According to The NPD Group, through June 2006 the DVD business increased unit volume sales by 4% over the first half of 2005; but that’s half the rate of growth that NPD saw 2005. One of the key reasons DVDs have not slid even further is the continued health of TV programming purchased on DVD. Overall TV-DVD accounted for 9% of home video sales in June 2006, up from 7% in June 2005. The strongest growth for the TV-DVD category came from sales of one-hour TV dramas, such as “Desperate Housewives,” “Lost” and “24,” which increased 48% YTY. The adult-animation category, which includes “The Family Guy” and “The Simpsons,” rose 36%, while sales of science fiction titles increased 34% and half-hour comedies grew 7%.
There was a 39% increase in subscription rentals of TV content and a 255% increase in TV-title digital video downloads between August 2005 and August 2006. NPD also reports that people who purchased TV titles on DVD were twice as likely as the average consumer to also download digital video content. In fact, 92% of consumers who downloaded a video 2005, expected to download the same amount or even more 2006. For the year to date ending in August 2006, iTunes was the most popular paid video download site with 67% of video downloads. MovieFlix followed with 19% and CinemaNow was third with 9%.