“After two years of modest growth, total U.S. revenue from in-home viewing of movies dropped 1.8% to $17.8 billion in 2014, according to new data from the Digital Entertainment Group trade association,” Ben Fritz reports for The Wall Street Journal. “Last year’s drop was driven by continued declines in sales and rentals of physical DVDs along with a surprising drop in video-on-demand rentals. After many years of growth, VOD rentals from cable, satellite and Internet providers fell 6.7% to $1.97 billion last year.”
“Studio executives attributed the overall drop in 2014 home-entertainment revenue in part weak results at the domestic box office last year. If movies weren’t popular in the theater, there will be less demand to watch them at home,” Fritz reports. “As reported, overall North American box-office receipts for 2014 declined more than 5% to $10.35 billion from $10.92 billion in 2013, according to box-office tracker Rentrak Corp. — the worst results since 2011. Attendance for 2014 was also down, but final data on ticket sales for the year isn’t available yet.”
“The best news for the movie industry was 30% growth in digital sales, to $1.551 billion,” Fritz reports. “Sales of films from online retailers such as Apple Inc. and Comcast Corp. are the most profitable type of home entertainment transactions and a category studios have focused intently on growing.”
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