Let’s talk about Blu-ray release activity on a year-to-date basis this week.
The preliminary year-to-date results are on a record-shattering
pace. As of the week ending Aug. 25,
2023 there have been 5,030 new Blu-ray releases … last year at this time there
were 3,717 Blu-rays released (2022 finished with 6,028, an all-time record).
When you make business decisions based on faulty data what do you get?
Well, we will go out on a limb here and say, bad decisions. Sure, the data might be faulty, but it is close enough, so full steam ahead … or perhaps better put, stream ahead.
Let’s sell the paperback editions before the hard cover copies, because no one cares about physical media. That is exactly what is happening … and all of this in the middle of two major labor actions.
Management at the various “Hollywood” studios (note, only Paramount is actually in Hollywood) either don’t care that everything is burning down, or don’t see that everything is burning down … ego versus, dare we say it, lack of insight.
From the “Hollywood” studio point of view, physical media — DVD and Blu-ray — is dying, if not already dead. They instead plunge ahead with the streaming wars that cost them billions of dollars every year and compound this fiscal insanity by delivering pristine masters of their film and series programming to “void fillers” and “helpers” with nary a thought as to the consequences. Paperback editions before hard cover, that’s the religion.
A reality check is in order. As of the week ending Aug. 25, 2023, we have consumed 34 of the street-date Tuesdays of the year. That leaves 18 more product cycles left in 2023. Keep that in mind.
Thus far the “Hollywood” studios, the very same “Hollywood” studios that are losing $600 million a month on streaming, have churned out 242 new Blu-ray product offerings.
The boutique labels — independent labels — do the heavy lifting with 1,085 new Blu-ray product offerings. If you are good at math, that adds up to 1,327 Blu-ray SKUs during the first 34 weeks of the year. That is an average of 39 new Blu-ray product offerings each week.
The entire industry’s business analytics are based on what they see. 39 Blu-ray titles a week … Blu-ray is either dead, or dying, based on those numbers.
It’s called GIGO. Garbage In, Garbage Out. If you believe 120 million households are served by 39 new Blu-ray titles per week, then you are quite content to lose billions of dollars each year on streaming and sell paperback editions of your film and television assets before cashing in on the hard cover editions.
Here is where data is not so precise. These 1,327 new Blu-ray titles — the action that business decisions are being made on — account for just 26.4 percent of the releases through the first 34 weeks of 2023 (4.8 percent for the studios and 21.6 percent for the boutique shops).
The rest? The 73.6 percent that remains, where is that coming from?
Two sources account for the bulk of the Blu-ray titles being delivered to consumers. One is legitimate and one not so much. One source operates below the radar in local markets and the other source is quite visible, but ignored, willfully ignored.
First the legitimate source … this would be local broadband or public access suppliers who use the Blu-ray, not for its hi-def appeal, but for its capacity. You can get more stuff on a Blu-ray disc than you can on a DVD … that’s the long and the short of it.
Micro broadcasters have churned out 608 new Blu-rays
thus far this year, or 12.1 percent of the release pie. Sure, the dollar volume is also micro, but
when you are a local public access system, every dollar counts.
They sell copies of the local sporting events, graduations, concerts in the park, public meetings (some by law) and other programs that the public might have an interest in.
Two points should be noted before dismissing this source as just peanuts.
Second, they are making use of the Blu-ray format for capacity. Manufacturing it on demand … an order arrives, they burn a disc from their video files and out the door it goes. It is not that complicated.
If they can do this, then why can’t the streaming giants with their programming?
All three of these sources, studios, boutiques and micro broadcasters are legitimate. They are selling copies of what they produce and own. They account, so far this year, for 38.5 percent of all Blu-ray titles released.
What remains, the part of the ice berg below the water — 61.5 percent of the mass — are Blu-rays from “helper” and “void-filler” sites. Last century we called these sources pirates or bootleggers.
Not included in the year-to-date numbers are those “honey pot” sources operating out of China, Sri-Lanka and other exotic places where you have to be out of your mind to serve up credit card information to get a $12.99 Blu-ray edition of your favorite movie or television show.
Nope, we’re just tracking those in Tampa, Las Vegas, Oklahoma City, across the border in Canada, some European sources that have been operating forever and the like.
This is where the paperback before hard cover analogy comes in handy to understand why 61.5 percent of all Blu-ray titles released thus far this year are from “helper” sources.
When a film first surfaces at your local multiplex, the distributor (studio or independent) shares in the revenue generated with the local exhibitor. That’s the hard cover first edition.
When the same rights owner manufactures and sells physical media (DVD, Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD), the revenue generated, either through retail distribution or direct-to-consumer sales, is exclusive. It is a one-off transaction with one consumer at a time — the rights owner controls it. This too is a hard cover edition.
Everything else that follows is the paperback version. The bulk of consumers who either don’t go out to the movies (couch potatoes) or don’t buy physical media are the down-market audience. They might watch a version of a movie with a ton of commercials … they don’t care. They might watch it on Netflix, or Amazon Prime or the Peacock; Disney+ and on and on. They consume it and move on.
The first two transactions — theatrical and physical media — the rights owner controls. But, when you slip the paperback version into the revenue stream before the hard cover sales have been tapped out, you invite “helpers” to share in the action.
The moment a film or series streams, a pristine master of the program is out there and if you haven’t satisfied consumer demand, someone else will. Just look at the numbers — and we are just talking Blu-ray — and you can’t help but notice that 61.5 percent of the Blu-ray releases so far this year are stolen intellectual properties.
Week after week major motion pictures have a digital sales window (paperback version) before the hardcover edition is made available … “helpers” are literally served up a master of the film to fill consumer demand and that’s exactly what they do.
This past week alone, we had “helper” Blu-ray editions of director Sammi Cohen’s You are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah, starring Adam Sandler, filmmaker Carlos Alonso Ojea’s Killer Book Club, director Anthony Stacchi’s animated adventure, The Monkey King, plus Meg 2: The Trench, Past Lives and Evil Dead Rise.
That’s just the new film releases. Series programming would take up even more space, but to keep it simple, if it is streamed, it is available on Blu-ray (or DVD) … on average 91 new “helper” Blu-rays arrived every week this year. That’s what you get when you sell the paperback edition before fulfilling consumer demand in the channels you control … and do nothing about it.
Next week it will be a new horror story, you can count on it!
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