Nielsen: Blu-ray, VOD Gain Among Consumers

1 May, 2013 By: Erik Gruenwedel

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Women more likely to buy discs, while men opt for streaming

Blu-ray Disc and transactional video-on-demand made significant gains as the primary means for consumers to acquire home entertainment movies and TV shows in 2012, according to a new report from Nielsen.

Indeed, 83.6% of consumers used a DVD or Blu-ray player to watch video in the home, compared with 45.1% through a video game console and 44.1% via a digital video recorder.

In the last six months of 2012, 14% more of survey respondents said they bought a Blu-ray movie compared with 2011, while 25% said they preferred the high-definition format for TV shows. At the same time, 5% more said they preferred TV DVD, while respondents buying movies on DVD dropped 1%.
Interestingly, Nielsen said adult Internet users who purchased movies or TV shows on disc are 8% more likely than the average U.S. adult online user to be female.

Meanwhile, 32% more of consumers surveyed said they preferred streaming a rental movie in the past six months of 2012 compared with 2011, while 29% more opted for transactional VOD for TV shows. According to Nielsen, 12% more preferred using Netflix to watch movies, while 24% upped use of a subscription video-on-demand service to watch TV programs.

About 8% fewer consumers ordered movies through premium VOD services, compared with a 7% increase in consumers using the channel to watch TV programs on demand.

Among movie genres, sales of action-adventure increased 24% to more than 126 million units, while sales of comedies and family fare declined 12% (104 million units) and 11% (97 million units), respectively.

Top-selling discs included Disney/Marvel’s The Avengers with 7.1 million units, Lionsgate’s The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 1 (6.4 million units) and The Hunger Games (6.3 million units).

“People do still purchase and rent physical DVDs and Blu-ray Discs, but streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu continue to gain traction as a convenient alternative, accessible through a variety of devices,” the report reads.

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