The final tally on how much consumers spent on home entertainment in 2014 released Tuesday showed a downtick of a couple of percentage points, which given the sharp declines in DVD sales could be seen as hopeful. But the true picture is much worse.
That’s because the numbers, released by the industry-funded Digital Entertainment Group to coincide with this week’s Consumer Electronics Show, now include spending on subscription streaming services like Netflix. Because this category is growing so fast, it is largely offsetting a continuing decline in traditional home entertainment—sales and rentals of individual movies, either in DVD form or through digital services like iTunes.
