for you, the The beginning of an evening in front of Netflix could begin with the Tudum jingle. But for some, it still starts with opening a little red envelope. Not for much longer. The end of Netflix’s DVD rental business might have been long overdue, but for some was Netflix, and to all of us, its demise is a reminder that streaming captures only a small fraction of the movie industry’s history. Soon, that will be much harder to find.
“My parents subscribed to Netflix when it was just DVDs,” says Jeff Landale, who works in the digital rights and privacy space. Although Landale and his brother moved to the Netflix streaming service some time ago, his parents, in their 60s and 70s respectively and living outside of Boston in the US, still treasured the streaming service. mail orders.
In addition to providing entertainment for regular movie nights, Landale’s parents will also miss Netflix’s DVD service for another reason. They care for Landale’s grandmother, who is suffering from major health problems, including a decline in memory. “One of the big things they ask me is to help them find where they can get movies and TV shows from when my grandmother was much younger,” she says. “They’re trying to find things that they can watch with her that, given her memory issues, are familiar to her and easier to follow.”
Netflix, founded in 1997, just became a streaming service in 2007. Since its launch, the company has shipped more than 5.2 billion DVDs to 40 million customers. The most popular Netflix movie by mail is the adaptation of the book directed by Sandra Bullock the blind side, outlining the rise of Michael Oher to play in the NFL. But Netflix will not reach the number of shipments of six billion DVDs.
The market for physical media such as DVDs. it still remainsalthough it is declining rapidly. DVD sales are down double-digits year-over-year, according to Tony Gunnarsson, principal analyst for TV, video and advertising at Omdia. In 2021, Technicolor Home Entertainment Services, which produces more than 80 percent of all disc-based formats, still shipped about 750 million discs, including DVDs, to the market. The company was renamed Vantiva in September 2022. While Vantiva has decline in record production to meet the lowest demand, according to your Financial results 2022the company still produces hundreds of millions of discs, including DVDs, every year.
Still, Gunnarsson believes that Netflix’s decision is something that could mark a major turnaround in the fortunes of DVD-producing companies, and that this could be the beginning of the end for the format.
The death knell for DVDs has been predicted for a long time and repeatedly. In 2002, people thought that Wal-Mart, by starting to rent DVDs in-store, would kill Netflix’s mail-order service; in reality, the supermarket’s foray into the rental business lasted only three years. In 2006, Apple and Amazon’s launch of their video streaming platforms was enough to bring attention to DVDs by mail by some. And Netflix’s tentative turn toward streaming in 2007 kick-started a real decline in mail-order rentals. But the fact that Netflix is taking until 2023 to terminate this branch of its business is a vindication of how deeply some people appreciate and need physical media.