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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.
DVDs are a dying business. The future is streaming. Who doesn't know that?
You might not care, but the studios would. If they think they can increase DVD sales by not letting Netflix stream the movie, they'll do so. Netflix's library can already be a bit thin at times and this could worsen it. (Win win in the mind of the studios except that piracy would increase without Netflix.)
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
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.
but now they have some actual evidence of what the difference in disc revenue is. This could be useful (to either/both sides) next time Netflix needs to negotiate streaming contracts - Netflix can't claim "it won't affect your DVD sales" and the studios can't claim "without streaming we'd sell ten times as many, you have to pay us based on that".
It will be annoying and sad if this reduces streaming availability, but having it based on evidence seems like an overall win in the long run.
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.
I like having what I want when I want it.
Forms of consumption other than privately owned physical media simply don't allow for this.
You're at the mercy of what corporations let you have at a given time and they can change their minds at any moment.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
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 vast majority of films don't need to be watched more than once.
Spoken by an Anonymous Coward who obviously doesn't have children. My six-year-old boy is on what must be his 863rd viewing of his Angry Birds movie DVD.
It's clearly a generational thing. Many older individuals can't seem to understand that dvds are inconvenient.
We understand, but not everything, and certainly not everything worthwhile, revolves around convenience. You'll learn that as you get older.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
No, I will not purchase a dvd when a HD is available.
No, I will not purchase a blu-ray because I don't want to damage the blu-ray, store the blu-ray, purchase additional blu-ray players or get off my lazy ass to find a blu-ray and put it in the player.
Yes, I'll pay for a movie in one of the common streaming services for $10-$20 per movie.
It's clearly a generational thing. Many older individuals can't seem to understand that dvds are inconvenient.
Convenience always comes at a price. That is neither a new concept nor a generational thing.
Privacy comes at a cost as well. Some prefer paying the premium for physical media that often allows consumers to enjoy content without whoring out their digital soul to the streaming overlords.
This seems to run against the common talking point that people won't pay for content if they can't find it for free. If people really are buying the physical discs and revenues are going up when they can't find it online for free. (or nearly free, comparatively)
To figure out if DVDs or streaming is better you really have to evaluate the full media life-cycle, which is much longer than the 3 months cited in the summary. It makes sense there would be an initial jump in physical sales when media is released or goes off streaming, probably to more "hardcore" or dedicated fans, but those sales will eventually taper off leaving companies with physical inventory that is harder and harder to sell. On the other hand, streaming doesn't have the physical inventory costs and it may generate more "casual" viewing over the long-term, but for less profit on each view. So, I think a 3-month study would be heavily biased to the DVD format.
If you read the full article it does say this:
"...The research above has its limitations. It only focused on DVD sales and not on other physical and digital revenue sources, for example. That said, the present data clearly suggests that content owners might be wise to keep titles off Netflix for a while, especially the blockbusters. Similarly, it affirms that there’s little harm in putting their older back catalogs on the streaming service."
So, media makers who want to maximize profits should do a little of both and carefully time when to switch formats.
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?
I "pirate" movies I own. Copy protection makes ripping them for my Plex server a PITA, and I refuse to watch them off the disk for the simple reason that:
IT IS MY GODDAMN MOVIE NOW YOU RAGING FUCK-KNUCKLES. IF I WANT TO SKIP YOUR GODDAMN PREVIEWS THAT IS MY FUCKING CHOICE!
But, that is just my opinion.
ability to stream whenever I like on an ongoing basis
Assuming you mean "rent the ability to stream, so long as the company doesn't go under and limited to my own lifetime - and loses all value at death."
My husband learned a valuable lesson long ago when Yahoo Music shut down and all that copy-protected content he'd purchased went up in smoke.
Yup, you're old. You forgot to shake your fist and tell those streams to get off your lawn, though.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.