First quarter media sales up

It looks like the film industry might not be heading into a recession after all. At $5.5 billion, we spent 1% more on our DVDs and Blu-rays in the first quarter of this year compared to the first quarter of 2007.

Now here’s the interesting part. While DVD sales were down 1.2% compared to the first quarter of last year, Blu-ray sales were up 351%. If you do the math, this means nobody was buying Blu-ray discs last year and almost nobody is buying them now — displayed beautifully in the picture above.

But still, Anchor Bay Entertainment said Blu-ray sales were “trending ahead of expectations,” probably effected by HD-DVD dropping out of the race earlier this year.