ONLINE BIZ RESCUES HOME ENTERTAINMENT

Sales of DVDs and Blu-ray Discs again fell in 2013 — dropping 8 percent from 2012, according to the industry trade group Digital Entertainment Group as reported in today’s (Wednesday) New York Post. But that falloff was more than offset by online digital business, which grew a whopping 47 percent over the previous year as studios, helped by studios who dug into their libraries and made older movies and TV shows available for downloading or streaming. All in all, studios’ revenue from home entertainment increased slightly — 0.7 percent — in 2013, the second consecutive year that they have seen a rise in that once-beleaguered sector. Total home entertainment revenue reached $18.22 billion — 67 percent above the $10.92 billion produced by the industry’s theatrical releases.