Report says movie biz is still growing 3% a year

Despite the fact that U.S. DVD and movie-theater ticket sales respectively declined about 12 percent and 4 percent last year, a report says the global movie business will actually grow at a compound rate of nearly 3.1 percent through 2016, when it will reach $99.7 billion.

Pricewaterhouse Coopers’ rather voluminous Global Entertainment and Media Outlook study says that sectors such as the U.S. theatrical market will return to growth, expanding 3.7 percent over the next four years to 13.7 billion as ticket prices stabilize.

Continued steep declines in DVD and Blu-ray revenue, meanwhile, will be significantly offset by the doubling of income from digital formats, with global revenue from over-the-top video streaming services reaching $11 billion by 2016.

Over the same span, digital distribution will nearly double its share of the global home entertainment marketplace, accounting for 36 percent of it, according to the Pricewaterhouse Coopers report.

‘A shortening home video window and experiments in modifying the current windowing structure — e.g. premium VOD and day-and-date digital releases — will benefit electronic video spending,” the report adds.

Also read: Analyst renews calls for studios to crush theatrical window

Of course, as it often does these days, the growth of the Chinese market will be a major growth contributor, too, with that country becoming the world’s No. 2 box office market behind the U.S. by 2016 with projected revenue of nearly $5 billion.