U.K. Viewers Spending More on Digital Content Than DVDs

LONDON: For the first ever time, it’s expected that Britons will spend more this year on video-streaming subscriptions and content downloads than on buying and renting DVDs, according to Strategy Analytics.

A new report found that consumers will spend £1.31 billion on streaming and downloading in 2016, compared to £956 million on DVDs and Blu-ray. Online formats will account for 58 percent of home video spend, compared to 42 percent for DVDs, whose share last year was 52 percent.

However, splitting out online and DVDs into the five main methods of accessing home video shows that most spend in 2016 will still go to buying DVDs/Blu-ray, though that will drop 16 percent to £905 million.

Streaming subscription services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video follow next and are the fastest growing format, rising 36 percent to £742 million, or £1 in every £3 spent on home video. There are around 4.6 million Netflix households in Britain and 2.5 million with Amazon Prime. Around 20 percent of households who subscribe to a video streaming service subscribe to at least two.

Most telling, the report found that video streaming subscriptions will be the dominant format from 2017 onwards and will account for over half of consumer home video spend by the end of 2021. Downloading to rent will rise 8 percent to £338 million in 2016, while downloading to buy will rise 16 percent to £234 million. Spend on renting DVDs will fall 24 percent to £51 million, or just 2 percent of the market.

“Five years ago, DVDs represented 86 percent of consumer spend on home video; in five years, it will be less than 14 percent, with DVD/Blu-ray rental virtually extinct,” said Michael Goodman, Strategy Analytics’ digital media director. “As online provides increasing ways to access films and box-sets, physical simply can’t compete. Although many people will always prefer a physical disc, retailers will have to decide whether it’s even viable to offer that format in five years’ time. Many won’t and with less high-street players around, it will be online, ironically, that keeps DVDs on life support via e-commerce.”