Why the Disc Format Has Yet To Die For Some TV Series

Kaare Eriksen writes via Variety: As the Digital Entertainment Group, the trade association for home entertainment, tells it, business is better than ever: The U.S. consumer spend on home entertainment grew 11.4% year over year in 2022, totaling nearly $37 billion. Of course, success depends on how you define "home entertainment": Essentially none of that growth came courtesy of anything other than streaming, let alone DVD sales of any kind. When you remove SVOD from the equation, the truth is tough but unsurprising -- outside of theaters, people are increasingly losing the urge to pay for individual films or TV series, with all rentals and physical sales continuing to decline on an annual basis. One apparent exception to this is digital sales made across platforms like Amazon, Apple TV and Vudu. Digital sell-through commands the largest share of home entertainment spend after streaming and increased ever so slightly in 2022. That said, it's important to remember that the scaling back of COVID restrictions throughout 2021 meant 2022 was the first (relatively) normal year at the box office since the pandemic started. As a result, more films from major studios were released in theaters and subsequently hit their digital windows sooner, per a bevy of deals Hollywood has worked out with exhibitors. But the key word there is films. TV is a different situation. Between February of last year and May 2023, just over 100 TV releases from the major studios alongside AMC Networks and Lionsgate will have received Blu-ray or 4K Ultra HD releases in the U.S. market. From a studio-by-studio standpoint, there is little to no consistency as to the strategy behind these physical releases. The most staggering factor is how Paramount alone accounts for well over a third of these releases. [...] What's strange is Paramount's sheer commitment to physical releases for its more obscure series spread across the TV landscape. Just about everything originating from Paramount Pictures has at least a Blu-ray release. "Other than those Paramount releases, the only TV series that got 4K physical editions over the last 12 months are 'House of the Dragon' and the final season of 'Westworld,'" adds Variety. "By contrast, Disney has practically parted ways with physical TV releases altogether. To date, the only Disney+ series that has received a Blu-ray release is Peter Jackson's 'The Beatles: Get Back' docuseries." The same is true for Hulu.

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