Blu-ray pals Facebook to keep sales up

With Blu-ray sales growing this year, digital Entertainment Group desires to keep the momentum going through the holidays and contains enlisted Hollywood as well as the electronic products biz to create the greatest social media campaign for your format through Facebook. Since the overall homevideo biz is experiencing a 5% rise in revenue through the 3rd quarter -- its first quarterly sales increase since 2008 -- greater than 100 Facebook pages will launch a "Win large with Blu-ray" contest that will "educate movie fanatics on the benefits of Blu-ray home theatre,Inch the DEG mentioned. Bert Kreischer, host of Travel Channel's "Bert The Conqueror," has become representative for your contest, through which individuals who win will probably be granted a Blu-ray prize pack each week. Kreischer as well as the DEG produced three short videos that will show on participating partners' Facebook pages. Effort launches now and runs using the next 15 days. Virtually all of the art galleries are involved in the campaign, similar to indie distribs like Anchor Bay and Image Entertainment and electronic products producers like LG Electronics, Panasonic, The brand new the new sony Electronics and Toshiba America Information Systems. "The most effective 20 Hollywood film pages alone on Facebook have an overabundance than 250 million collective 'likes,' so by joining up exceeding 100 similar partners, we understood this might be one of the greatest contest ever being completed on Facebook," mentioned Amy Jo Cruz, executive director in the DEG. "Clients are trading nearly eight several hours monthly on Facebook now. There's no better approach to tout the benefits of Blu-ray to engaged and receptive clients nationwide.In . Promotion is powered by Peer Squared, designers in the ShareAndTell Professional social contest and rewards platform. The DEG reported Monday that third-quarter sales of homevideo game game titles inside the U.S. totaled $3.9 billion, up from $3.7 billion this past year. Blu-ray created $423 million through the 3rd quarter, due to top merchants like "Transformers: Dark in the Moon," "Thor," "X-Males: Top Quality,In . "Bridesmaids," "Fast Five" and "Alien: The Whole Saga." Streaming, electronic sales, and VOD elevated 50% to $812 million through the quarter, with VOD alone, producing $420 million of the through the 3-month period, up 5%. The rental biz still created $607 million from subscription-based disc-by-mail services like Netflix, which elevated 5%, and $414 million hauled in by rental costs from kiosks like Redbox through the quarter. DVD sales were off 15% to $1.3 billion. Overall, purchasing Blu-sun sun rays acquired $1.23 billion for your first seventy five percent of year, compared to $1 billion for a similar period this past year. Many of the uptick remains credited to "Avatar," which offered 11 million models on Blu-ray. Before that film, game game titles created 16% from the sales, normally, within the Blu-ray format. Now, it's around 25%, with a lot of game game titles moving greater than 50% on Blu-ray. An thought 52% of houses inside the U.S. now own a Blu-ray player, representing 33.5 million houses, the DEG mentioned. However, the entire home theatre sector remains lower 2% to $12.3 billion for your first seventy five percent. Still any signs and signs and symptoms of growth and development of physical dvd disks is welcomed by Hollywood's homevid divisions, given how art galleries are trying to coax more clients to buy rather than rent movies. Contact Marc Graser at marc.graser@variety.com