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 Rentrak’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 title’s rental revenue.
Source: Rentrak’s Home Video Essentials
