Blu-ray heats up home-video market

Los Angeles Times

LOS ANGELES — Blu-ray continued to blossom over the holidays, but Hollywood didn’t get any relief from plunging DVD sales, which still account for most home-video revenue.

According to data compiled by the Digital Entertainment Group, a home-entertainment trade organization, shipments of high- definition Blu-ray discs grew 35 percent in the U.S. to 38.6 million in the fourth quarter, the biggest period of the year for the industry as consumers buy gifts for the holidays.

Shipments of standard DVD discs fell 17 percent from the same three-month period in 2008 to 374.7 million. That’s better than the 31 percent plunge the previous year, when the bottom first fell out of the DVD market as the recession hit and consumers started migrating toward rentals over purchases. However, several home-entertainment executives have said they were hoping DVD sales would come closer to stabilizing last quarter compared with the previous year’s free fall.

Overall revenue from DVD and Blu-ray sales dropped 14 percent in the fourth quarter. That combined figure, all that the DEG provided, masks a much-bigger drop in the standard DVD category, since Blu-ray sales rose more than 35 percent.