CHAPTER 5

The Home Video Business

The ability to watch a movie or TV show at home on a videocassette, or DVD or Blu-ray disc, has had a profound impact on the economics of the motion picture and television business. Not only has the video market altered the consumer’s consumption pattern of watching movies, but it has also changed the underlying financial modeling of whether a movie, and in cases TV shows, are made in the first place. Despite the rapid and wide market penetration of new technologies such as DVDs, it is a testament to the cultural impact of videocassettes that the studios, at least colloquially, still refer to their divisions as Home Video. In fact, the word “video” in this context has become a misnomer, a catch-all of sorts that ...

Get The Business of Media Distribution, 2nd Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.