If, how & why?

Are DVDs becoming more and more unpopular amongst consumers?

“Col lec t i ng

is just

hoarding with

a prettier

n a m e . ”T h e M i n i m a l i s t s

As I’m looking into if, how and why DVDs are becoming more and more unpopular, I thought it would be suitable for me to ask people I knew that had a DVD collection them-selves. This means I am able to get more opinions on the matter to see what people think are the main rea-sons for the ‘death’ of DVDs.. The questions I asked are as followed;

• Do you think we will see the end of DVDs in the near future?

• How would you feel if DVDs were to stop being a pri-mary format for media?

• What do you think is to blame for the decrease in interest for DVDs?

In relation to what is to blame for the recent disinterest in DVDs the com-mon opinion is the streaming ser-vices that are so readily available for such a cheap price. “The likes of Netflix and iTunes make it easy for people to choose a film from their couch and play it immediate-ly without any fuss. If these peo-ple aren’t interested in owning the hard copies, why bother going through the trouble of buying physical DVDs?” Is what my friend Alfie had to say about how DVDs are more of a hassle than anything else, especial-ly now that everything is so available online. My dad said something similar to Alfie which tells me that it isn’t a generational matter. When I asked my dad what he thought was to blame he too said the internet as “everything is made so much easier. You don’t have to leave the house, you don’t have to walk around looking for the film you want and if it’s in stock or not and you don’t need any physical space.”

This links to some of the statistics I gathered as some people blame the stor-age aspect of DVDs compared to dig-ital media, but we will get to that soon.

Another friend, Jack, said that he un-derstands why DVDs are an unnec-essary hassle if you’re not an “avid collector” like himself, “there is no need to go through the trouble when everything is online.” This shows that a popular opinion is that the in-ternet and instant availability is to partly to blame for the decline in sales for DVDs over the past few years.

If this is the case, it must mean that DVDs aren’t going to be around for much longer. The response I got to this statement was quite var-ied. My dad, who witnessed the rise of DVDs believes it will be “a good while before we see the end of DVDs I remember CDs being the next big thing but vinyl is still going strong.”

As my dad mentioned, CDs took over from vinyl to become the nor-mal format for music, but people still stand by vinyl, arguing you can’t beat the sound quality. As well as sound quality, people collect vinyl just as people collect DVDs, for whatever reason that may be. The argument for vinyl and CDs is possibly bigger than that of DVDs as digital music is now available and can replace both vinyl and CDs. So I wanted to know why people collect DVDs when it is clear everybody knows how much easier on-demand streaming services are. I have a few friends who have an exten-sive DVD collection so I asked them.

Max said “Personally if I see a film I love I like to own it so I can lend it out to peo-

ple.” This is an interesting point as Alex Hern who writes for The Guardian said “It’s actually remarkably pleasant to be handed a movie and told “watch this, you don’t get to watch anything else until you’ve seen it.”” Which is why he still gets DVDs from Netflix rather than use their online streaming service. The argument that vinyl has better quality than CD is similar to that of what a lot of DVD collectors think about DVDs/Blu Ray. My friend Jack supports this opinion and believes DVDs are “more reliable and you get more your money. Films online can be unreliable and of a poor quality when watching them due to buffer-ing, which can wreck the experience.”

I know a lot of people buy vinyl for the artwork, displayed so I wondered

whether DVD artwork is ever con-sidered when either a collector or none collector purchases a DVD.My sister said she’d only buy one “if they’re on sale, even if wanted to watch it just the one time just because they’re cheap.” When I asked if artwork has any impact on whether she’d purchase it or

not, the answer was a definite ‘no’. Even when I asked the people who do collect DVDs the overall answer was no, with a few exceptions. Jack Ward said “sometimes [the film] will have various front covers to choose from depending on whether it’s been remas-tered or something - this will influence my choice because I’ll choose which one I prefer out of the selection.”

From the feedback I received I think it is safe to say that the most popu-lar opinion for cause of the downfall of DVD interest is due to the instant easy access services such as Netf-lix, iTunes and Google Play. Unless you are an avid collector and want to build a collection, DVDs are no longer needed in the digital age.

“ M o v i e sonline can be unreliable...”

O p i n i o n s

The chart below shows the ‘Reasons why people watch paid-for digital con-tent’. This is extremely helpful as this information tells us why people would rather pay for digital content such as streaming services like Netflix and also online stores like iTunes or Google Play.

As you can see the main reason people buy digital media is so they are able to watch instantly. What I imagine they mean by this is that they might think ‘I want to watch [film]’ and they are able to check if it’s available on Netflix or any of the other sites; if it is, they can watch it instantaneously with a few clicks of a button. ‘Flexibility of where to watch’ is the second most common reason. This is referring to how you are able to buy a film digitally, and watch on many devices such as your phone, TV, tablet and laptop. If it’s on the more portable devices like a phone or tablet this allows the consumer to take it anywhere, where as if you had a DVD, you’re extremely limited as to where you can watch it. Another thing people commented on when I asked them questions was how easy digital content is to purchase and watch, rath-er than having to go to a shop. This is shown in the graphic where it illus-trates that people thought films are eas-ier to purchase online than physically, but not so much for television shows.This links to my primary research as many people commented on how much easier digital content was in general.

T h e m o v e t o a c c e s s i n g m e d i a c o n t e n t t h r o u g h d i g i t a l a n d /o r m o b i l e d e v i c e s w i l l b e a k e y i s s u e i n f u t u r e y e a r s . A c c o r d i n g t o a r e c e n t O f c o m r e p o r t :• U K c o n s u m e r s a r e s p e n d i n g a l m o s t h a l f t h e i r w a k i n g h o u r s w a t c h i n g T V, u s i n gt h e i r s m a r t p h o n e s a n d o t h e r c o m m u n i c a -t i o n s d e v i c e s .• M o b i l e s h a v e b e c o m e a n a c c e p t e d e n t e r-t a i n m e n t d e v i c e , w i t h n e a r l y 1 1 % o f p e o p l e s a y i n g t h a t t h e y w o u l d b e l i k e l y t o w a t c h a f u l l T V e p i s o d e o n t h e i r m o b i l e .• A m o n g 1 6 – 2 4 y e a r o l d s , o v e r h a l f ( 5 2 % ) o f m e d i a a c t i v i t y i s s i m u l t a n e o u s ,c o m p a r e d t o j u s t o v e r o n e f i f t h ( 2 2 % ) f o r p e o p l e a g e d o v e r 5 5 .

S t a t i s t i c s

DVDs were introduced in Brit-ain in 1999 - meaning they’ve been in use for over 15 years.

Apple hold a 67 percent share of the digital TV download market, as well as a 65 percent share of the movie market. No competitor comes close, as Apple outstrips the closest indi-vidual services — Microsoft’s Xbox Video and Amazon’s Instant Video.

‘Mintel’ - ‘a global and award-win-ning provider of Market Research’, stopped doing reports on DVDs af-ter 2011. Instead grouping them with ‘Movie Sales and Rentals’.

The average American watches 1.3 hours of DVDs or Blu-Rays a week.Where as the average Ameri-can Netflix subscriber watch-es 1.5 hours of Netflix a day.

‘Traditional’ television is still the popular with an average of 4.7 hours watched a day per person.

Netflix currently has over 53 million members spreading across 50 countries.

Netflix peaked at Q4 2013 with a net income of $1.17 billion. Q1 2013 almost halved with $53 mil-lion then raised in Q2 to $71 million.

Amazon, Google and iTunes all charge the same amount to buy or rent a film. The most expen-sive option is $20.00/£13.00.

On average, more money is spent on digital content such as sub-scription services and movie rentals than DVD and Blu Rays.

December is the most pop-ular month for Netflix.

F A C TST H E

F A C TThese facts and statistics show us that digital media is growing stronger and stronger and DVDs are becoming less popular. Like vinyl, I believe DVDs can be relished as an art form as many have limited edition covers designed by art-ists and studios. For this reason I feel that DVDs need to be saved; digital me-dia doesn’t have any artistic packaging to appreciate like a DVD cover does.

N O WPeople collect vinyl because they ap-preciate being able to hold the item they own, it means more to them. I think DVDs should be like this for more people. I know many people do collect DVDs but most people don’t care for them anymore, they truly are dying and we’re letting it happen. For any film fan I think Steelbooks are the perfect way to keep your collection interesting.

They’re steel case DVDs with beauti-ful artwork to depict the film in a way a regular DVD case often fails to do.

In the future I think that DVDs should and will be treated much like vinyl. This will only happen if there is a fan base and a regular market that keeps the indus-try going. Maybe one day DVDs will be part of record day in one way or another.

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D i g i t a l

Without repeating too much of what has already been discussed, I just wasnt to say what I think on the matter. From my re-search it’s clar to me that DVDs are becoming increasingly less popular amongst consumers.

The clear reason for this which didn’t surprise me is due to the many options people now have thanks to digital and online media such as Netflix, iTunes Store, Google Play and Amazon Prime Instant Video. The ad-vantages these have over DVDs are things such as conveinience, ease, price and being able to in-stantly watch almost anything. Where as with DVDs you have to go outside, find the prod-uct, pay for the product, come home and sometimes even plan

when you are going to watch said DVD, rather than being able to choose a show and ‘binge watch’ whenever you get bored.

This may be the case but I, along with many others, feel that hold-ing a new DVD to add to your collection however big or small is a great feeling that you can’t get from purchasing a a digital file. I also think DVD cases can be a peice of artwork, (in some cases, a lot of the time the covers are awful) such as Steelbooks. Steelbooks often collaborate with artists and studios such as Mondo, Gallery 1988 and art-ist Ralph Steaman. These are often limited runs and usually sell out very quickly depending on the film, but it also help that Steelbook havea large follow-

ing of enthuisiastic collectors.

I hope that DVDs will be around for a good while, hopefully in the same way vinyl has been able to . Vinyl have a sense of ‘magic’ about them, and when someone has a vinyl collection it seems everyone is interested in why they have them, how they got them and how long long they’ve been collecting. One day I think DVDs might get to this stage as even now people are impressed by a strong DVD collection, so in ten years time hopegull people will look back at DVDs with nos-talgia and realise how being able to hold and display your favourite film or genre is very rewarding.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed doing so.

http://www.slashfilm.com/netflix-streaming-average-93-minutes/

http://www.bva.org.uk/media/89252/bva-morethanasupportact-with-new-map-for-bbc.pdf

http://ir.netflix.com/

http://ir.netflix.com/results.cfm

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101355387

http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/NFLX/3344084167x0x769748/9b21df7f-743c-4f0f-94da-9f13e384a3d2/July2014EarningsLet-ter_7.21.14_final.pdf

http://blog.netflix.com/2014/01/new-isp-performance-data-for-december.html

http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/04/23/npd-apples-itunes-accounts-for-67-of-tv-downloads-65-of-movies

http://www.pcworld.com/article/259040/google_play_vs_amazon_vs_itunes_store_how_the_content_stores_stack_up.html

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