Our DVD and Blu-ray sales estimates are based on weekly retail surveys, which we use to build a weekly market share estimate for each title we are tracking. The market share is converted into a weekly sales estimate based on industry reports on the overall size of the market, including reports published in Media Play News.

For example, if our weekly retail survey estimates that a particular title sold 1% of all units that week, and the industry reports sales of 1,500,000 units in total, we will estimate 15,000 units were sold of that title. The consumer spending estimate is based on the average sales price for the title in the retailers we survey.

We refine our estimates from week to week as more data becomes available. In particular, we adjust weekly sales figures for the quarter once the total market estimates are published by the Digital Entertainment Group. Figures will therefore fluctuate each week, and totals for individual titles can go up or down as we update our estimates.

Because sales figures are estimated based on sampling, they will be more accurate for higher-selling titles.

Home Market Numbers: Life's A Beach

July 14th, 2015

The list of new releases for June 23rd was not good and the best DVD release, Teen Beach 2, wasn't even released on Blu-ray. This left holdovers on top of the DVD and Blu-ray chart for June 28th and The Kingsman: Secret Service claimed top spot with 198,000 units / $3.41 million units for the week for totals of 1.11 million units / $17.84 million after three weeks of release. More...

Home Market Releases for June 23rd, 2015

June 23rd, 2015

As I've mentioned countless times in the past, the summer is the worst time of year for the home market. Outside of an occasional spring hit, there's very little worth talking about. It's much too late for last year's holiday hits, it's much too early for the summer blockbusters, and there are not even a lot of TV on DVD releases to pick up the slack. However, as bad as the average is, this week is much, much worse. There are no first-run releases of note. There's no real limited releases, TV on DVD releases, or classics coming out either. I had nothing to review this week. The top contender for Pick of the Week is Ex Machina, which is only coming out on Video on Demand. It's that slow on the home market. The other two contenders are Lupin the Third: The Castle of Cagliostro on Blu-ray and Timbuktu on Blu-ray. More...

Limited Releases: Limited Releases are Barely Here

May 29th, 2015

There are not a lot of films on this week's list; however, there are several that are earning overwhelmingly positive reviews. Heaven Knows What and I Believe in Unicorns are both coming of age films. Tu dors Nicole and Wet Bum are both Canadian films, the latter of which is only playing in Canada at the moment. Finally, there's Results. Its reviews are not as good as the other four, but its chances of earning some measure of mainstream success is likely greater. More...