James Delahunty
4 Jun 2014 11:15
According to a new study, film streaming and downloads will overtake physical film sales on Blu-ray and DVD, and will also beat traditional cinema in the U.S. by 2017.
The research was conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). It notes that the market for DVDs and Blu-ray discs is declining rather quickly, and that streaming services like Netflix are picking up the slack in terms of revenue generation.
This trend, the study notes, will continue to the point that in 2016 total revenue from "electronic home video" will beat that of physical media. The decline of physical media will continue to drop to $8.7 billion in 2018, down from $12.2 billion.
By 2017, revenue from electronic home video will beat that of traditional cinema in the United States, and will swell to $17 billion the next year.
Still, traditional cinema will certainly not die. The study predicts a 16 percent increase in ticket sales over the next five years.