We’ve all felt the pain of heading to a streaming service, with the intention of watching a movie or TV show and finding that it’s vanished from the catalogue. Worse, you were part way through your watch and have to find another way to finish everything off. Sometimes that means you have to head to another premium streaming service, but for others that show might disappear indefinitely — either for rights reasons or something else.
The worst time this happened to me was mid-way through season 3 of Battlestar Galactica. I paused halfway through an episode because it was getting late, only to return the next day and find that the show had gone — and several months later it still isn’t available to stream anywhere else. In times like this it makes me glad that physical media does still exist, and that I have a healthy collection of discs.
Individual movies and shows aren’t cheap, compared to some streaming methods, and they can take up a fair bit of space. But once you have that disc it’s yours, and no amount of corporate trickery can change that fact. It’s why I’ve always maintained the importance of physical media, and it seems as though I’m not alone.
Physical media sales actually rose this year (at one retailer)
According to Phil Halliday, managing director of U.K. entertainment retailer HMV, sales in the “physical visual” category have risen by around 5% in the first half of 2024 (via BBC News). Apparently “4K and Blu-ray have been doing particularly well” and with “growth driven in particular by high-definition formats”.
It’s interesting to hear this, and a little unbelievable. Sales of physical media have been in decline for the past several years, as digital formats and streaming services gained popularity. According to Era, the Digital Entertainment and Retail Association, general sales of DVDs and Blu-rays have dropped by 4.7% during the first half of the year.
However, Halliday claims that part of the rise in sales likely lies with streaming services becoming less of the cheap, convenient options they once were. "When streaming first came out I think a lot of people saw it as cheap and with huge breadth of choice.” Halliday said, “but I'm not sure people see it like that now.”
Halliday also compared the sales increase with the how people have been buying CDs and vinyl records in recent years, noting that “People are willing to pay for a physical copy of shows or films they know they will rewatch."
People are still buying discs, just in a different way
BBC News notes that the 4K version of Oppenheimer actually sold out during its first week of sale last November. In fact, Universal had to hustle to get the movie back in stock for the holiday season, showing that there is some demand for specific kinds of discs even if the physical media industry is on a downward trajectory.
I can totally understand this as well, and will go out of my way to purchase Steelbook versions of specific movies or TV shows that I enjoy and want to have on my shelf — even if that means paying a premium for them. This year alone I’ve purchased Steelbook copies of Andor, Obi Wan Kenobi and am still awaiting a pre-order for Doctor Who season 1 (or 14 if you prefer).
Likewise, I’ve been slowly picking up 4K releases of the original Star Wars trilogies, swapping out the Blu-rays from the Steelbook versions I bought back before 4K Blu-rays were even a thing. I’ll even buy regular DVDs on occasion, but generally that’s only for new classic Doctor Who releases so the collection I started back in 2012 all matches up.
Sure, all of these things are available for me to stream on Disney Plus or BBC iPlayer in the U.K. (classic Doctor Who is available on Tubi in the U.S.), but having a disc means that I waill always have access to them. And in some cases, in a way that I can use to display and enjoy in a different kind of way.
It’s not all good news
As exciting as it is to see for physical media sales actually grow, we do need to remember that this is only a single retailer in a single country. Especially a retailer like HMV that has been on the verge of bankruptcy, and disappearing from the retail world, at least twice in the past decade.
Brick and mortar retail is still going, but it’s a far cry from the position it was in during the pre-internet era when malls were king and competition from the likes of Amazon was non-existent. So physical media sales aren’t out of the woods yet.
In the U.K. physical sales were still down by 4.7% and we’ve heard stories from across the world about how buying physical media is harder than ever before. Target has stopped selling Blu-rays and DVDs in store, while Best Buy ended online sales of DVDs and Blu-rays earlier this year. Last year also saw Disney announce it would end DVD and Blu-ray sales in certain regions due to low sales — including Australia.
So while I’m definitely going to celebrate a win for physical media, we shouldn’t celebrate too hard. But if the streaming experience keeps going the way it’s been going, we might start hearing more stories like this.
Streaming is still the go-to, but it's losing a lot of good will
Streaming started off as a way to access a bunch of movies and content for a convenient, relatively low subscription free. But that was back when premium streaming was pretty much limited to Netflix and Prime Video. These days just about everyone has a streaming service of their own, with seemingly-never ending price hikes and an increasing number of ads.
So not only will you have to subscribe to different services to see all the best new shows and movies, you’re also going to be paying a small fortune when you add it all up. As people are fond of saying, we were using streaming to get away from cable TV — and now streaming feels like cable with extra steps. Not to mention the fact that multiple services are actively cracking down on password sharing, which allows people to split up the cost of each service with friends and family.
People have had enough of that. I know I have, especially since streaming metrics are so bizarre and weird that I can never be sure whether a show I like is going to be unceremoniously canceled or renewed at the end of each season. It’s no surprise that some of the alternatives have seen an uptick in popularity, even if it is only by a small amount.
A lot of people will stick to streaming. It is convenient, and despite the price there aren’t as many hoops to jump through like you get with cable — that level of sadism is now firmly in the hands of your ISP. We haven’t hit a breaking point yet, and until we do we’ll still have people streaming in considerable numbers.
Other people will revert back to various forms of piracy for the obvious reasons, while physical media may get an uptick in popularity on certain products. We may not see sales return to their peak levels, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Bottom Line
I’ve never really given up on physical media for the simple fact that having a disc means I know where my shows and movies are. They may be gathering a thick layer of dust on the shelf in my spare bedroom, but they’re there if I need them. Just like my good ol’ Battlestar Galactica Blu-ray box set.
Don’t get me wrong, I still stream a lot of content from a variety of dedicated streaming platforms and on-demand catch-up services. If I didn’t, I never would have binge watched Frasier, or realized the bizarre world of niche British reality TV — including the dating show where everyone is naked. But that doesn’t mean I can’t see that there are some very serious flaws in how premium streaming is operating, and popping a disc into a Blu-ray player might actually be a better solution sometimes.
Even if it does mean getting up every 4 or 5 episodes to change the disc over.
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