VOD and EST drive US home entertainment spending to $8.7BN in Q122

DEG’s First Quarter 2022 Digital Media Entertainment Report found that in all, US consumers spent $8.7 billion on movies and television shows consumed at home and on the go in the first quarter of 2022. The 2022 increase – including a 13.8% increase across all digitally delivered formats including electronic sell-through (EST), video-on-demand (VOD) and subscription streaming – was fuelled by an increase in new theatrical releases, which are historically a key driver of home entertainment spending, released in premium and traditional windows.

Digital purchases (EST) of theatrical titles rose more than 1%, including premium titles, helping to drive an almost 7% increase in EST overall in the quarter. Premium releases enjoyed strong consumer interest and spending While still significantly below pre-pandemic levels, box-office spending on the titles released to the home in the first quarter jumped more than 500% from the year earlier period, feeding consumers’ appetite for fresh feature films.

Among the first quarter’s best-performing titles across transactional formats were American Underdog, Dog, Dune, Encanto, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, House of Gucci, No Time to Die, Sing 2, Spider-man: No Way Home, Venom: Let There Be Carnage and Yellowstone Season 4.

The report also found that subscription streaming rose almost 17% in the quarter from the year earlier period, as direct- to-consumer services including AMC+, Disney+, HBO Max, Paramount+, Peacock and others continued to add subscribers at a healthy rate. General VOD revenues dropped back by 10.83% on a yearly basis to $ 561.91 million but SVOD soared by 16.86% to total $6.929 billion. Rapid TV News