Despite Streaming Hype, The Humble Dvd Is Alive And Thriving

CINCINNATI - April 10, 2014 - PRLog -- Contact: Robert Mills
Tel: 702-868-4091

DESPITE STREAMING HYPE, THE HUMBLE DVD IS ALIVE AND THRIVING

It seems counter-intuitive. With broadband internet access at home increasing at an ever accelerating rate and more and more people making use of content streaming services like Netflix and Amazon, why would sales of DVDs be surging?

The trend has been so pronounced that one company decided to rethink its entire business model, and the results have exceeded even their most optimistic projections. New distributors across the country are lining up to take advantage of the company’s new direction.

“Our business was always focused on toys and novelties,” says Rob Atkins, Co-owner of American Retail Media. “Movies always played second fiddle. But in the last year, the numbers suddenly flipped. DVD sales took off, even as sales of other types of merchandise were lagging.  At first we wrote it off as an anomaly, but when the trend continued month after month we knew it was more than that, and that we needed to re-organize ourselves from the ground up.”

Atkins has been in the wholesale distribution business for more than thirty years, and has seen buying trends change countless times as new technology platforms eclipse old. From VHS to DVD and Blu-Ray, movies were always a part of his business. But they were a supporting cast member. The stars were always the toys. Reinventing his company to focus exclusively on movies was a risk that has paid off.  “Sales are strong and getting stronger,” Atkins says. “And that’s motivating more and more people to join our distribution network.”

The trend comes as no surprise to Scott Simpson, Atkins partner and life-long friend. “I’ve been in the entertainment industry in one way or another my whole life,” he says. “Hollywood has always whistled a happy tune on the way to the bank while outside it’s raining financiers.”

And therein lies the reason for the seemingly contradictory trend.  Yes, people are streaming more movies online, but they still want to own the movies they know they love. “I think people do exactly what I do,” Simpson says. “I rent a DVD or stream it online first. But if I really love it, I want to own it. And I don’t want to have to sit in front of my computer to watch anything longer than the average viral video. If it’s movie time, I want to be in my comfy chair watching it on my big screen TV.”

As Forbes reported in 2013, for all the hype about digital distribution, sales of physical DVDs still account for two-thirds of consumer’s movie purchases.  Movie studios point to the massive increase in the percentage of people streaming or downloading movies over the internet as evidence that the age of the DVD is ending. It’s easy enough to understand why that is the story they want told. They have little overhead at all with digital distribution, and the actual percentages were always so low that they’ve had nowhere to go but up. It adds up to a misleading impression that the DVD format is on its way out.

The Forbes article (Hayes, Dade. "Six Reasons Why DVDs Still Make Money – And Won’t Die Anytime Soon." Forbes, 8 July 2013) cuts through the hype. “Unhip as it may be to point out,” Hayes writes, “the humble disc serves a useful – and, yes, lucrative – purpose.”

If you’d like more information about American Retail Media, contact Robert Mills at 702-868-4091.