Earlier this year it was announced that Redbox will but shutting down DVD rentals as its parent company, Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment, is shutting down. Last year, Best Buy announced it was no longer selling DVDs. Other stores, like Target, are making cuts to reduce the size of physical media inventory and, in some cases, only offer them seasonally.
Why are companies getting out of DVDs and Blu-rays? According to our new third quarter 2024 survey of more than 1,000 of our readers, only 30% still buy new Blu-rays and DVDs. That means most of our readers no longer buy new DVDs and Blu-rays forcing companies to reevaluate their DVD and Blu-ray business.
Increasingly the ease of streaming has taken over physical media. While physical media is far from dead and online options for rentals like Gamefly and even local libraries still offer DVDs, the number of Americans who are spending money on new physical media is shrinking.
Over the last sixteen straight years DVD sales have continued to drop. In 2023, DVD sales dropped by 25.32% even as home entertainment spending grew by 19.29% as most people started to focus on streaming.
Increasingly the future of new physical media is still in doubt as they are becoming more difficult to find. So, will there still be new movies released on DVD in five years? That is a real question.