Data: UK video category grows by 9.5%
January 3, 2020
By Colin Mann
Figures released by the British Association for Screen Entertainment (BASE) and based on data from the Official Charts Company and Futuresource Consulting, show that the home entertainment sector grew by 9.5 per cent in 2019, bringing the total market value to £2.6 billion (€3.05bn).
A proliferation of consumption models, including traditional physical media and digital consumption at home and on the move, means that access to home entertainment content is more pervasive than ever before. With subscription streaming services now an entrenched layer of the home entertainment industry, 65.9 per cent of market value is generated by SVoD services such as Netflix or Amazon Prime Video. These services not only provide a diversity of choice for consumers, but they also serve as a launchpad for high-quality original content that often then goes on to reach an even wider audience via transactional formats.
Diversity of choice has had a direct effect not only on consumption but on production as well; the news of a deal between Netflix and Shepperton Studios viewed in the wider context of Disney’s long term deal with Pinewood and Comcast’s development of a film lot in Dagenham all points to an even greater diversity choice and consumption that will only grow as direct to consumer services such as Disney+ and a host of additions come to market in 2020.
The picture is far from black and white, however. With 39.6 per cent of SVoD subscribers also transacting on physical or digital formats, as well as the 7.2 million consumers without subscriptions, the transactional home entertainment market remains vital and worth more than £891 million in 2019. 54 per cent of that value is attributed to the purchase of DVD, Blu-ray and 4K formats, underlining that where ownership is concerned, the disc is currently still the preferred choice for many fans, collectors and gifters. In fact, 42 per cent of consumers who made a physical transaction within the past 12 months did so to add to a collection, 43 per cent bought to give as a gift, and 46 per cent so they could re-watch on multiple occasions.
When purchasing physical formats, UK consumers are increasingly seeking out the highest quality home entertainment experiences, with Blu-ray now accounting for 27 per cent of the disc market value, up from 24.3 per cent in 2018. The enduring appeal of disc is seeing consumers invest in higher-end hardware, and utilise the Blu-ray and 4K capabilities of games consoles, in turn driving the premium disc market with an increase in average selling price across the Blu-ray format, up 4.7 per cent year-on-year to £14.88. Within the Blu-ray format, 4K sales have seen yet another year of growth, now representing 16.3 per cent of the Blu-ray market, and a total of 4.3 per cent of the overall disc market. With a host of marketing assets promoting the benefits of the ultra-high definition format now in retailers nationwide, fans are able to build their 4K collections with more than 450 titles now available on the format.
At the same time, growth in EST (electronic sell-through, or digital purchase) of 4.5 per cent volume and 3.5 per cent value suggests that the digital revolution that has taken place in recent years is increasingly permeating the choices consumers are making for owned media too, with increasing numbers of consumers opting to grow their digital collections as well as the collections on shelves at home. On average across the top 10 titles of 2019, digital purchase now accounts for 33 per cent of copies sold, with two titles (Twentieth Century Fox’s Bohemian Rhapsody and The Walt Disney Company’s Avengers: Endgame) selling in excess of half a million digital copies. Indeed, all of the EST top 10, including hits such as Toy Story 4 and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment’s Venom, sold in excess of 175,000 units as digital transaction becomes further embedded in consumer behaviour as one of a suite of options for accessing video content.
Standout home entertainment content continues to inspire UK customers to transact, with the top 10 combined disc and digital titles all selling more than half a million copies in 2019, and a mixture of music-led and action-adventure titles leading the way. In the year that Twentieth Century Fox was subsumed into The Walt Disney Company, the former studio undoubtedly went out on a high, with Bohemian Rhapsody rocking the competition to become the best-selling title of the year with more than 1.70 million copies sold across physical and digital home entertainment formats. The success of the Freddie Mercury biopic came on the heels of Fox’s 2018 runaway success, The Greatest Showman, which itself continued to perform strongly in 2019, selling a further 468,000 copies across all formats (giving it total sales to date of more than 3.1 million copies). Warner Bros. Home Entertainment’s A Star Is Born also capitalised on the nation’s love of musical dramas, selling 702,000 copies, while the soundtrack also enjoyed huge success on the music charts.
Leading with 18.6 per cent of disc value market share, The Walt Disney Company had a particularly strong year across all formats, with titles such as Toy Story 4 (827,000 copies), Mary Poppins Returns (751,000 copies) and Ralph Breaks the Internet (360,000 copies) seeing families flock to shops and digital platforms, as well as live-action and photo-realistic remakes of classic Disney animations; Aladdin (637,000 copies), The Lion King (679,000 copies) and Dumbo (392,000 copies). Huge Marvel hits including Avengers: Endgame, which sold more than 1.33 million copies to land at second place on the combined chart, Captain Marvel (638,000 copies), and catalogue title Avengers: Infinity War (351,000 copies) featured in the best-selling titles of the year.
Proving that depth of content is vital, Universal Pictures Home Entertainment continues its reign as the largest disc distributor based on volume, and with broad success across not only the studio slate, but also Paramount Pictures, DreamWorks and, as of August, Entertainment One. Tapping into the recent wave of successful music-led films, Rocketman came out on top as the studio’s best-selling disc title in 2019, Danny Boyle’s Beatles-inspired hit, Yesterday, performed well, and even outside of its New Release window, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again became the studio’s fourth bestselling title in 2019. Returning franchises including How To Train Your Dragon: Hidden World, Johnny English Strikes Again and The Secret Life of Pets 2 saw strong sales, while spinoffs and remakes including Bumblebee and The Grinch, also boosted the Studio’s market share.
Adding to the raft of action-adventure films the consumers loved in 2019, the latest instalment in the Wizarding World franchise, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (Warner Bros. Home Entertainment), brought a dose of magic to the home entertainment market, selling more than 662,000 copies including boxsets, while super-anti-hero, Venom (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment), had a strong first outing, ending the year in eighth place in the combined chart with sales of 653,000.
In the TV market, Game of Thrones: Complete 8th Season (Warner Bros. Home Entertainment) delivered an extraordinary end to the year, with more than 192,000 copies of the culmination of George RR Martin’s opus sold in the final four weeks of the year, topping the TV title chart and landing in the top 10 chart for consumer spend on disc, and also helping the Game of Thrones catalogue secure the title of best-selling TV franchise of 2019.
Flying the flag for original TV content, Chernobyl (Acorn Video by RLJ Entertainment) saw sales of 116,000, making it the second highest selling TV title of the year. BBC Studios continued to see franchise success with Peaky Blinders as well as both the New and Classic Series of Doctor Who, the latter of which ranked as the second highest selling TV franchise of the year.
The UK audience’s continuing fascination with the Royal Family is evidenced by another year of strong sales for The Crown: Season 1 & 2 (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment) at number four in the TV chart, as well as The Crown franchise placing at number four in the TV franchise chart based on volume. This continued success of TV content launched and accessible via streaming and catch-up services signposts the considerable consumer appetite to own SVOD-driven series on physical formats, also demonstrated by the success of Good Omens (BBC Studios) which landed at number eleven in the TV chart.
Subscription services have undoubtedly changed the face of the home entertainment category and 2020 will see that change continue, with the UK launch of direct-to-consumer platforms such as Disney+ presenting both challenge and opportunity for the video category. On the one hand, must-see content will be easier to access than ever before thanks to digital delivery across devices, but on the other hand many commentators also believe there is likely to be a ceiling to the number of subscription services consumers are willing to sign up for. What is clear from 2019 data is that ownership, whether digital or physical, remains the favoured route for many to the content they can’t afford to miss.
2020 Slate
Despite the successes of standout titles detailed above, the final six months of 2019 saw a significantly reduced slate, mirroring the smaller theatrical releases seen at the start of the year. Looking forward to 2020, however, an exceptionally strong slate is set to help redress the balance, with a host of releases set to delight audiences on disc and digital:
A raft of family films including Frozen 2 (The Walt Disney Company), Minions: The Rise of Gru (Universal Pictures Home Entertainment), Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment) and The Secret Garden (StudioCanal distributed by Elevation Sales) are set to entertain parents and children alike; the nation’s unwavering appetite for musical drama will be sated by Lionsgate’s Military Wives and Universal Pictures Home Entertainment’s Cats; superhero spinoffs and sequels are also aplenty, starting the year with Joker (Warner Bros. Home Entertainment), followed by Black Widow (The Walt Disney Company), Venom 2 (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment) and Wonder Woman 1984 (Warner Bros. Home Entertainment); and fan favourite franchises see long-awaited new instalments, with The Walt Disney Company’s Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, and the return of Bond in No Time to Die (Universal Pictures Home Entertainment).
“In a year that has seen consolidation between studios and independent distributors alike, the reality is that consumption habits are changing and are likely to continue to do so, with the debut of D2C services like Disney+, Peacock and HBO Max all likely to further catalyse that change,” noted Liz Bales, Chief Executive, BASE. “At the same time, it remains clear that ownership – whether on the best possible physical formats like Blu-ray and 4K UHD or, increasingly, digital ownership with its own set of flexible benefits like watching wherever on the go and instant access – remains of significant value to many of us. Collection, curation and gifting are clearly continued gateways to the transactional video sector, but so too is the fact that planning a night with friends or family has an emotional resonance that many of us remain wedded to. Opportunity often comes from change, as evidenced by the UK production boom, and so we look to 2020 with excitement and a wealth of content and delivery well equipped to meet evolving audience needs.”
“The UK’s creative industries make a significant contribution to both GDP and the broader employment landscape, something likely to be further enhanced by the success of emerging SVOD platforms and by the response to that from other quarters,” suggested Kevin Dersley, Co-Vice Chair, BASE / Managing Director, Elevation Sales. “All of this change endorses the buoyancy of film and TV content but as a category we must ensure we’re fleet of foot and part of the ongoing digital revolution mentioned earlier. We know that audiences find enormous value in our content and the first half of 2020, packed with diverse new IP as well as must-see franchise titles, should serve as the perfect reminder that in a market of consumers hungry for content, there’s plenty of room for those able to adapt.”
“Consumer appetite for paid-for digital video continued its impressive momentum in 2019,” observed David Sidebottom, Principal Analyst, Entertainment, at Futuresource Consulting. “Both EST and iVoD grew once again, albeit at a lower rate than previously after an incredibly strong 2018 performance. SVoD goes from strength to strength, as the new wave of SVOD service heralds the next era of digital video, as we enter 2020.”
Official Video Charts 2019
Top five charts for each video format and genre, not including box sets
Official Video Chart 2019
(All Digital Retail, Blu-ray and DVD / All Blu-ray & DVD)
1 BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY
2 AVENGERS – ENDGAME
3 TOY STORY 4
4 MARY POPPINS RETURNS
5 A STAR IS BORN
© OFFICIAL CHARTS COMPANY
Official Video Chart 2019
(All Blu-ray & DVD)
1 BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY
2 AVENGERS – ENDGAME
3 A STAR IS BORN
4 FANTASTIC BEASTS – CRIMES OF GRINDELWALD
5 MARY POPPINS RETURNS
© OFFICIAL CHARTS COMPANY
Official DVD Chart 2019
1 BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY
2 A STAR IS BORN
3 MARY POPPINS RETURNS
4 AVENGERS – ENDGAME
5 TOY STORY 4
© OFFICIAL CHARTS COMPANY
Official Blu-ray Chart 2019
1 AVENGERS – ENDGAME
2 BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY
3 CAPTAIN MARVEL
4 FANTASTIC BEASTS – CRIMES OF GRINDELWALD
5 AQUAMAN
© OFFICIAL CHARTS COMPANY
Official Film Download Chart 2019
1 BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY
2 AVENGERS – ENDGAME
3 TOY STORY 4
4 VENOM
5 ALADDIN
© OFFICIAL CHARTS COMPANY
Official Film on Video Chart 2019
1 BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY
2 AVENGERS – ENDGAME
3 A STAR IS BORN
4 FANTASTIC BEASTS – CRIMES OF GRINDELWALD
5 MARY POPPINS RETURNS
© OFFICIAL CHARTS COMPANY
Official Children’s Video Chart 2019
1 TOY STORY 4
2 HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON – HIDDEN WORLD
3 RALPH BREAKS THE INTERNET
4 THE GRINCH
5 THE SECRET LIFE OF PETS 2
© OFFICIAL CHARTS COMPANY
Official TV on Video Chart 2019
1 GAME OF THRONES – COMPLETE 8TH SEASON
2 CHERNOBYL
3 THE CROWN – SEASON 1 & 2
4 GAME OF THRONES – COMPLETE 7TH SEASON
5 DESCENDANTS 3
© OFFICIAL CHARTS COMPANY
Official Music on Video Chart 2019
1 CATS
2 AS IT WAS
3 WESTERN STARS
4 MY WORLD
5 LOVE IN MAASTRICHT
© OFFICIAL CHARTS COMPANY
Official Sports and Fitness Video Chart 2019
1 LIVERPOOL FC – SEASON REVIEW 2018/19
2 DAVINA – POWER BOX & TONE
3 FIT AS FERNE
4 THE EDGE
5 JOE WICKS – THE BODY COACH WORKOUT
© OFFICIAL CHARTS COMPANY
Official Special Interest Video Chart 2019
1 KEVIN BRIDGES – BRAND NEW TOUR – LIVE
2 SARAH MILLICAN – CONTROL ENTHUSIAST
3 KEVIN BRIDGES – THE COMPLETE COLLECTION
4 BILL BAILEY – LIMBOLAND – LIVE
5 JOE LYCETT – I’M ABOUT TO LOSE CONTROL
© OFFICIAL CHARTS COMPANY