The Premature Death of Physical Media and the Cult Home Video Labels Keeping It Alive

[hivemind]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

All speculation and quoting a store manager from a company that don't care about selling physical media.

I am impressed that you actually found a Tesco store manager to speak to though.

Speak to an HMV store manager and you might hear a different story. Especially with physical media having a great end to the year. As for dvd being ever more redundant it still outsells Blu-ray so what does that make Blu-ray and 4K?

Of course it won't last forever and if it does see the decade out that won't be bad at all. Especially seeing as we are only two years into it. As long as there's a market there'll be a product. Vinyl is selling more and more as each year comes round so i do think that will see the decade out.

The guy I was talking to had previously worked for Amazon and also had a good background in DVD sales through MVC. Like he said to me, companies could easily pull a format(s) at anytime, even if it's making a profit. The rules of the game can sometimes change even when things look settled. We'll see what happens as the years roll by, but would bet that physical will be gone by the end of this decade, he agreed.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

I see Bob Iger has had a rethink over Disney's physical media output and wants to restart it following years of concentrating on streaming.

Basically they don't make the money from streaming that they do from selling dvd and Blu-ray.

They've missed out on hundreds of millions for example by not putting The Mandalorian onto disc and that's just one small example.

Well, we’re definitely thinking about windowing and exclusivity among our own platforms, meaning between the traditional platforms, the channels, mostly but, to some extent, the movie channel, too, meaning exhibition and the streaming business. I think it’s already clear to us that the exclusivity that we thought would be so valuable in growing subs while it has some value wasn’t as valuable as we thought and content can actually exist on the traditional platform and on the streaming platform quite well without doing damage to either one because it’s actually very, very different audiences consuming those platforms. Significant in terms of an age difference, by the way, is by as much as 30-some-odd years. Abbott Elementary airs on ABC, where the median age of ABC is substantially higher than the median age of the Abbott Elementary viewer on Hulu by about 30 years. It’s actually an incredible number. So, why not have them live on both, you amortize your cost better. I think you could argue there’s some marketing impact positively on that as well.

As it relates to — so we’re looking at that. We’re also looking at movie windowing because we were so aggressive at supporting the streaming business. In some cases, we made a lot of films just for streaming. In some cases, we made films with shorter exhibition windows. In almost all cases, we made films that no longer had the sell-through window in it, which home video at one point, as we called it, was extremely lucrative for our company. So, we’re looking at all of that.

The reorg is helping us do that too because the same people that are responsible for making the content are responsible for monetizing it. And the best way to monetize it is to make use of all platforms, streaming and traditional than they have the ability to do that, the goal being monetization or profitability.

Bob Iger is pretty clear that the main brands, like Disney, Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars, are probably going to be off-limits, but with the huge collection of content from its studios like 20th Century Studios, ABC and FX, its likely, we will see these popping up on other platforms in the future, to help with making sure the entertainment division is profitable.

[Justin101]

Not just the Disney titles but the other studios run by Disney have suffered, it’s crazy to me that you can’t buy Wes Anderson’s latest or Oscar winning Everything Everywhere… on physical media in the UK because it’s distributed by Disney.

[nicholasrope]

I must admit, I don't really understand that quote LOL but it seems that they are still reluctant to release Disney/Marvel stuff which is probably their heavy hitters on top I can think of the things that haven't had a physical release:

Loki
Mandalorin
Wandavision
Mighty Ducks: Game Changers
Santa Clauses
Disenchanted
That Lord Of The Rings Show

Plus a lot of live action Disney Films from 90's and 00's:

National Treasure
Santa Clause Trilogy
Mighty Ducks Trilogy
Freaky Friday
George Of The Jungle

And plenty of other things. I can't think of what could be possibly released that aren't Disney or Marvel other than French Dispatch, Menu, Barbarian and Everything, Everywhere, All At Once.

I really don't get it, I don't think that Netflix and Amazon are hurting because Cobra Kai and The Boys have been put out on physical media

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by nicholasrope

I must admit, I don't really understand that quote LOL but it seems that they are still reluctant to release Disney/Marvel stuff which is probably their heavy hitters on top I can think of the things that haven't had a physical release:

That quote was from a few days ago.

They won't simply drop all those series onto disc two days later. There'll be planning forever more about how to best squeeze every penny out of the market.

I hope they license out The Black Hole to somebody at some point.

[Rob4]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

That quote was from a few days ago.

They won't simply drop all those series onto disc two days later. There'll be planning forever more about how to best squeeze every penny out of the market.

I hope they license out The Black Hole to somebody at some point.

That would look great on 4K

Also I don't believe Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea has ever had a Bluray release. I still cling to my DVD import.

[nicholasrope]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

That quote was from a few days ago.

They won't simply drop all those series onto disc two days later. There'll be planning forever more about how to best squeeze every penny out of the market.

I hope they license out The Black Hole to somebody at some point.

I know but I don't get why they wouldn't release all the older stuff, some of it was out during the pandemic.

[iank]

A Blu ray of Buffy would be effing nice.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Circana Research: Disc Still Spinning, Generated $1.34B in U.S. During Past Year

https://www.mediaplaynews.com/circan...ing-past-year/

The last paragraph is surprising.

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

It is a little surprising, particularly as all new TVs are high definition, Blu-ray players can only cost ~£50 (as well as games consoles being capable of playing 4K Ultra HD discs), and there is a definite step-up in AV quality from DVD to Blu-ray, plus the benefits that the higher storage capacity those discs bring.

All that said, when new TV shows (such as Inside No. 9), are only released on DVD and, during a cost-of-living crisis, they are cheaper, it's little surprise that the 'inferior' media is so popular.