DVD 25th Anniversary Part III

25 years of monitoring the DVD marketplace (plus Blu-ray and now 4K Ultra HD) can be like walking through a forest.   Lots of trees.   So, sometimes it is best to step back and take a look at the forest itself and see what is “normal;” what is changing … taking “snapshots” here and there over time to reveal what is going on.

For example, the manufacturing of the product itself.   We have yet to find a MOD release during the first five years of DVD distribution.   It doesn’t mean that one isn’t out there (perhaps some guy sitting at his kitchen table in 1999 knocking off copies of this and that), but despite our best efforts, the first signs of DVD being manufactured on demand began in 2002.  

So, the first five-year “pie” chart — big chunks of forest, a “snapshot” if you will — had no slices.   By the time you get to the final pie, the latest five-year cycle, the WOW factor kicks in with a dramatic shift in replicated products versus MOD releases.   

The DVD marketplace started off being studio-centric.   The “Hollywood” studios, especially Warner Bros. and Columbia Pictures (now Sony), promoted the format and with their dominance in new theatrical releases, coupled with the vast film libraries amassed since the 1930s, it only made sense that they would, collectively, be the leaders.

Over the course of 25 years, their share of the SKU-output pie has dwindled.   Their theatrical dominance has been in crisis mode the past two years with the pandemic.   Couple this with the rise of streaming competitors — Amazon, Netflix, Apple TV, etc. — and the decades of building theatrical distribution dominance has been vastly diminished in the process; even squandered.  

The “Hollywood” studio system that once dominated the landscape, is rapidly becoming a dinosaur.   Add to this, a growing lack of focus on the film libraries that were once their bread-and-butter, and you can easily see that DVD for them — what’s left of “them” — is less and less a factor.

 

 

Indeed, it has gotten to the point where “internet entrepreneurs” (ahoy, me buckos), have all but declared that any theatrical release from the 1930s, 40s, 50s and 60s is now out of copyright and in the public domain.   The position of the “Hollywood” studios has been complete indifference to this latest trend.

Continued next week …