U.S. Home-Entertainment Spending Down Despite Surge in Digital Downloads

SANTA MONICA: Consumer spending on digital TV and movie downloads spiked to more than $1.5 billion in the U.S. last year, a 30-percent gain on 2013, according to the latest report from the Digital Entertainment Group (DEG).

Total U.S. revenue from in-home viewing of movies dipped 1.8 percent to $17.8 billion in 2014. The drop was driven by a continued decline in sales and rentals of physical DVDs. Audiences purchased 11 percent fewer DVDs and Blu-rays than they did the previous year. Sales for physical products still reached $6.9 billion in 2014. Physical video-rental stores lost 27 percent of their revenue, managing to take in $696 million.

U.S. consumers did spend quite a bit on subscription-based streaming video services, with the segment increasing 26 percent year-on-year to top $4 billion. VOD did take a hit, decreasing 7 percent to just shy of $2 billion. In total, the digital market brought in $7.5 billion, up 16 percent from 2013.