Music is making a comeback on vinyl and cassette. There's a growing market for movies on DVDs, too

The resurgence of vinyl, cassettes and even Walkmans has been a cultural surprise for some and a staple at certain big box stores. But what about movies in physical media, like DVDs and Blu-ray?

It turns out, there’s a growing market for that, too.

For those who grew up watching cable television, commercials selling DVD boxsets may sound familiar. But as streaming services like Netflix took hold, DVD sales began to drop and are still in freefall, according to the latest full industry report from the Digital Entertainment Group.

“All the sales across the board are going down. They continue to [have] gone down for the past 10 years or so, I think they’re under a billion [dollars in consumer spending]," said Film and Media Studies professor Kevin Sandler with Arizona State University.

Despite the decline, Sandler says there is one segment of the industry that is stabilizing: collectors’ editions.

“There’s still a little bit of a market for SteelBooks and you see probably SteelBooks going up maybe in price, again it just depends on how many are being made a year," Sandler said.

Think of SteelBooks like higher quality format versions of DVDs or Blu-ray in prettier packaging.

The Digital Entertainment Group industry report showed spending on SteelBooks is growing.

Sandler thinks it’s only collectors or cinephiles with the biggest interest in physical media that are driving that growth.

ASU

And some big box stores have made similar conclusions. A Target spokesperson cited industry trends as the reason they stopped selling DVDs and Blu-rays in-store on the regular.

But sales are not declining everywhere, and one company is saying they’re seeing multiple, including younger, generations partaking.

“Everyone’s finding things, whether it’s a special edition or a regular ole Blu-ray or the regular DVD. People love it, said Katie Gregson, store manager at the Zia Records in Tempe.

The Phoenix-based chain specializes in new and used physical media.

“Target and other big box locations deciding not to sell movies have really impacted us in a really positive way," Gregson said.

The company’s pre-owned product coordinator Evan Phelps says the “used” element is playing a role in sales growth.

“And that’s really where we’re seeing a lot of sales really increased today because the preowned movies we sell as low as 99 cents. We sell a lot for $5 and under," Phelps said.

The company saw slight increases in their year-over-year used sales in DVD and Blu-ray from 2023 to 2024, according figures given by Zia Records.

But there’s other factors besides the sticker price driving sales.

Jean Clare Sarmiento/KJZZ

For people like Craig Hartwell, who is an admin for the internationally subscribed Facebook group: Blu Ray/DVD Collectors — digital versions don’t offer the full, and sometimes original, experience.

“I’ve got one copy of the film 'The Watchman' which is like six hours long, it’s not streaming," Hartwell said. "And it's got every single documentary, making of, from the soundtrack to the animation to the lighting. You won’t get that on streaming, all you’ll get is the film."

And Phelps says sometimes what he wants to watch disappears from streaming and says “I do find that to be a way of indirect censorship.

“You’re like ‘oh I’ve seen this on Netflix or Prime a million times now and this will finally be my time to watch it,'" Phelps said. "And then you go on there and it's’ like ‘oh sorry it’s not available anymore,’ and then you're like “oh it’s not available at any streaming service at the moment.”

Sandler says holding on to licensing agreements can be expensive for streaming services, which can lead to titles being dropped or moved around.

“We now have the seven major streamers who have started to remove their content increasingly so, so they don’t have to pay license fees and residual payments,” Sandler said.

And greater competition played a role too.

“It used to be during the rise of all these streamers, it would be everything for everybody,” Sandler said. “Anything you wanted you could maybe find, just tons of stuff. And now, because of greater competition — Paramount Plus came in, some of the smaller players … everyone trying to rival Netflix — and they were losing tons of money so they were like ‘well how do we make money? Wallstreet is telling us that we need to increase profits’ so you just cut stuff.”

Also, Sandler made it clear that even digital ownership does not shield consumers from licensing drops.

“I have talked to people who have been extremely upset when all this money that they’ve spent on their library that they see some of it has disappeared for no reason," Sandler said.

Amazon.com is currently facing a class action lawsuit, accusing the company of misleading consumers on what digital ownership actually means.

Sandler says some people are rethinking how they spend money.

“When you have the depletion of libraries, the increased subscription costs for these streamers," Sandler said, "you have [the] cutting down on the limited password sharing, you have an expensive non-ad supportive rate, you then see a kind of switch being made.”

The equipment capable of playing physical media is also a rare site to see. DVD and Blu-ray players are mostly no longer in laptops, and companies like LG have ceased player production. But video game consoles, like the PlayStation 5, are picking up the slack and reddit forums are recommending them to play anything from newer Blu-rays and the old DVDs.