Audio Video News

The numbers for home entertainment spending are in from the Digital Entertainment Group. Blu-ray and downloads are up, DVD is down, and when you add it all together, overall spending is slightly down.

Blu-ray sell-through was up 84 percent at mid-2010 compared to the same period a year ago. In the second quarter alone it was up 112 percent compared to 2Q 2009.

However, the growth in Blu-ray was not enough to offset declines in DVD sales. Add them together and packaged media sell-through dropped 7.1 percent at mid-year compared to the previous year. In the first half of this year it was down 3 percent.

"Digital" (streaming and download) distribution was up 36.9 percent and video on demand up 19.1 percent in the first half. DEG notes that "this is the first time that digital distribution surpassed the $1 billion mark in the first six months of the year."

Video rentals were down 4.9 percent in the first half of 2010, according to Rentrak Corporation's Home Video Essentials. Movie Gallery closures contributed to that, though revenue from kiosk rentals was up 55 percent in the first half.

So what is the grand total? If you add up Blu-ray, DVD, and "digital," consumer spending on prerecorded entertainment is off 3.3 percent compared to a year ago. However, for the second quarter nearly ended, it was nearly flat at 0.7 percent. And hardware growth was up 2.3 percent in the first half of the year.

If you hate PDFs as much as we do, skip the DEG site and see the press release at Widescreen Review.