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.

VOD Releases: Are Audiences Feeling Friendly?

July 22nd, 2020

Most of the major new releases on VOD are earning positive reviews this week. Of these, The Whistlers is the critical darling, but Fisherman’s Friends could find a larger audience. There’s also some strength in depth among the independent films and shows coming to a platform near you. More...

New on Disc: Scoob! Steals the Spotlight

July 21st, 2020

It is a rather slow on the home market, even compared to what we’ve seen recently. However, there are at least a couple of releases that should do well on the sales chart. Scoob! should easily sell the most units of any release on this week’s list, but Northern Exposure: The Complete Series is getting the jump on next week’s massive flood of TV on DVD releases and that’s clearly helping its sales numbers. That said, neither of these are contenders for Pick of the Week; in fact, there is really only one contender for that title, Marriage Story, which is getting a Criterion Collection release this week. More...

This Week on VOD: Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Always, and Others

May 22nd, 2020

There are only four films on this week’s VOD release list and only two of them are earning good reviews. Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Always is the better of these two films and it is absolutely worth checking out. Military Wives is one of those feel-good films that could be really nice to watch right now, even if it isn’t a classic. More...