2023 US home video revenue: streaming dominates; physical media revenue continues to dwindle
Media industry analysis group Digital Entertainment Group (DEG) has released its annual report of US home video revenue for 2023. The report notes these are preliminary numbers; updated numbers will be available in March. However, since I doubt there’ll be a major change in numbers, this report’s still a decent look at how home video’s doing.
Overall, revenue increased by 16.8% over 2022, pulling in about $43 billion.
2023 US home video revenue
Below is an infographic outlining the numbers:
The above figures by percentage of revenue (numbers not exactly 100% per rounding):
Subscription streaming (SVOD): 86.3%
Digital sales (EST/“electronic sell-thru”): 6.1%
Digital rentals (VOD/“video on demand”): 3.9%
Physical product (sales and rentals): 3.6%
Digital media
Digital formats are, of course, the dominant form of home video, earning a total of 96% of all revenue. Streaming alone makes up 86% of all home video revenue, and grew by 21% over 2022. Of course, the top “winners” of the streaming wars are still the usual old-school guard (Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu/Disney+).
Digital sales, meanwhile, grew slightly from 2022, by about 5%. If people want to own their own video collection at this point, it’s more likely by buying a digital movie from Apple or Amazon versus a DVD. That’s despite the downsides of digital media, including digital rights management (DRM) concerns.
Physical media
Meanwhile, things look bleak for physical media (i.e. DVDs and Blu-rays). Revenue fell by 25% from 2022, even despite the attention that sales of the “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” Blu-rays received. At about $1.56 billion in revenue (from sales and rentals) in 2023, DVDs and Blu-rays are pulling in slightly more than compact discs did in 2015 ($1.4 billion), not adjusting for inflation. In terms of percentage of revenue, DVDs and Blu-rays are around the point CDs were in 2021 (3.9% of total US music revenue that year).
The two biggest physical media changes of 2023 didn’t help: Best Buy stopped selling DVDs/Blu-rays, and Netflix shuttered its DVD rental service. It’s the latter reason that DEG states it’ll no longer track physical media rentals going forward, instead only reporting sales. (I wonder how well RedBox is doing.)
While physical media still has fans, as a format it seems to be heading in the same direction as CDs. And speaking as a superhero comic reader, the idea of “primarily cater Blu-rays to hardcore collectors as a ‘boutique’ format” will likely do anything but “save” DVDs/Blu-rays. Just as comics needed more than just hardcore superhero fans to thrive, DVDs/Blu-rays need more than just “Oppenheimer” fans and 4K home theater owners.
Other
Ad-supported streaming service revenue isn’t included in the figures above, but DEG reports such revenue clocked in at $17.2 billion in 2023, up from $16.8 billion in 2022. This includes free ad-supported streaming services such as Tubi and Pluto TV, as well as the ad-based tiers of Netflix, Hulu, etc. No doubt the increasingly aggressive push of ad-based tiers by major streaming services is helping these numbers, even if it feels obnoxious.