For a couple of years now, certain people have been postulating about the inevitable death of the movie theater going experience at the hands of the HOME theater experience. “Why would anyone go to the theater with all it’s annoyances when I can stay at home and watch a dvd on my 42′ Plasma TV with surround sound” is often the question that is asked. And… it’s a fair question.
But a couple of statistics have been coming out recently that challenge the apparent wisdom of those statements. First was the study that came out last month showing that people with significant home theater system are MORE likely to spend more time and money at the movie theater. I suppose that makes sense in one way, since people who put together decent home theaters are more likely to be bigger movie fans, and thus would go to the theater more.
But another surprising figure was just released recently. According to the IMDB, DVD sales are at their lowest in history right now:
The first quarter of the year was the worst ever for home video sales in the DVD era, Daily Variety reported today (Tuesday) as it cited a report by Video Business that sales fell 5.1 percent to $5.6 billion during the quarter. Rentals, however, were down only 1 percent. Nevertheless, executives of studio home-video units told the trade publication that business has picked up considerably in the second quarter and blamed a weak release schedule on the earlier downturn.
In a day where massive digital HD TVs, High Def formats and the best home sound systems in the history of mankind… more people are going to the theater, and home movie sales have droped. Odd.
Now, I’ve always said that NOTHING will replace for me the experience of going to the movies, no matter how good home theater stuff gets. But this is a bit of a surprise. So I put the question to you: “Why is movie theater attendance starting to climb and DVD sales dropping?”
