Physical Media Sales Seriously Decline

It is with a heavy heart that I have to say that convenience and video mediocrity is catching us all up. With a drop in physical media sales of 50% between 2014 and 2018 things do not look too bright for the 4K enthusiasts future. As for 8K physical media, you can forget that. Today the 4K market STILL only represents 5.3% of the total plastic disc sales and is still an enthusiasts market. Right now I do not see it going main stream, other by the attrition of HD disc sales leaving it the remaining format of choice for the true video enthausiasts home theater movie experience; who wants the very best.

According to the Motion Pictures Association of America (MPAA) sales of physical media worldwide in 2014 were 25.2 billion, in 2018 they were 13.1 billion, that is a 48% fall in 5 years. At that rate in another 5 years sales will be down to 6 billion. At these reduced sales levels I am sure that movie houses will start to review their Return On Investment (ROI) very seriously, as to whether to spend all the time and money authoring and producing 4K Blu-rays for a continually dropping ROI. I hope that as with vinyl and record labels the movie houses will license third parties to continue the production of 4K plastic; all be it at, I suspect, a much higher price per disc.

So it looks like the inevitable is on the far distant horizon, so you had better buy those 4K discs to show the movie houses that you want their product and stock up with that 4K plastic. It is of course possible that with fiber to the home and dropping costs of storage and hardware, that streaming bit rates will match those of 4K Blu-ray. At which point I will be ‘happy to jump on the streaming band wagon.  However, until that day arrives “I want my, 4K plastic disc”.

Download the full MPAA report here.

See my earlier post on the demise of physical media here.