Rentrak: DVD rentals rose 10% in 2006

Overall market off 1.5% as VHS continues slide

By Marcy Magiera -- Video Business, 1/3/2007

JAN. 3 | DVD rentals rose 10.3% in 2006, to hit $7.39 billion, according Rentrakā€™s Home Video Essentials point-of-sale tracking service.

The data, which includes a la carte, subscription and online rentals, flies in the face of a growing perception in the financial community and the business press that consumer demand for DVD is weakening.

At $7.67 billion, the overall rental market, including DVD and VHS, was off 1.5% for the year, according to Rentrak, due to the continuing steep decline of the older VHS format.

VHS rentals were just $281 million in 2006, down 74.1% from a year earlier.

VHS is dying a slow death. The format accounted for 14.1% of U.S. rentals in 2005, but just 3.7% in 2006.

Top DVD Rentals for 2006

Rank	Title (Label)	Release date	Index*
1	Flightplan (Buena Vista)	Jan. 24	100.0
2	Wedding Crashers (New Line/Warner)	Jan. 3	98.8
3	Walk the Line (Fox)	Feb. 28	98.6
4	Failure to Launch (Paramount)	June 27	85.2
5	Fun With Dick and Jane (Sony)	April 11	84.0
6	Click (Sony)	Oct. 10	81.7
7	Inside Man (Universal)	Aug. 8	77.5
8	King Kong (Universal)	March 28	73.3
9	RV (Sony)	Aug. 15	72.3
10	Lord of War (Lionsgate)	Jan. 17	71.9
11	The Benchwarmers (Sony)	July 25	69.8
12	Rumor Has It… (Warner)	May 9	66.9
13	The Break-Up (Universal)	Oct. 17	65.5
14	The Family Stone (Fox)	May 2	65.3
15	The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Buena Vista)	April 4	64.7
16	Derailed (Weinstein/Genius)	March 21	64.4
17	Jarhead (Universal)	March 7	64.2
18	The Lake House (Warner)	Sept. 26	61.9
19	Firewall (Warner)	June 6	61.5
20	A History of Violence (New Line/Warner)	March 14	60.7

*Index puts the top title at 100 and lists all others as a percentage of the top titleā€™s rental revenue.
Source: Rentrakā€™s Home Video Essentials

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