Are people ditching Netflix and heading back to Blu-ray?

More people are coming back to the world of physical media, according to one of the remaining places that sells these discs.

“4K and Blu-ray have been doing particularly well,” HMV managing director Phil Halliday told the BBC.

“When streaming first came out I think a lot of people saw it as cheap and with huge breadth of choice, but I'm not sure people see it like that now,” he says.

As an exec at a retailer, Halliday has a vested interest in physical media doing well. But these observations would fit the current sense of disillusion with streaming services, rooted in increases in cost and prevalence of ads.

Halliday says sales in its “visual” category, which encompasses discs of TV shows and movies, were up 5% in the first half of the year.

“People are willing to pay for a physical copy of shows or films they know they will rewatch,” he says, and compares the increase in interest with the renaissance of vinyl and CD formats for music.

This trend isn’t backed up by figures we’ve seen elsewhere, though.

According to DEG (Digital Entertainment Group) figures, US disc sales dropped by 25% in 2023. And down by 15% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2024. In October 2023, Best Buy announced its plan to stop disc sales this year.

However, there is one area that’s growing: the 4K Blu-ray disc, which grew 15.9% in Q1 2024.

These packages lean into a key benefit of physical media, that you get a better-quality image than with a streaming service.

Where a 4K stream might have a bitrate of 15Mbps, a 4K Blu-ray disc can be up to 128Mbps. The Lord of the Rings 4K Blu-rays average around 60-70Mbps.

HMV went into administration in 2018, and was saved from oblivion when it was acquired by JD Sports in 2019. There are more than 100 HMV stores in the UK at present, and these are operated by Canadian retailer Sunrise Records under license, alongside a handful of FOPP stores.

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