Recently, Midwest Tape featured ads in Video Librarian and Library Journal. These ads differ from our usual slicks in that both include personal testimony from our customers and both focus very specifically on particular Midwest Tape offerings.
If you click either image below, you can view the full page ad. We’d love it if you’d take a moment to check them out and give us your feedback. What do you look for an advertisement? What do you think makes ads most effective? What’s your favorite ad (any industry) or the most memorable ad you’ve seen? Share your critiques here as comments.
Yesterday we emailed our customers a brief survey regarding our catalogs. In case you missed it, but would still like to help us out by providing your feedback, I've include a link here on News & Views.
Thanks, and happy Friday!
In 2009, News and Views discussed the Blu-ray format, defining it and offerings its pros and cons in comparison to DVD. In early 2011, we offered an update, detailing why Blu-ray is such an awesome format—unmatched audio and visual quality, special content and bonus features, internet connectivity, and lowering cost—and noting the format’s growing market share.
Now, five years after Blu-ray’s inception, Home Media Magazine has produced a supplemental booklet focused entirely on Blu-ray, entitled “Blu-ray Disc: 5 Years of Sustained Growth and a Home Entertainment Platform for the Future.” Statistical highlights from the report include:
General
- Since the format’s induction, the following have been produced:
- 1.4 billion Blu-ray Discs
- 50 million Blu-ray players and recorders
- 41 million PS3 devices
- 188 million Blu-ray recordable/rewritable discs
- 25 million Blu-ray PC readers/writers
- Avatar leads the pack in Blu-ray units sold: 1.5 million copies sold in its first day of release; 4.8 billion units sold in total in the U.S. and 8.4 billion units sold in total worldwide
2010 & 2011 Performance Results
- During the first quarter of 2011:
- The average cost of a Blu-ray title dropped 5.5% from a year ago
- Sales increased 10% over 2010’s first quarter
- For all of 2010, Blu-ray disc sales were up 68% over 2009, contributing $1.8 billion in revenue with 11.25 million Blu-ray devices sold for the year
- Production of Blu-ray Disc movies and TV programming exceeded 400 million units in 2010, almost a 60% increase over the previous year
- About 2.4 million Blu-ray players were sold in the U.S. through September 2010, up 96% from the same period in 2009
- About 10% of domestic homes now have a player
- 2386 new Blu-ray releases are projected for 2011, a year-over-year gain of 72.3%
Blu-ray 3D
- Among all its innovations, Blu-ray 3D is the most recent and impressive:
- Consumers with 3DTVs rated feature films on Blu-ray Disc their favorite 3D programming
- Worldwide 3DTV units will top 300 million by 2015
- 80 3D Blu-rays either available or announced in the U.S.
- 15% of Blu-ray discs players sold during the 2010 Black Friday weekend were 3D-capable
Predictions
- Blu-ray will account for 1/3 of total international spending (over $10 billion) on packaged media by 2014, according to IHS Screen Digest estimates
- Global Blu-ray disc sales will hit 412 million units in 2013, according to estimates from the Japan Recording-Media Industries Association
- HIS Screen Digest expects:
- 2011—3D Blu-ray spending to grow 533% over 2010 with $214 million in sales and 7.5 millions discs sold
- 2014—$909 million in sales; 41 millions discs sold
- 3D Blu-ray:
- Sales will reach $909 million by 2014, according to HIS
- By the end of 2011, 3D Blu-ray players will account for more than a quarter of all Blu-ray players in the U.S. market
- 40% of home in the U.S., Europe, and Japan will have a 3D Blu-ray player, recorder, or home theater by 2014
The report also provides a substantial definition of Blu-ray, charts the technology as well as the brand’s history, and provides an international perspective. I would highly recommend reading the report in its entirety to learn Blu-ray’s short, yet captivating story.
What do you think of the Blu-ray brand? Does this overwhelmingly positive report match the feedback you’re receiving from patrons? How is Blu-ray performing in your library?
In early 2010, Midwest Tape News & Views reported that according to Nielsen SoundScan in 2009 CDs accounted for 78.9% of all albums sold, while digital albums only made up 20.4% of sales.¹ We cited several reasons why consumers—and therefore library patrons—still prefer physical albums over digital, including lyric booklets, significantly higher quality audio, and ability to play in standard car stereos.
During the summer of 2010, we reported on Freegal, discussing its many drawbacks and why it isn’t the right digital music solution for libraries.² Later that summer, we highlighted several musicians not yet available on iTunes and their reason for resisting the digital market.³
All of these articles highlighted the staying power of the physical disc. Now, on the heels of two studies that report DVDs’ continued market dominance, USA Today reports that CDs are here to stay according to Nielsen SoundScan. While the study does show that CDs were down in 2010 and downloads were up, “consumers still spend more on CDs than downloads, and overall music sales are up 1.6% this year” thus far.⁴
More importantly, the study reports that while music fans may download singles, they still purchase physical CDs: "They want the whole package, "says Russ Crupnick, president of research at NPD Entertainment.⁴
Additionally, analysts say that while CD sales aren’t what they once were, the compact disc isn’t going anywhere: "‘CDs are going to be around for a long time,’ says Dave Bakula, a senior vice president of Nielsen… ‘It's the last physical music format, and there's unlikely to be a replacement. For people who want to own the physical version, the CD is it.’" ⁴
Even though consumers are still purchasing physical discs, there are significantly fewer music stores, and big box stores are now carrying mostly top 20 hits rather than classic, indie, or niche titles. That’s where libraries come in. Just as more and more people are turning to libraries for DVDs in the wake of rental store closures, consumers are also turning to libraries for their music needs.
As reported in a recent article about Wicomico Public Library, they’ve “filled a void left by the closure of thousands of independent and chain music stores during the past decade.” Additionally, they’ve found that patrons love being able to experience new music and listen to entire albums they may have never discovered if they hadn’t visited the library. The success of Wicomico’s music collection shows in their circulation stats: “CDs were checked out nearly 23,000 times last year,” according to the article.
What do you think of the recent USA Today article? Is your library sharing experiences similar to that of Wicomico? Do you find more patrons turning to your music collection in the wake of retail closures?
Late this April, a Port Washington, New York-based market research company, the NPD Group, published a report that some may find surprising: physical media, like DVDs and Blu-rays, continue to be the format of choice for home movie watchers.
Highlights from the report include:
- “More than 77% of consumers watched a movie on DVD or Blu-ray Disc during the past 90 days, compared with 21% who watched via transactional video-on-demand.”¹
- Consumer adoption of video-on-demand services continues stuck at 20%.¹
- Consumers reported that 78% of their home video budgets went to purchase or rent DVDs and/or Blu-rays.²
- Nearly 80 cents of every dollar spent on home video movies goes toward the purchase or rental of physical discs.¹
- Meanwhile, consumers spent only 15% on video subscription services like Netflix.²
- The remaining 8% was split between digital video downloads, paid streaming, paid transactional video-on-demand, and pay-per-view.²
This study truly articulates that Blu-ray and DVD are still the dominant format for home entertainment. So why the many articles purporting the doom and gloom of the DVD industry?
“With the well-publicized struggles of Blockbuster and retail video stores closing around the country, and with media attention increasingly focused on the newest digital home video offerings, the value and importance of physical formats to the home video industry and to consumers is often overlooked,” Russ Crupnick, entertainment industry analyst for The NPD Group, explains.¹
Crupnick continues: “We expect strong growth from many digital sectors, driven by connected devices, improving selection and the consumer’s endless quest for convenience. For now, though, physical discs continue to lead overall engagement and spending by home video viewers; and even with increasing use of VOD and other digital formats, the primacy of DVD and Blu-ray in home video will continue for the foreseeable future.”³
An article from Home Media Magazine supports Crupnick’s assertion that physical discs will continue to dominate the home entertainment market. The article, entitled “ Study Stresses Staying Power of Disc,” shares a March 2011 study which culled data from The Digital Entertainment Group, the Entertainment Merchants Association, and the Consumer Electronics Association.
The study concludes that digital distribution could take as long as a decade to reach majority market share. It also found that “purchases of Blu-ray Discs and players jumped 86% in 2010, giving further evidence that physical media as the primary home video medium will take substantially longer to fade out than the demise of VHS a decade ago.”
Other highlights from this study include:
- 92 million U.S. households own a DVD player, 14 million own a Blu-ray player, and 46 million own gaming consoles that play either DVD or Blu-ray discs; thus, “it can be concluded that a large segment of the U.S. has committed to packaged media for their home video use.”
- Only 11% of the 90 million HDTVs purchased between 2008 and 2011 are Internet-connected, “indicating the continued need for DVDs.”
- “DVD rental demand will be about the same in 2014 as it was in 2008.”
- Physical rental is “projected to have three times the market share as digital rentals in 2014, indicating that the obsolescence of physical media within the home video market is not a near-term event.”
- Americans spent roughly $18 billion on DVD and Blu-rays in 2010 compared to $2 billion for VOD and electronic sell-through.
So how do these studies relate to your library beyond the fundamental libraries-circulate-DVDs relationship? Like Russ Crupnick explains above, traditional video stores are closing, yet the demand for physical media is still immense. And “even as the choices for viewing are expanding,” Crupnick says. “There is no evidence that consumers are abandoning physical discs for watching movies.”²
Thus, while libraries should definitely research digital media as an avenue for diversifying collections and providing patrons with more options, they shouldn’t be quick to neglect their physical collections or consider physical media dead. DVD (and Blu-ray) is still the format that the majority of Americans want, and libraries—as the only legal lenders of free media—should protect this crucial community role (especially as libraries become the primary source for DVD rentals in many areas) by maintaining quality physical collections.
What are your thoughts? What trends are you noticing in your library?
¹ http://www.homemediamagazine.com/research/npd-dvd-blu-ray-dominate-home-movie-consumption-23699
² http://www.dmwmedia.com/news/2011/04/18/report-dvd-bluray-still-dominate-video-viewing-spending
³ http://www.myce.com/news/npd-survey-dvd-blu-ray-still-corner-the-home-entertainment-market-43476/
In a 2009 sales survey, Audio Publishers Association (APA) measured the growth and divisions of the one billion dollar audiobook industry. ( Check out the survey results here.)
APA found that audiobooks on CD account for 72% of the audio market. And while the market share for downloadable content has increased at a noteworthy rate, audiobooks on MP3 discs have maintained a steady market share over the past few years at an unimpressive 1%.¹
On his blog, RickLibrarian cites an online AudioFile survey that found that the largest percent of audiobook listeners prefer audiobooks on CD.² And in a 2008 article entitled “ A Rapidly Growing Electronic Publishing Trend,” Jan. J. Engelen cites the “the universal usability” of CDs as one of the major reasons audiobooks on CDs remain the popular choice for audiences. Additionally, Digital Rights Management (DRM) issues have made audiences, especially libraries, weary of the MP3 format: “In practice, however, DRM lead to quite a lot of customer frustration as it hindered copying in general or made it sometimes impossible to play the legally acquired files on a whole series of devices.”³
Because of its lack of market share and universal usability, Midwest Tape doesn’t currently carry audiobooks on MP3. The demand does not yet exist, and with its sluggish growth, we’re not sure when it will. We’re always keeping our eye on the industry, though.
What’s your take on the MP3-disc format? What patron feedback have you received on the many audiobook formats?
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