Sales of physical media such as 4K Blu-ray discs, regular Blu-ray discs and DVDs have declined yet again, with total revenue across those three markets falling below $1 billion for the first time in years, according to a report by Digital Entertainment Group (DEG) and Omdia.
The report was first picked up by FlatPanels HD and specifically looks at the U.S. market for physical media, but it also covered digital movie sales, which also fell in 2024. On the other hand, it noted incredible growth in revenue for video streaming service providers like Netflix and Disney+, with those findings strongly hinting at the main reasons for the decline of discs.
All told, physical media sales slumped 23.4% in 2024 compared to the proper year, hitting a record low since DEG and Omdia first began tracking the market. That’s down from a peak of more than $16 billion in physical media sales in 2005, during a time when video streaming was still in its infancy.
What’s more disconcerting is that 4K Blu-ray discs were the worst hit, with sales falling 10.2% from the previous year. It’s a market that has been in decline since 2018, despite most experts agreeing that 4K Blu-ray movies deliver higher quality pictures and sound than any streaming service provider can.
As a whole, the home entertainment market actually grew last year, with total revenue rising 25.3%, mainly due to the increased sales from streaming service providers, chief among them Netflix, Disney+, AppleTV+ and Amazon Prime Video. In total, they raked in $57.17 billion last year, making that market seven-times bigger than the box office in the U.S.
The market for physical media discs has suffered a series of blows recently, with Disney announcing it will stop selling and distributing Blu-ray and DVDs last year. The retailer Best Buy also said the same thing, though later, Sony announced it would take over the distribution of physical media from Disney, ensuring its movie could still be purchased in physical format.
Then came the announcement by LG Electronics, which said it will stop manufacturing 4K Blu-ray media players. However, retailers including GameStop and Fred Myers have buoyed the market somewhat by saying they will start stocking 4K Blu-ray discs.
The news will come as a disappointment to TV show and movie enthusiasts who value the higher-quality experience of 4K Blu-ray discs, as it seems unlikely that streaming services will match the performance any time soon.
While Netflix, for example, claims to deliver content in 4K resolution to its upper-tier subscribers, the quality is, in practice, much closer to what you would get with a 1080p HD Blu-ray disc. Moreover, the average 4K Blu-ray disc offers a bit rate of 128 megabytes per second, whereas 4K streaming averages a pitiful 18mbps, with only Apple TV going higher at 40mbps.
In addition, 4K Blu-ray generally provides much higher audio quality, as they deliver uncompressed Dolby Atmos soundtracks, whereas streaming services always use compression techniques.
The other problem with relying on streaming services is that you’re never able to “own” your own movies and TV shows, which can be problematic as it’s fairly common for the likes of Netflix to suddenly drop titles, meaning you can no longer view them.
