Let’s talk about Blu-ray release activity on a
year-to-date basis this week.

The preliminary year-to-date results are on a record-shattering
pace.   As of the week ending Aug. 25,
2023 there have been 5,030 new Blu-ray releases … last year at this time there
were 3,717 Blu-rays released (2022 finished with 6,028, an all-time record).

When you make business decisions based on faulty
data what do you get?

Well, we will go out on a limb here and say, bad
decisions.  Sure, the data might be
faulty, but it is close enough, so full steam ahead … or perhaps better put,
stream ahead.

Let’s sell the paperback editions before the hard
cover copies, because no one cares about physical media.  That is exactly what is happening … and all
of this in the middle of two major labor actions.

Management at the various “Hollywood” studios (note,
only Paramount is actually in Hollywood) either don’t care that everything is
burning down, or don’t see that everything is burning down … ego versus, dare
we say it, lack of insight. 

From the “Hollywood” studio point of view, physical
media — DVD and Blu-ray — is dying, if not already dead.   They instead plunge ahead with the streaming
wars that cost them billions of dollars every year and compound this fiscal insanity
by delivering pristine masters of their film and series programming to “void
fillers” and “helpers” with nary a thought as to the consequences.   Paperback editions before hard cover, that’s
the religion.

A reality check is in order.   As of
the week ending Aug. 25, 2023, we have consumed 34 of the street-date Tuesdays
of the year.   That leaves 18 more product
cycles left in 2023.   Keep that in mind.

Thus far the “Hollywood” studios, the very same “Hollywood”
studios that are losing $600 million a month on streaming, have churned out 242
new Blu-ray product offerings.   

The boutique labels — independent labels — do the
heavy lifting with 1,085 new Blu-ray product offerings.    If you are good at math, that adds up to
1,327 Blu-ray SKUs during the first 34 weeks of the year.   That is an average of 39 new Blu-ray product
offerings each week.

The entire industry’s business analytics are based
on what they see.   39 Blu-ray titles a
week … Blu-ray is either dead, or dying, based on those numbers.

39 Blu-ray titles a
week

Blu-ray is either dead, or dying, 

based on those numbers.

It’s called GIGO.  
Garbage In, Garbage Out.   If you
believe 120 million households are served by 39 new Blu-ray titles per week,
then you are quite content to lose billions of dollars each year on streaming
and sell paperback editions of your film and television assets before cashing
in on the hard cover editions.

Here is where data is not so precise.   These 1,327 new Blu-ray titles — the action
that business decisions are being made on — account for just 26.4 percent of
the releases through the first 34 weeks of 2023 (4.8 percent for the studios
and 21.6 percent for the boutique shops).

The rest?  
The 73.6 percent that remains, where is that coming from?

Two sources account for the bulk of the Blu-ray
titles being delivered to consumers.  
One is legitimate and one not so much.   
One source operates below the radar in local markets and the other
source is quite visible, but ignored, willfully ignored.

First the legitimate source … this would be local
broadband or public access suppliers who use the Blu-ray, not for its hi-def
appeal, but for its capacity.   You can
get more stuff on a Blu-ray disc than you can on a DVD … that’s the long and
the short of it.

Micro broadcasters have churned out 608 new Blu-rays
thus far this year, or 12.1 percent of the release pie.   Sure, the dollar volume is also micro, but
when you are a local public access system, every dollar counts.   

They sell copies of the local sporting events, graduations,
concerts in the park, public meetings (some by law) and other programs that the
public might have an interest in.

Two points should be noted before dismissing this source
as just peanuts.   

First, they sell Blu-ray titles week in and week out
… they wouldn’t be doing it as a hobby, so consumers are buying from this
below-the-radar source.   Not much in the
way of dollar volume, we concede that, but every little bit helps when you are
operating the equivalent of a roadside fruit stand.

Second, they are making use of the Blu-ray format
for capacity.   Manufacturing it on
demand … an order arrives, they burn a disc from their video files and out the
door it goes.   It is not that
complicated.

If they can do this, then why can’t the streaming
giants with their programming?  

All three of these sources, studios, boutiques and
micro broadcasters are legitimate.  They
are selling copies of what they produce and own.   They account, so far this year, for 38.5
percent of all Blu-ray titles released.

What remains, the part of the ice berg below the
water — 61.5 percent of the mass — are Blu-rays from “helper” and “void-filler”
sites.    Last century we called these
sources pirates or bootleggers.

Not included in the year-to-date numbers are those “honey
pot” sources operating out of China, Sri-Lanka and other exotic places where
you have to be out of your mind to serve up credit card information to get a
$12.99 Blu-ray edition of your favorite movie or television show.   

Nope, we’re just tracking those in Tampa, Las Vegas,
Oklahoma City, across the border in Canada, some European sources that have
been operating forever and the like.

This is where the paperback before hard cover
analogy comes in handy to understand why 61.5 percent of all Blu-ray titles
released thus far this year are from “helper” sources.

When a film first surfaces at your local multiplex,
the distributor (studio or independent) shares in the revenue generated with
the local exhibitor.   That’s the hard
cover first edition.

When the same rights owner manufactures and sells
physical media (DVD, Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD), the revenue generated, either
through retail distribution or direct-to-consumer sales, is exclusive.   It is a one-off transaction with one consumer
at a time — the rights owner controls it.  
This too is a hard cover edition.

Everything else that follows is the paperback version.   The bulk of consumers who either don’t go
out to the movies (couch potatoes) or don’t buy physical media are the
down-market audience.   They might watch
a version of a movie with a ton of commercials … they don’t care.   They might watch it on Netflix, or Amazon
Prime or the Peacock; Disney+ and on and on.  
They consume it and move on.

The first two transactions — theatrical and physical
media — the rights owner controls.   But,
when you slip the paperback version into the revenue stream before the hard
cover sales have been tapped out, you invite “helpers” to share in the action.

The moment a film or series streams, a pristine
master of the program is out there and if you haven’t satisfied consumer
demand, someone else will.   Just look at
the numbers — and we are just talking Blu-ray — and you can’t help but notice
that 61.5 percent of the Blu-ray releases so far this year are stolen
intellectual properties.

Week after week major motion pictures have a digital
sales window (paperback version) before the hardcover edition is made available
… “helpers” are literally served up a master of the film to fill consumer
demand and that’s exactly what they do.  

This past week alone, we had “helper” Blu-ray
editions of director Sammi Cohen’s You are So
Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah, starring Adam Sandler, filmmaker
Carlos Alonso Ojea’s Killer
Book Club, director Anthony Stacchi’s
animated adventure, The Monkey King, plus
Meg 2: The Trench, Past Lives and Evil Dead
Rise.

That’s just the new film releases.  Series programming would take up even more
space, but to keep it simple, if it is streamed, it is available on Blu-ray (or
DVD) … on average 91 new “helper” Blu-rays arrived every week this year.   That’s what you get when you sell the
paperback edition before fulfilling consumer demand in the channels you control
… and do nothing about it.

Next week it will be a new horror story, you can
count on it!