“You know the one… the one I always watch at Christmas… Home Alone – that’s the one… Home Alone, such a festive film, love to put the DVD on, sit back and watch it.”
Whilst many folk reading this, will be able to relate to the answer above – times are changing.
Yesterday – I was on BBC Radio Nottingham. Sharing my thoughts on the announcement that John Lewis will stop selling DVD players.
That’s right – if you need one, I suggest you hurry up – make your way to the local electrical outlet and purchase one.
But why would you need one?
Remember the days of the VHS? – Yep, they soon disappeared when DVD’s came. Because DVD’s were able to offer better quality, slim design, didn’t have to worry about the ‘reel’ part of the mechanism, was easy to skip chapters, etc… just made life a lot easier.
Digital was here. Then we had (and have) Blu Ray. Even better quality.
But why are we still using them? With Netflix profits soaring – in 2017, they’d made an annual profit of $558.9m! – more and more people want to watch, what they want… when they want… and how they want!
Just look at Netflix’s revenue per quarter… since Q1 2011, (by the way, the unit is millions US Dollars on the left).
Crazy right?! – more and more people are streaming. Not just Netflix, but there’s also Amazon’s Prime that offers you an array of films, shows, etc.. to watch. You then have the trusted YouTube! – which we all know, has a phenomenal amount of content – not just cats jumping around.
Hence this is the reason why we’ve stopped buying DVD players – why have the physical disc in your hand – why not just press a few buttons on your remote control and watch what you want. Imagine the space you’ll save. Imagine the flexibility of watching it on your phone, your tablet….(as well as your TV).
What’s next? – I think there’ll be less films and more series – more box sets. Because our attention span is reducing – can we really sit there for a couple of hours watching a film…. or would we be rather engaged in a series of 1 hr episodes that continue to tell a story.
And do we need to go to the cinema? – John Lewis also reported, the most popular TV screen size that was sold was 55″, compared to a few years ago, when it was 40″.