According to ABI Research global VOD rentals (OTT and pay TV operator), electronic sell-through (EST) and DVD/Blu-ray sales are to grow from $30.6 billion in 2013 to over $43bn in 2019, an increase of 40%.
Physical media sales continue to decline during the forecast period, while OTT VOD services and ad-based viewing take significant market share from combined physical purchases and EST.
“New content windowing strategies, such as early VOD and EST release dates, will continue to push consumers to these distribution channels," the analyst says. "In addition as pay TV operators increasingly pursue OTT initiatives the consumers will further migrate to digital distribution.”
However physical media will remain "significant" for many customers-- specifically those with extensive DVD/Blu-ray libraries, 4K TVs owners wanting higher-quality video or with a preference to having a physical copy. Thus, as ABI puts it "traditional" media has plenty of resiliency left, if not a large amount of control over content in some cases.
“As consumers move to digital distribution the wildcard in this transition remains the pay TV operators who, for the time being, still hold the most bargaining power for content rights," the analyst concludes. "How these operators approach multiscreen services will dictate how well these players retain control over when, where, and how consumers watch video."
