Two independent surveys shows that while the popularity of SVOD services such as Netflix has changed the way consumers watch content, many still prefer to buy, rent their movies and TV shows, and many still exclusively rely on packaged media.
A survey by Nielsen found that 73% of American consumers still buy or rent movies and TV shows. Out of these consumers, 61% went for packaged media (including Blu-ray and DVD), while 53% has bought or rented a digital file, and 41% said they consumed both types of content. This means that 20% (61% minus 41%) used packaged media exclusively.
For SVOD, it now accounts for 10% of weekly viewing hours for consumers (compared to 34% for broadcast TV, 12% for video games and 7% for packaged media). Consumers also said that SVOD has changed their buying habits, with 3% saying they buy less TV shows on discs as a result, and are going to the movies less.
A separate study from Futuresource Consulting has found that 50% of survey respondents still buy discs, and the proportion of disc buyers in the US and UK are actually up compared to the last survey.
The data shows that 20% of all digital consumers still buy discs, with those in the US more likely to buy them than compared to consumers in Canada, Australia, Germany, the UK and France.
Interestingly, the data shows that DVD buyers are increasingly female, those most likely to have children under 12 at home. Consumers that are more willing to adopt new tech actually tend to prefer packaged media over digital services.
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