The truth about studio support - percentage breakdowns

[JadedRaverLA]

All too often I hear from HD DVD supporters that studio support doesn't matter. When that argument falls apart, they usually claim that the studios that do release HD DVDs put out pretty much every movie they (and presumably other consumers) want to see.

Well, there's an easy way to see what studios produce films people want to see and that's to just look at their percentage of industry revenues. As it turns out, between the 6 major studios and 2 mini-majors, those studios make up 97.7% of all box office and DVD revenues (for 2006). From that, the four studios who are Blu-ray exclusive made up 58.4% of all revenue, neutral studios made up another 25.9% of all revenue, and HD DVD exclusive studios made up 13.4% of all revenue.

When you add the neutral studios in to both sides' totals, Blu-ray studios come out with 84.3% of all revenue, while HD DVD comes out with 39.3% of all revenue. It's hard to believe that the four Blu-ray exclusive studios, who have a 58.4% marketshare, don't release any films that consumers want to see. If that were so, then who's contributing to those revenues?


Edit: I was able to locate the same data for 2007, up through 6/24/07. This should give people some idea of the fall/winter release breakdown. I updated the chart to show both years' data.

For 2007, Blu-ray exclusive studios have a 51.4% revenue share, with neutral studios having a 33.1% marketshare, and HD DVD exclusive studios have a meager 8.5% markeshare. In terms of disc availability (by adding neutral studios to both formats) 84.5% of the revenue was by Blu-ray supporting studios, and 41.6% of the revenue was by HD DVD supporting studios.

It should be a fun fall.

(Click the image to see the chart.)