With a new subscription service being touted every five minutes and Netflix preparing to defend its reign against Disney+, physical video sales are still chugging along in the background – a low hum within the howl of a streaming tornado.
A report from the Entertainment Retailers Association this week confirmed that video sales grew by 6.4% in the first half of 2019 to £1.07bn in the UK, with DVD and Blu-ray sales steadily declining, and certainly comparing unfavourably to the 18% (£130m) growth of digital expenditure.
Overall, media sales in general are doing pretty well, considering. People have spent 3.3bn so far on streaming services, downloads CDs, DVDs and gaming credits in 2019, which is 4.5% higher than the same period last year.
“With January-June historically the quietest half of the year, this is another great result for entertainment,” said ERA CEO Kim Bayley. “Digital services and physical retailers alike continue to innovate to expand the market for music, video and games.”
The ERA also provided a list of the top ten video sales of 2019 to date, and as you can see from the list below, no one got near Bohemian Rhapsody, a film that was objectively mired in controversy, but obviously not too hindered by it. The hot mess of Venom has so far taken the silver medal, with some decent competition from Bradley Cooper’s tear jerker, A Star Is Born.
Here’s the official top ten…
1 BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY – 1,454,671
2 VENOM – 559,381
3 A STAR IS BORN – 557,914
4 MARY POPPINS RETURNS – 514,687
5 FANTASTIC BEASTS: CRIMES OF GRINDELWALD – 490,612
6 AQUAMAN – 370,913
7 THE GREATEST SHOWMAN – 337,132
8 BUMBLEBEE – 280,312
9 SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE – 266,987
10 AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR – 262,221
Did you buy any of these?
