Nielsen VideoScan High-Def market share for week ending November 16th, 2008
by Ben Drawbaugh 
posted Nov 21st 2008 at 10:16PM
After staying in the double digits in regards to market share for all of October, for the second week in the row Blu-ray only manages just under 10% of the top 20 home media market share, according to Nielsen VideoScan courtesy of Home Media Magazine. The good news for Blu-ray is that sales were up 83.49 percent to over $20 million, which is up from about $11 million last week. The fact that Blu-ray didn't manage more of the market is what we'll refer to the panda affect. While we're not exactly sure how well Kung Fu Panda did on Blu-ray -- because the title market share chart only listed the top 10 this week -- last week it was less than 6 percent. Assuming this trend continued, and the fact that the panda movie held the number one and number three position on the DVD charts, it appears Blu-ray's number one title, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, was no match for it. Next week we'd be willing to bet we see much of the same because while WALL-E has a much broader appeal then animated fighting bears, it probably won't be enough to break Blu over 10 percent all on its own.
As we get closer and closer to the end of the year, each and every studio keeps releasing new titles in record numbers, as is evident this week with over 20 new titles. Dreamworks's animated feature Kung Fu Panda is the biggest this week and while it is expected to sell well, we'd be surprised if it managed much of DVD's market share. Another animated movie which is probably more in line with the Blu-ray demographic though, is Futurama: Bender's Game. Steve Carell's latest comedy is out this week from Warner with Get Smart, which is sure to be good for a laugh. Although these movies will be the most popular this week, the theme is most definitely Planet of the Apes with six classics released by Fox. The next few weeks is much of the same,as we count down to the remaining blockbusters due this year like WALL-E and the Dark Knight.
