Best Buy To Stop DVD Sales And What That Means For Physical Media

In September, Netflix
NFLX
ended its DVD service, and Best Buy
BBY
announced it will stop selling DVDs and Blu-ray discs at the end of the 2023 holiday season.

“To state the obvious, the way we watch movies and TV shows is much different today than it was decades ago,” Best Buy said in a statement. “Making this change gives us more space and opportunity to bring customers new and innovative tech for them to explore, discover and enjoy.”

While other retailers, such as Target
TGT
and Walmart
WMT
, still sell DVDs and Blu-ray, the market has been shrinking in recent years due to streaming. In many ways, this seems like natural progress. However, many still cling to physical media.

Over the years, many have defended the need for DVDs in the streaming era. In 2016, Vox published an article that called DVDs “essential in the age of streaming.” While writer Peter Suderman discusses picture quality differences, he also calls out access, an issue still present today. Streaming services offer a rotating library, and through that rotation, certain titles are not always available.

Maybe more notably, many films are not on any streaming services and are unavailable to buy streaming versions through companies like Amazon
AMZN
. These films become entirely unavailable to stream. Films currently unavailable for streaming include James Cameron’s The Abyss, The Pink Floyd Documentary The Wall, 1978’s Dawn of the Dead and many others. Physical versions are available for many of these films. Still, if consumers no longer create a market for DVDs, these pieces run the risk of being unavailable for viewers in what may be similar to previous experiences of lost media.

From the birth of film in the late 1800s through the 1920s, lost films were common. The Library of Congress estimates that 75% of silent films are lost. The use of highly flammable nitrate film until the early 1950s contributed to this issue. While less prevalent, the phenomenon of lost films persisted into the 1970s and 1980s, especially for international films. The BFI keeps a list of the most sought-after lost films, with the number one slot filled with Alfred Hitchcock’s 1926 film, The Mountain Eagle.

While films not available for streaming will not be lost in the same way as these early films, streaming services can easily limit the films they provide to audiences. This was a topic of conversation earlier this year as Max removed the animated mini-series Over the Garden Wall on August 31. The series is set on Halloween, and for many fans, it is a fall rewatch. It was one of several shows, including Westworld, Space Ghost from Coast to Coast, Infinity Train and The Gordita Chronicles, that were removed from Max. These shows are all available to watch or purchase on other platforms, but that isn’t always the case, especially when it comes to original streaming content.

Disney+ and Hulu quickly removed Y: The Last Man and Willow. Willow had only been released five months previously. Similarly, Paramount+ took Grease: The Rise of the Pink Ladies off streaming three months after its first season came out. Many of these shows have not been released on DVD; thus, removing them from streaming has made them somewhat of a lost media (at least regarding legal streaming options.)

While DVDs may seem like the answer, sales have declined. CNBC reported in 2019, “At its peak, DVD sales reached $16.3 billion and were 64% of the U.S. home video market. That was 2005. These days, DVD sales account for less than 10% of the total market, with total sales hitting $2.2 billion in 2018.” That is a decline of over 86%. While some critics and movie lovers still purchase physical media, DVD manufacturers may see these numbers as a death knell.

With DVD sales becoming less common and accessible and more original streaming content being made and removed, lost media may be on the rise. It is not a wise business decision to house streaming content that isn’t attracting viewership, and rotating catalogs are a part of the nature of streaming services. As streamers raise prices and limit accounts, physical media may see a slight resurgence; however, that remains to be seen.