Disney/Fox media is pointless on physical formats

[Nailwraps]

Originally Posted by ZoetMB

Around, yes. But there will be far fewer titles, far fewer restorations and far less special packaging. Obviously, the big hit movies, especially the popcorn films will still be released on disc, but smaller films and unreleased back catalog may not be.

Discs are a very hit driven business. In the U.S. in 2016, the top Blu-ray 100 titles constituted 70% of industry Blu-ray revenue and 57% of the units. In a typical week, the 20th best-selling title sells just 3% of the top selling title and only the top 20 titles sell more on Blu-ray than on DVD.

The physical disc business is also in decline overall. In 2009, in the U.S., it was almost $11 billion at retail (Blu-ray + DVD combined). By 2016, it was half that at $5.469 billion. 2017 will come in under $5 billion.

One thing driving the studios to still release physical is that the licensing fees they get back from third party streaming services aren't very high. But in the case of Disney/Fox, they're planning their own streaming services so they get to keep all the revenue (aside from backend participations) so they will have even more of an incentive to push streaming over physical.

On the other hand, if the abandonment of net neutrality isn't reversed, streaming services might get far more expensive as the ISPs attempt to blackmail the services or they'll slow them down.

We also have a younger generation which largely doesn't care about owning physical media or about the extra quality it provides. Streaming is the future whether us old fogies like it or not, although maybe that will change a bit as the younger generation settles down, buys homes, etc. In the music industry, physical media (in the U.S.) is now only 16.3% of the business in revenue. Downloads constitute 19.6% and streaming dominates with 64.1% of the dollars.

Valid opinion. But:
https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/11/...-are-thriving/

[ZoetMB]

Originally Posted by Nailwraps

Valid opinion. But:
https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/11/...-are-thriving/

For better or worse, businesses are judged on revenue, earnings and return on investment. Especially if the business is publicly held, decisions are made based upon "shareholder value" which basically means getting the stock price to increase.

Some boutique distributors might be doing great stuff, but you cannot state that a business is thriving when it's half the size it was eight years ago. CEO's have to make a decision about where to invest. They don't invest in declining businesses. Would you be happy if your income was half what it was eight years ago?

This is similar to the hype about vinyl. Fans of vinyl (including myself) love their vinyl, but the reality is that (in the U.S.) only 17.2 million LPs were sold in 2016 and only 7.2 million LPs were sold in the first half of 2017.

Since back in the day, there were single LPs that sold over 10 million units each, that's not very good and the worse part is that unless the second half of 2017 has substantially increased sales, 2017 will come in lower than 2016. This shouldn't actually be surprising because who's buying vinyl? -- some hipsters and a small group of old men. And once those old men re-buy remastered versions of the albums they bought 40-50 years ago, they stop buying.

So vinyl is a niche format and video discs are also heading in that direction, in spite of the introduction of UHD. As I frequently say, "the numbers are the numbers". The author of that article is just using semantics to hide the problems in the industry. That's not to say that these boutique distributors aren't doing wonderful things.

Personally, I love my Blu-rays (especially Criterion and special editions/boxed sets) and when I watch (and hear) a film, I want to do it with the maximum quality, but even I will only buy a Blu if it's a film I think I'll watch more than once. For movies I don't really care about, I'll stream them.

[rdodolak]

Originally Posted by ZoetMB

decisions are made based upon "shareholder value" which basically means getting the stock price to increase.

It's good while it lasts, but the stock price can't increase forever. At some point it will slow down if not flat line or drop all together.

[ZoetMB]

Originally Posted by rdodolak

It's good while it lasts, but the stock price can't increase forever. At some point it will slow down if not flat line or drop all together.

Then the company dies unless it pays a strong dividend. Usually, if the stock price does fall substantially below what the company feels it's worth, they'll buy their own stock back which demonstrates faith in the stock and usually increases the price.

[mogwai_macabre]

Originally Posted by ZoetMB

Would you be happy if your income was half what it was eight years ago?

Well, no, but is that really what is happening here? The studios are making money in theaters, licensing to streaming services, physical media sales, and licensing to distributors (Criterion, etc.). They will continue to diversify that revenue as much as possible. You say physical media sales are about 16% of their sales these days. It's not like they would just throw that away.