The Digital Entertainment and Retail Association (ERA) says that Marvel’s newest superhero movie has been the best-selling home entertainment movie in Britain so far in 2024. This movie, which stars Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman reprising their parts as famous characters, has already sold 561,917 copies. It is worth mentioning that more than 80% of these sales came from digital forms.
The British entertainment business is growing very quickly right now. Video spending increased by 6.9 percent, hitting £5 billion ($6.2 billion). The main reason for this rise is streaming services. Nearly 90% of all video gains came from subscription services like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Apple TV, which made £4.5 billion ($5.6 billion). Physical media sales fell 7.9 percent to £156.3 million ($194 million), but this 8.3 percent rise in streaming services helped make up for it.
ERA CEO Kim Bayley talked about how the industry has changed: “Entertainment is a visual industry more than ever, so it’s no surprise that video is now the largest segment in entertainment.” Millions of people have changed how they watch TV by using subscription video services. She also said that the business now has to deal with a new problem: making a physical format for video content that can be like the resurgence of vinyl records in music.
The music business is also doing very well, with record-high sales of £2.4 billion ($3 billion). The previous high point was £2.2 billion, set in 2001. 783,820 copies of Taylor Swift’s most recent record, “The Tortured Poets Department,” were sold in Britain alone.
Even though sales of actual videos are still going down, sales of Blu-rays went up by 5% compared to 2023. However, these numbers haven’t yet returned to 2022 levels.
