A year ago, I looked at the availability of recent blockbuster hits in online stream and discovered some interesting patterns in online stream offerings. This year, I’m doing the same with the 2011 list of box office hits. The great news is that we appear to see some progress.

2011: Box Office Win­ners availability

For each movie of the top 100 movies at the box office, I pulled data on for streaming info on Netflix, Amazon on Demand, iTunes, and Vudu. I also pulled up availability of DVDs to use as a yardstick in terms of overall movie availability. The final chart looked like this:

Rank Movie Title Netflix Amazon iTunes Vudu DVD 1 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 No Yes Yes Yes Yes 2 Transformers: Dark of the Moon No Yes Yes Yes Yes 3 The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 No No No No Yes 4 The Hangover Part II No Yes Yes Yes Yes 5 Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides No Yes Yes Yes Yes 6 Fast Five No Yes Yes Yes Yes 7 Cars 2 No Yes Yes Yes Yes 8 Thor No Yes Yes Yes Yes 9 Rise of the Planet of the Apes No Yes Yes Yes Yes 10 Captain America: The First Avenger No Yes Yes Yes Yes 11 The Help No Yes Yes Yes Yes 12 Bridesmaids No Yes Yes Yes Yes 13 Kung Fu Panda 2 No Yes Yes Yes Yes 14 X-Men: First Class No Yes Yes Yes Yes 15 Puss in Boots No No No No No 16 Rio No Yes Yes Yes Yes 17 The Smurfs No Yes Yes Yes Yes 18 Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol No No No No No 19 Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows No No No No No 20 Super 8 No Yes Yes Yes Yes 21 Rango No Purchase only Purchase only Purchase only Yes 22 Horrible Bosses No Yes Yes Yes Yes 23 Green Lantern No Yes Yes Yes Yes 24 Hop No No No No No 25 Paranormal Activity 3 No No No No No 26 Just Go With It No Purchase only Purchase only Purchase only Yes 27 Bad Teacher No Yes Yes Yes Yes 28 Cowboys & Aliens No Yes Yes Yes Yes 29 Gnomeo and Juliet Yes Purchase only Purchase only Purchase only Yes 30 The Green Hornet No Purchase only Purchase only Purchase only Yes 31 Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked No No No No No 32 The Lion King (in 3D) No Purchase only (non-3D) Purchase only (non-3D) Purchase only No 33 Real Steel No No Purchase only No Yes 34 Crazy, Stupid, Love. No Yes Yes Yes Yes 35 The Muppets No No No No No 36 Battle: Los Angeles No Purchase only Purchase only Purchase only Yes 37 Immortals No No No No No 38 Zookeeper No Yes Yes Yes Yes 39 Limitless Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes 40 Tower Heist No No No No No 41 Contagion No Purchase only Yes Yes Yes 42 Moneyball No Yes Purchase only Purchase only Yes 43 Justin Bieber: Never Say Never Yes Purchase only Purchase only Purchase only Yes 44 Dolphin Tale No Yes Yes Yes Yes 45 Jack and Jill No No No No No 46 No Strings Attached Yes Purchase only Purchase only Purchase only No 47 Mr. Popper’s Penguins No Yes Yes Yes Yes 48 Unknown No No No No Yes 49 The Adjustment Bureau No No No No No 50 Happy Feet Two No No No No No 51 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) No No No No No 52 Water for Elephants No Yes Yes Yes Yes 53 The Lincoln Lawyer No Purchase only Purchase only Purchase only Yes 54 Midnight in Paris No Yes Yes Yes Yes 55 Friends with Benefits No Yes Yes Yes Yes 56 I Am Number Four No Purchase only Purchase only Purchase only Yes 57 Source Code No Yes Yes Yes Yes 58 Insidious Yes Purchase only Purchase only Purchase only Yes 59 Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Big Happy Family No Yes Yes No Yes 60 Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules No No No No Yes 61 Footloose (2011) No No No No No 62 The Adventures of Tintin No No No No No 63 Hugo No No No No No 64 The Dilemma No No No No Yes 65 New Year’s Eve No No No No No 66 Arthur Christmas No No No No No 67 War Horse No No No No No 68 Hall Pass No No No No Yes 69 We Bought a Zoo No No No No No 70 Soul Surfer No Purchase only Purchase only Purchase only Yes 71 Final Destination 5 No Yes Yes Yes Yes 72 The Ides of March No No Purchase only Yes Yes 73 The Descendants No No No No No 74 Hanna No Yes Yes Yes Yes 75 Something Borrowed No Yes Yes Yes Yes 76 Spy Kids: All the Time in the World No Yes Yes Yes Yes 77 Scream 4 No Yes Yes Yes Yes 78 Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son No No No No Yes 79 Red Riding Hood No No No No Yes 80 Paul No Yes Yes Yes Yes 81 The Roommate No Purchase only Purchase only Purchase only Yes 82 Jumping the Broom No Purchase only Purchase only Purchase only Yes 83 The Change-Up No Yes Yes No Yes 84 30 Minutes or Less No Yes Yes Yes Yes 85 In Time No No No No No 86 Colombiana No Yes Yes Yes Yes 87 J. Edgar No No No No No 88 Sucker Punch No No No No Yes 89 Larry Crowne No Yes Yes Yes Yes 90 50/50 No No No No Yes 91 Drive (2011) No No No No Yes 92 A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas No No No No No 93 Courageous No Purchase only No Yes Yes 94 The Rite No No No No Yes 95 Arthur (2011) No No No No Yes 96 The Debt No Yes Yes Yes Yes 97 Priest No Purchase only Purchase only Purchase only Yes 98 The Mechanic No Yes Yes Yes Yes 99 Abduction No Yes Yes Yes Yes 100 Beastly No Yes Yes Purchase only Yes

But the information, in a raw form, doesn’t really tell us much. To get a better sense of where we are, we need to re-aggregate the info.

Aggregate rental data

Looking at the rental market, we can now see the aggregation providing us a clearer picture

Netflix Amazon iTunes Vudu DVD Top 10 0 7 7 7 7 Top 25 0 16 16 16 19 top 50 4 25 25 25 35 Top 100 5 45 44 44 74

The data shows that Netflix appears to be missing the Flix part of its name when it comes to streaming, as it offers only 5 of the top 100 box office winners of 2011. By comparison, pay-per-view seems to be doing a better job at making top hits available for streaming, with the numbers declining as you go deeper into the list. So top movies seem to be widely available this year (in fact, 64 percent of the top 25 movies were available for streaming only 9% short of what’s available on more traditional formats like DVD).

Another interesting thing to note here is that the data seems to be relatively consistent across online pay-per-view services with Amazon, iTunes, and Vudu apparently getting access to the same movies, leading one to think that there is little differentiation between those products (of note: Vudu has actually tried to differentiate on offering by providing 7.1 surround sound and 3D movies to available TV sets.) With prices across those services being roughly the same (movies are renting for $3.99 to $5.99 on average), there is a question as to how those services will be able to provide a differentiated experience in the future.

But the big advantage of doing this again this year is that we can compare the information against last year’s data and see if progress has been made:

Netflix Amazon iTunes Vudu DVD Top 10 -1 Same Same Same -1 Top 25 -2 +2 +2 +2 +2 top 50 0 Same Same Same -1 Top 100 -5 -3 -2 -2 Same

The story here isn’t that pretty for Netflix, which has lost substantial ground from last year’s position, offering less than half of the hits it used to offer last year. If you think of their recent moves towards creating original content, it appears that Netflix is slowly moving away from its initial strategy of providing online streaming of movies on a subscription basis and moving more to a model more akin to that of a TV network.

Another interesting development here is that online streaming seems to be some losing ground compared to DVDs. One could assume that, as a new technology, online streaming would be gaining ground on DVDs but that doesn’t appear to be the case. Granted, we only have a couple of data points so next year’s data will provide us with a better understanding as to whether hollywood is trying to slow down the progress of online streaming.

Sales Data

If we are witnessing such a slow down, one of the reason may be that movie studios are looking to maximize revenue coming from sales.

Ama­zon iTunes Vudu DVD Top 10 7 7 7 7 Top 25 18 18 18 19 top 50 33 34 34 35 Over­all 61 62 61 74

The first interesting item to show up here is that we are now seeing remarkable consistency in availability of titles on streaming services. However, the availability of legal movie streams is still trailing the availability of movies on DVDs. This gap seems to be less pronounced when it comes to the top of the list than when ones goes further back into the box office records.

Once again, looking at how availability this year compared to last year’s availability provides some interesting information:

Ama­zon iTunes Vudu DVD Top 10 +1 -1 -1 -1 Top 25 +3 -2 -1 +1 top 50 +6 +5 +4 Same Over­all +5 -2 +4 +1

As opposed to online rentals, sales of streaming movies seem to be gaining on sales of DVDs, with an increasing parity in availability of movies as bits (streams) or plastic (DVDs). This appears to confirm the suspicion that movie studios are trying to protect their sales revenue at the expense of promoting pay-per-view.

Conclusion

The past year has seen an increasing alignment in the libraries of titles offered by online streamers in an on-demand basis. At the same time, we have seen Netflix apparently abandon its strategy of offering popular movies on a subscription basis. Next week, I will look at whether Netflix’s efforts are getting more focused on television streams or whether we are seeing them pull back across the board in terms of availability of more recent content.

We are also seeing Hollywood now treating online as more equivalent to DVD sales, offering titles for sale online at roughly the same rate as they do on DVD. Let’s hope that this trend continues to hold and that the industry sees the wisdom of providing online streams in an earlier release window. A few independent movies have done simultaneous releases online and in theaters this year and Hollywood has a potential to increase its revenues if it were to increasingly go in that direction.

Two sets of data only provide a small view into an overall trend but I promise I will continue growing the data set and revisit those numbers next year, giving us a better sense as to whether there is any changes in this segment of the media distribution puzzle.

Share this: Twitter

Facebook

