Britons on Pace To Spend More for Online Video Than Physical Discs, Report Says

British consumers are on pace this year for the first time to spend more on video streaming subscriptions and downloads than on buying and renting physical DVDs and Blu-rays, Strategy Analytics said in a Friday report. The research firm sees Britons spending 1.3 billion pounds ($1.9 billion) on streaming and downloading in 2016 (a 23.7 percent increase from 2015), compared with 956 million pounds ($1.4 billion) on DVDs and Blu-rays (down 16.3 percent from 2015), it said. Five years ago, physical media accounted for 86 percent of consumer spending on home video, but in five years it will be less than 14 percent, “with DVD/Blu-ray rental virtually extinct,” the company said. “As online provides increasing ways to access films and box-sets, physical simply can’t compete. Although many people will always prefer a physical disc, retailers will have to decide whether it’s even viable to offer that format in five years’ time.”