Will Streaming Slowly Kill the Direct-to-Video Business?

Only a fraction of all the movies made each year make it to cinemas. The majority of films (not TV movies but standalone productions) are released either directly on physical media — DVD and Blu-ray — or through the ever-increasing variety of streaming services like Netflix. Today, watching a movie has become as easy as checking out the-casinobonus.com for news — people tune in to their favorite streaming provider on their smartphones and start watching their preferred shows and movies whenever they want, wherever they are. Media is apparently increasingly transitioning toward streaming. How will this influence the release of movies on physical media in the future?

Even Netflix releases Blu-rays

Whenever a new movie or TV show is released, it first completes its primary run — on the silver screen and TV — and only then it gets its release on streaming/VOD and DVD/Blu-ray. The same goes for Netflix and the rest of streaming-first original content creators — the original programming has to run its course online before being released on a disc. For Netflix, of course, the “primary run” is usually longer, considering that there is a lot of interest from users to watch — and re-watch — its original programming, sometimes even years after its initial release. But there is some Netflix original content available on physical media — “House Of Cards,” “Orange Is the New Black,” and “Arrested Development” are just a few that come to mind. And “Stranger Things,” one of the streaming giant’s biggest hit series, has also been released as a collector’s edition DVD/Blu-ray — in a VHS-like packaging, exclusively through Target stores.

There are still people who are not connected

Although Netflix has a massive user base of close to 120 million (perhaps more by the time you read this), it clearly doesn’t reach all the people that could potentially be interested in watching its shows — and neither do the rest of the contenders. And we have an ever-increasing number of such contenders to go around — Amazon, Apple, Disney, HBO, CBS, and many others want a slice of this big and tasty cake. But even if we count them — their user base often overlaps with that of Netflix — the number of their subscribers is minuscule compared to those who don’t follow movies and TV shows, let alone original programming, through streaming services.

It’s easy to conclude that unless the significant majority of potential customers goes online and subscribes to one streaming service or another, physical releases will not go out of style.