Survey shows DVD dominates home video
NPD Group says 78 percent of home-video budgets were spent on the purchase and rental of DVD and Blu-ray discs.
Here's some more data that shows Web TV still has a long way to go before unseating DVD and Blu-ray discs in the home.
In a survey of consumers in March by The NPD Group, the research firm found people "are still using DVDs and Blu-ray discs to watch movies more than all digital-video options combined." In the past three months, 77 percent of consumers reported watching a movie on a DVD or BD, which is unchanged from last year.
The survey of the more than 9,600 people found that 78 percent of home-video budgets were spent on the purchase and rental of DVD and Blu-ray discs. This also included Internet downloads. NPD found that 15 percent was spent on video subscription services like Netflix that offer a mix of physical and streaming rentals.
So the market for DVDs is flat, but Netflix continues to report big growth in the number of subscribers. The company surpassed 20 million in the fourth-quarter last year and for 2010 grew by more than 60 percent from 2009.
NPD's report, however, supports what two national retailers told CNET recently. Executives from Best Buy and Hastings Entertainment said that there's still plenty of life left in movie discs. The executives said that Netflix and Redbox's decision to delay renting videos until 28 days after they've been released has helped boost disc sales.
For Web video providers, surveys like this should convince them there's still a huge market that they haven't tapped into yet. NPD predicted that much of the growth in the home-video market will come from the Internet.
"We expect strong growth from many digital sectors, driven by connected devices, improving selection, and the consumer's endless quest for convenience," said Russ Crupnick, an entertainment analyst for NPD Group. "For now, though, physical discs continue to lead overall engagement and spending by home video viewers; and even with increasing use of (video on demand) and other digital formats, the primacy of DVD and Blu-ray in home video will continue for the foreseeable future."