People Will Always Buy Distractions

Veronis Suhler Stevenson has just released highlights of its annual media industry outlook and Variety summarized some of their key findings. Despite all of the doom and gloom surrounding box office receipts and DVD revenues, VSS anticipates that box office revenue will hit $10.6 billion in 2009, from $9.54 billion in 2004. More importantly, VSS believes that DVD revenues will continue to grow at an average of approximately 11% per year to top out at $40.4 billion in 2009, growing from an estimated $26.7 billion this year. The reasoning behind this forecast appears to be the adoption of high-def product at high average unit prices and worldwide demand -- while box office is for the domestic market, DVD is a worldwide forecast.