June 20th, 2008 at 12:55 am
A study by Media Control GfK shows consumers will start spending more on home entertainment between now and 2010. But the growth won’t be caused by DVD sales, nor by Blu-ray sales. It will be the games section that gets more crowded. Overall the revenue will grow 17% the next two years.
Although Blu-ray sales will definitely grow, the decline of DVD sales will negatively compensate the extra revenue. Blu-ray revenue will skyrocket from $1.5 billion this year, to $8 billion in 2010. And especially the higher price point of the medium will help to bring in extra cash. Meanwhile, DVD spending will decline from $32.2 billion in 2008 to $26.2 billion in 2010.
But the worldwide growth from $61 billion in 2007 to $78.2 billion in 2010, will be caused by game sales. Gfk president Amy Heller said the sales are “expected to grow to $67 billion in 2008 thanks to growth of new formats like the Wii.” This would mean a game revenue growth of 22% in 2008 and the GfK is expecting another 18% in 2009 and 12% in 2010.
June 12th, 2008 at 2:57 am
Lightweight Will Ferrell vehicle ‘Semi-Pro’ was the number one rental this week. And while it made just $33.5 mill at the domestic box office, Ferrell also topped the DVD sales chart.
The low-rated comedy ‘Meet the Spartans’ came in second in rentals. The spoof movie was mildly more successful at the domestic box office, but did $35 more than ‘Semi-Pro’ overseas. Sadly, no rental box office numbers were provided this week.
The top seller of the last two weeks, ‘National Treasure: Book of Secrets,’ came in second in sales.
June 9th, 2008 at 3:49 am
I’ll give a brief update on this story’s history, for the ones who didn’t follow.
The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) started negotiations with the studios about new contracts two months ago. The talks dragged on and on, until the studios were scheduled to talk to the AFTRA (TV and Radio) about renewing their contracts. These talks were delayed a couple of times in favor of the SAG negotiations, but later the SAG had to make way for the AFTRA. At that point, the SAG still didn’t have a deal. Far from it actually, with main disputes about DVD residuals and so on.
But where the SAG saw major problems, the AFTRA saw no problems at all. In a couple of weeks they made a new deal with the studios, putting extra pressure on the SAG. Needless to say, they were not pleased and criticized the union for their lack of effort.
Continue reading SAG pleas against AFTRA deal
