No Surprise: DVD Sales Plunged Over 40 Percent Last Year

Video on demand services and streaming video rentals from companies such as Netflix have been killing DVDs for the last three years, but 2010 was a particularly bad year for sales of the shiny discs.

How awful was it? An SNL Kagan study tracked 415 titles DVD releases last year and found that wholesale revenue dropped a “shocking” 43.9 percent to $4.47 billion. That decline should come with an asterisk, since the study doesn't include Blu-ray revenue, which the researcher says grew significantly in 2010 (no number was specified in the report, however; an SNL rep told paidContent they would check that number and we will update accordingly). On average, films shipped 545,000 units in 2010 and made $10.8 million in wholesale revenue -- that’s down 52.4 percent from the $22.6 million average in 2009. In the past five years, average wholesale revenue posted a -13.7 percent compound annual growth rate. While VOD has caught on with audiences, studios haven't figured out how to offset the losses in DVD revenue, which was their top earner for more than a decade now.