DVDs change the shape of entertainment
Couch potatoes still prefer watching TV to other media pastimes, but more often, the TV is playing DVDs.
Americans’ love affair with DVDs continues to grow as people spend more time and money on them, a new report shows. But they also are spending more time playing video games, surfing the Internet and ó here’s an old-school development ó listening to radio, according to the Communications Industry Forecast & Report, just out from Veronis Suhler Stevenson research.
The report also says people are spending less time going to movies in theaters, listening to music CDs, and reading newspapers, magazines and books.
DVD should propel Hollywood to another record home-video revenue mark this year. Purchases and rentals are expected to hit $37.9 billion, up from $33 billion in 2003.
That DVD is expected to trend upward for the next five years is good news for Hollywood, which took a dip at the box office in 2003 to $9.5 billion and expects a slight bump to $10.1 billion this year. “It’s going to be a win-win situation for Hollywood,” says Gene Jankowski, the research firm’s managing director of media and entertainment division.
That added cash could mean bigger and better movies, says Benjamin Feingold of Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment. “The revenue from DVD sales has helped stabilize the revenue base of many studios.”
Entertainment on the rise:
ïVideo/DVD. People spent about 70 hours in 2003 watching prerecorded home videos (primarily DVDs), up 8% over 2002. This year, viewers will watch an estimated 78 hours and increase to 103 hours by 2007.
ïBasic cable and satellite TV. This is the only category that people spent more on than DVD ó $39.4 billion in 2003, up almost 8% from 2002. And that is expected to increase 7.5% to $42.4 billion this year.
ïTV. A typical consumer watched nearly five hours of TV each day in 2003 for a total of 1,745 hours, up 2.4%.
ïRadio. The average number of hours spent last year listening to the radio edged up 1.2% to 1,002, a reflection in part of longer commutes.
“The patterns they are showing ring true,” says Jupiter Research analyst David Card. “Newer entertainment forms like DVD and video games do seem to be cutting into things like music spending. But some of (time spent) online is music listening and other media” such as newspapers and magazines, he says.
Overall, consumers spent more hours (3,663, about 10 hours a day) engaged with media in 2003 than 2002. “They can be working on the computer and watching TV; one necessarily doesn’t preclude the other,” Jankowski says.
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