISO's and run them that way. DVD's are protected, and I can just run them from anywhere.
I'm of an age where I don't want to get ripped off by the content producers time and again for renting their content or re-licensing it to play back on different devices. I own DVDs (or BDs) of things I really like to watch. I don't buy DVDs of everything, and will definitely defer a DVD purchase if it that content is available on a major streaming service. If I've come to expect certain content to be available on streaming, however, and it stops being available, I take content source - not the streaming site because they are merely subject to the whims of the content owners. Oh, and to keep the kids off my lawn I only subscribe to Netflix and draw a solid line there for the innovator in content distribution. I will not subscribe to Hulu et cetera because they are co-owned by content owners and thus inclined to co-opt the streaming model in ways that benefit their bottom line; in particular with Hulu I will not pay just to be shown commercials. It's a HUGE value that Netflix does NOT show commercials in their content.
I may rent a DVD from time to time to tide me over until specific content is available in a more desired form. I will not rent a stream. I DVR what I can and save it to drives in a content library.
I buy DVD's and BlueRays. I like to own the "Right to Use" the content. I like not to have to rely on a given provider to have a contract to to stream content in order to be able to watch to something. I will watch some shows and movies multiple times. So for a certain core set up media I want to own the media. All that crufty back catalogue of movies and shows that is no longer available on streaming services, mine to see at any time of my choosing. I even ( GASP ) buy actual books from time to time, it seems as though there is SOME content not yet kindlified, that may in fact never be on those platforms. The streaming / sharing / caring economy will eventually strip you of any remaining un-curated choice in what you read, watch, or listen to. Seems as though there is some music not published the day before yesterday thats worth listening to. So yes I own many hundreds of CD's as well.
The future is paying for the same shit over and over! Also, paying for the internet needed to get to that shit! Just wait till everyone has data caps, then you can pay even more!
Automobile sales are "killing" horse and buggy sales.
Couldn't it be the case that Blu-Ray and not Netflix is killing DVD sales? DVDs only have 480 line resolution vs. Blu-Ray's 1080. Why would people be buying DVDs anyway? You might as well hypothesize that Netflix is killing VHS sales of movies.
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
I am between 30 and 40 years of age.. the "perfect" demographic for DVDs. I however won't buy them...ever. If I can't find it on streaming then there are...other ways of finding my content of choice. I suspect it's not that streaming kills DVDs, it's that DVDs are fucking pain in the ass to store. I had a moderate collection and it took a book entire book shelf.. once I went streaming and cleared it all out.. never looked back. In short, give me an option to stream or I'll just get it without paying you.
Study finds that people steaming movies instead of buying DVDs reduces DVD sales... um, duh.
The real question is does more people streaming movies instead of buying physical media reduce studio revenues?
It may, because physical media is so over priced - they have huge margins where as the margins are likely much smaller for contracts with steaming providers like Netflix. This is exactly why new releases rarely (if ever) appear on Netflix immediately, because studios want to gouge the public for $20+ in physical media sales first. After that they'll bring the price down to $14, $10 and eventually $5 varying by popularity of the content and format (DVD vs BD.)
But then what about digital purchases? Those cost practically the same as release day DVDs.
I suspect digital sales are having a bigger impact on physical media sales and in that case, I doubt it's having a negative impact on studio revenues, in fact I wouldn't be surprised if the opposite is true - the price of digital content is crazy expensive compared to physical media, especially considering for the price of purchasing physical media or maybe a buck or two more you can get a digital copy included.
If you want to see new releases on subscriber model streaming providers then expect to pay a hefty premium for the privilege because while the studios can make these kinds of margins on physical media and digital purchases, it isn't going to happen.
DVDs?
You mean like grandmas, truckers and sea captains use?
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I get the hard copy, rip it to digital and then have it all hooked up to a media player so when the intertubes or the services goes down or the streaming service decided it doesn't want to pay for the rights anymore (Ehm Netflix and Babylon 5) I keep on watching and YES I watching things over and over and over.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Can't beat the Netflix service perhaps, but around the same price as Blockbuster used to be for a new realese:
http://www.vudu.com/movies/#!c...
http://www.vudu.com/movies/#!c...
A touch more, but not much (I remember paying $3-5 for new releases, a 2-3 days), and the back catalog varies, but outside of deals is close (http://www.vudu.com/movies/#!content/4798/Vertigo $2-4 for 3-5 days back in time)
Here's UK rental prices over time, I seem to be in the ballpark. https://stephenfollows.com/the...
Sure, it's a one day rental now, but you don't need the extra time to return it, so that seems reasonable to me.
Definitely more expensive than Netflix by mail, but in the ballpark of rental stores I think
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Seriously most of my 800 dvd's look perfectly fine on my 5" tv.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Same here! I still buy physical media for the stuff I know I watch numerous times. Stuff disappears from the streaming services, but it's always on my shelves!
"A Bird In The Hand Will Poop On Your Wrist"-Benny Hill,1982
Come to think of it DVDs are 20 (or more?) years old. In fact if you give someone a DVD, they look at you like you gave them a VHS. When they don't look at you weird, they never watch it because 1) they can't figure out how to play it on their computer, 2) they put it in a DVD player but cannot figure out how to switch the TV set to view the player (it's been years since they've done it), 3) they only watch streaming videos, 4) they ***only*** view videos on their phone, or 5) ain't got the time to watch the video (but lots of time to rant about it in the forums).
mfwright@batnet.com
We are a family of four - we have a few TVs in the house and none are capable of playing anything that looks like a shiny disc.
The streaming genie is out of the bottle and there is no way to put it back.
In true slashdot tradition, I didn't read the article. However, I wonder if they took into account the possibility that having the Epix catalog on Netflix increased the audience for these shows. In other words, if the Epix catalog was never on Netflix in the first place, they may never have seen increased DVD sales.
People that rip them and then have them forever. But savvy people are more likely to borrow them from a friend, the library, or download a torrent.
I'd mostly stopped buying DVDs before Netflix. For me the real culprit was too many alternatives. I'd watch PrimeTime TV, I'd watch recorded shows, primetime or otherwise, on my DVR, I'd watch YouTube, I'd not watch anything because I was futzing around online. By the time I got around to the DVD I'd bought, it was practically rotting with age.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
It used to be that movies in general got cheaper to buy with each year after they came out but I keep seeing ones on the shelf that are the same price as when they were new. Marvel has been particularly greedy, a copy of "The Avengers" should not be costing the same as "Captain American: Civil War".
whats a dvd
I haven't bought a BluRay in about a year. It's not because the movies are on NetFlix, it's because most of the crap that's come out in the last few years isn't worth watching more than once, and hence isn't worth owning. The last BluRay I bought was The Princess Bride (which I already owned on DVD), because I watch it over and over again.
Sadly, the days when movies were compelling enough to keep watching over and over again seem to be gone. DVD and BluRay sales are dying as a result.
Let's see, I can buy a physical copy of a movie, store it in my home, fetch it when I want to watch it and stick it in some player and play it. I still have to put it away afterwards, and have a place in my home to keep my movies. Even if I copied the physical disc to a home entertainment server so I don't have to fetch it every time, I still have to store it somewhere.
OR
I go to a website with my computer (or smart TV), click a few times and a movie plays. I don't have to store it, I don't have to rip it, I don't have to buy it. I get all the perks with none of the disadvantages (I can watch the movie whenever I want.)
Just going on the propensity for laziness of the human race, this is a no brainer. OF COURSE DVD and Bluray sales are going to suffer. Did they really need to do a study for this?
Netflix barely gets new movies now I think the article is a bit late to the game. Why in the age of streaming do you want to own a bunch of plastic discs anyways. DVDs were out of my budget when studios decided I would be forced to watch several minutes of crap I couldn't skip.
Someday long before Netflix was even started (Blockbuster was still big), I realized I was spending $60 a week on DVDs which i would watch once and then go onto the shelves.
For a while, I would wait until they dropped to 5 bucks and buy them then.
I stopped buying that day and have bought 3 DVD's since (one of which- Inception- I thought I would watch a lot but actually I watched it twice).
Netflix didn't stop me from buying DVD's.
I really hate the pricing model for DVD's. As I get older, I rewatch and reread less and less content.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Movies I want to watch more than once? I buy it.
Problem is there is only 2 movies in the past 2 years I wanted to buy. Most of the others I only wanted to watch once or did not even bother watching.
MAybe if Hollywood would make things that were not crap they would sell more? NAH, let's do a movie about a 1980's TV show instead.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
See the sarcastic subject...
I've had decent results getting old movies from torrent. I think I had to wait about two months for Die weisse Hölle vom Piz Palü to complete iirc for example, but I have plenty of other things to keep me distracted. Then the next time I go "oh yeah! I wanted to watch that one silent film!" it's seeding and ready to go.
(Actually that one in particular I have set for permaseed because it's so old but not old enough to be free of the clutches of Steamboat Willie.)
Show me the bargain bin impulse buy streaming license that replaces the $1.00 old western DVDs.
Where is the obscure horror movie lifetime streaming license from the same bargain bin?
Where is the private buying, selling, and trading of digital content licenses?
Where is the universal streaming license that works based on the content licensed, and not the content providers ecosystem?
Where are the movies and content that are worth more than a single watch to begin with?
This reads like more of the same "poor us, we're not the elite that we used to be" bullshit that comes out of the entertainment industry every couple of months. How does anybody even take this shit seriously anymore?
Seriously, when you base a pictures attraction on flashy visuals and established IP, why would anybody bother watching it twice?
The entertainment industry is continually shooting itself in the face, and complaining about the damage like its the consumers fault.
Remember when VHS rental was happening in every grocery store and strip mall in America? How did they studios even survive?
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
It's not call killing DVD sales, it's called giving people access to movies the way they really want to view them.
Netflix has like, what, 4 movies now? How can it kill off any market?
If I want to watch a DVD I usually have to plan to put the disk in and wait for about five minutes of commercials and previews to play before I actually get to the content of the disk itself. The menu commands on the remote do not work to allow one to bypass this crap (if that is how you see it). Compare this experience to Netflix where I can pause midstream and resume later. Once it is playing NetFlix tends to be a better overall experience.
As usual, Hollywood is never at fault and it is someone else's fault...
I'm not a subscriber to Netflix and had been buying DVDs (no BR) the last twelve years.
My buying habit slowed WAY down not because of competing services, but because Hollywood intentionally limited the selection of movies to release on DVDs. I'm not a fan of recent releases and prefer buying older movies. But there are a LOT of good movies that are not getting released on DVD, and the older releases are harder to find. Screw the DVD releases of TV shows. In the twelve years I have been buying DVDs it was not missed that the selection of legacy titles on the store shelves has remained stagnant; I found myself returning to store less frequently because I had found no more titles than what I have already seen before. I'd like to buy more, but there is nothing there.
And this is the fault of Netflix HOW?
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
...researchers announce fire is hot and water is wet.
Can we say, "DUH!!!!! That's the point!" ???
For those of us who like things "the old fashioned way", we have few brick and mortar stores left that carry DVDs, and many of those have killed their selection.
Local Best Buys, once several rows and giant displays in size, have all been shrinking these. In more than one such store, it's now one half-row, and mostly only near brand new stuff. We have to go further and further to find a decent store with some selection.
What's funny about all this is, MANY people I talk to complain, "There's no place to go to get DVDs anymore". Yet the stores seem to have decided for us that there's no market for them...
DVDs are a dying business. The future is streaming. Who doesn't know that?
People in areas with shitty broadband?
Netflix destroyed neighborhood video stores.
We don't buy many DVDs (and ZERO blue rays), but we liked to rent them from our local mom & pop video store that bluebuster and hollywood video forced out of business.
We still get videos, DVDs to be exact, just we get them from netflix. There DVD back catalog is amazing, though it is missing many things we'd like to watch.
I know a few people with very large familys (6 kids) who find it cheaper to buy DVDs than to go to a cheap noon movie. They've switched to redbox and amazon prime video.
After all, how many times do we really need to see 99% of the movies available? Sometimes once is too often.
10: Purchase DVD 19.99
20: Put DVD in player
30: Can't skip commercials
40: Can't skip piracy message
50: can't backup
60: Get DVD scratched
GOTO 10
11: Purchase DVD
12: DVD is a pile of crap
13: try to sell DVD
14: get 1/5 of price for DVD
15: Rent DVD from library for 0.00
16: Rip DVD
17: Enjoy no commercials
18: Pay 0.00
Is there really many movies or TV shows worth owning? I see the same thing in music where people just prefer to stream it, or play it through a free service like Youtube. With younger people developing a shorter interest in certain content, they appear to be fine with not buying music or video's. I'm in my 50's and remember how that was different not so long ago. People who have video and music libraries, but that has been replaced buy streaming services and digital rentals. My local DVD rental store even went out of business. I think the disconnect of buying digital as any real physical value makes a person feel like its not something they really own. That goes back to people seeing digital content less as copyrighted than a physical media. But will this age of never owning content kill the industries.
Netflix may not have the best collection, but A. It keeps me out of the bars. B. I no longer buy DVDs because they suck. C. I no longer have to watch the mindless shit on broadcast television. Except PBS. PBS is good television.
Yes and no.
Some areas don't have decent internet and streaming video isn't practical (or possible).
Even so, at one time you could at least rent a DVD from netflix of an "old" movie. No more.
What? Since when? I rent old movies from Netflix on DVD all the time.
http://dvd.netflix.com/
I do miss being able to buy their surplus discs though. They discontinued that program about 10 years ago.
Failure to purchase your allocated quota of physical media per year will result in punishment to the fullest extent of the law.
I stopped buying DVD/blu-ray TV sets once they started to appear on Netflix, but started again when temptation was too great. Why? Because the show you're enjoying on Netflix can, and probably will, disappear from their catalogue. Anime and kids shows are particularly prone to see me now, see me not issues.
Vinyl sales are up, then recently it was discovered that tape cassette are coming back, so next move will be the return of VHS (or maybe Betamax ?!?).
Can someone please explain what a dvd or DVD is? I read it is kind of a disc that you can put in a player. My laptop does not have such a player why should I buy one?
I think a very significant accomplice in this 'crime' is the film industry, who very rarely produce anything that you would want to watch twice, really. Maybe I'm just too critical, but I can't really think of anything out of Hollywood that I cared to watch more than once - well, maybe there are a couple from long ago, but what I nearly always find lacking is something that is a bit original and feels convincing; regrettably, what you mostly get is a rehash of the same, old plot with a bit more in the way of spectacular (but strangely unconvincing) effects. That being the case, why would you actually want to have a stack of DVDs cluttering some shelf? Netflix and similar are perfect for this: you watch a film once and forget about it; incidentally, cinema is well suited for this as well, plus you don't need to have a spectacular home-cinema taking up space. This is probably why cinemas haven't disappeared, and why they may be seeing a bit of a renaissance atm.
What is a DVD?
And why would anyone buy a DVD these days. With higher resolution screens and larger screens, the DVD content becomes less and less watchable. :]
Water is wet.
It was an overdose on black tar heroin that killed em...
Netflix is killikg DVD sales.
Does it make Netfix evil "pirate"? Like everything what reduces profits from well established trade?
Of course profits from streaming ar just rightful gain, not bundled with other areas.
LOL!
The fact that you think you "OWN" your DVD is hilarious. Read your "LICENCING AGREEMENT"...
This has always been a problem with an industry that want's it's cake and eat it too. Also why so few people are going to be crying tears to hear that another Company is horning in on their profits.
The real argument is that at least it is a static licencing agreement that you "own"... The irritating part about Netflix et al is the fact that certain points in time licencing agreements get changed (due to a variety of reasons all of which involve money and profit, but typically cost of licence, and regional locking and exclusive deals), and the movie/TV you enjoyed watching could just vanish without notice. I know I was halfway though a TV series once only to have the licence not renewed (for whatever reason), and then no longer able to have access to that content anymore... Whereas if you owned the DVD you would (at least until your media dies or gets lost).
My latest laptops all have no DVD drive, I think this is what is killing DVD sales.
And: every DVD I ever put into one of my laptops needed 5 minutes or more to start the movy or main menu due to "anti piracy *advertisements*'
In other words: I rather watch a pirated DVD than a real one. Not to mention that one of the DVDs I bougth was for no apparent reason a blue ray, I missed that fact and had to gift it away as my laptop at that time could read DVDs but not blue rays ... so bottom line I guess I bought 3 "DVDs" ... one 1978 martial arts movie, one 2012 martial arts movie which I had seen on youtube before and I realized later, oops it is a blue ray, and another movie where I forgot what it was :D
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/17/01/12/1757235/cassettes-are-back-and-booming
People don't want to own $20 plastic discs anymore
Take a look at the catalogue of things you can rent on dvd. Its not the netflix of say, 2005, where the dvd library was quite large and it was easy to get both newer releases as well as old stuff - meaning anything from say 5 to 10 years prior to the 1930s. Now the list is pretty much confined to 5 years or so, mostly direct to dvd and tv shows.