(L-R): Alliance Entertainment’s Laura Provenzano, Zia Record Exchange’s Mike Durham, ADS Group’s Connie Comeau, MVD’s Ed Seaman and Media Play News’ Thomas K. Arnold.
May 18, 2023
NASHVILLE — The physical home entertainment disc was the topic of a May 17 panel discussion titled “Blu-ray Is to Film Geeks as Vinyl Is to Music Freaks” here at the Music Biz Conference 2023.
Fans drew parallels between film collectors and music collectors, and noted that just as in the music industry, there’s still a place for physical media.
Panelists included Mike Durham, buyer of the Zia Record Exchange, a chain of eight record stores in the Southwest; Connie Comeau, COO of physical media production company the ADS Group; and Laura Provenzano, SVP of purchasing and marketing at Alliance Entertainment.
Ed Seaman, CEO of the MVD Entertainment Group, introduced the panel. He noted that in his dealings with retailers he sees strong sales of collectible indie fare on Blu-ray Disc and 4K Ultra HD, with a similar demographic to vinyl collectors.
He shared an anecdote: “We were at this convention last year and had just gotten a monumental order from Barnes & Noble for a great collectible series of Blu-ray Discs. I was talking to a venerable indie retailer, and asked, ‘Do you have a Blu-ray section?’ She said no, her store only carries used DVDs. So I said, ‘You sell used vinyl — does that preclude you from selling new vinyl?’ And a lightbulb went off, about there being an opportunity for indie retailers to exploit these collectible Blu-rays and 4Ks, which are very similar to collectible vinyl in terms of appealing to passionate consumers.”
Comeau said 35% of her company’s business consists of DVD and Blu-ray Disc replication, and over the last two years produced more than 10 million DVDs exclusively for the Dollar Tree store chain. “People are wanting that content, and we are seeing an uptick in our DVD business,” she said. “I am a firm believer in physical media.”
Durham noted that all of his stores also carry DVDs and Blu-ray Discs and do healthy, steady sales, particularly with budget cult films and premium-priced collectibles. “We have been music stores for some time, but movies have always been a huge part of what we do,” he said. “And we see that there is a similar fan who comes in for the elaborate record package to the fan who comes in for the great film package. Cult films, horror films — we sell a ton of them.” He cited indie distributors such as Arrow, Blue Underground and Severin as having loyal, repeat customers.
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Alliance Entertainment’s Provenzano said Barnes & Noble is a “huge, huge” customer for collectible indie fare from Arrow, Criterion and other labels. “We really are focused primarily on these tentpole promotional events that we do a couple of times a year,” she said, which focus on collectors and are driven by advertising, blogging and social media. “We see tremendous chatter online,” she said. “There’s absolutely a collector factor coming in there. We see consumers who are just waiting and anticipating these sales events, and they will come in and literally ask for catalog numbers, because they want to pick up every new release for their collection, and that’s a really cool thing.”
Provenzano noted that Barnes & Noble customers prefer premium-priced collectibles “with lots of bells and whistles,” while Durham said he’s also seeing big sales in low-priced cult fare: “We carry a lot of movies, across the board, but our No. 1 seller, for the last 10 years, has been Blood In, Blood Out, and I’m talking close to 10,000 units over the course of those years. And it’s $5.99.”