After broadcast television, most people still watch a movie on a DVD or Blu-ray Disc player, according to new data from Parks Associates.

The finding — disclosed in research by Parks Associates on broadband households — would appear to buttress the notion that packaged media remains a viable format in an era of increasing digital distribution of home entertainment.

More than 20% of broadband households watched a movie on disc in the past two weeks, compared with about 50% watching a movie on broadcast TV, according to Parks. Notably, packaged media trumped watching a movie recorded on a DVR (about 10%), via transactional VOD (5%), online video service (4%) and digital download (1%).

Indeed, Parks found that 28% of U.S. broadband households watched a full-length movie on a computer in the last two weeks when the survey was taken.

In the Internet survey, Parks also found that respondents want to be able to access online video as part of their pay-TV service. More than half of broadband households would like to have a YouTube on-demand feature with their pay-TV services.

The Dallas-based research firm believes U.S. multichannel video program distributors could bundle online video access into cable pay-TV packages with minimal pushback from subscribers.

“U.S. pay-TV operators enjoy higher ARPU (average revenue per user) than their counterparts in other countries allowing them to test and deploy a variety of new services, although many international providers are making similar moves,” said Brett Sappington, director of research with Parks. “For example, Virgin Media has added a YouTube app … for its TiVo customers, answering their demand for access to online video.”

From the article, "After Broadcast TV, Most People Watch Movies on Disc" by Erik Gruenwedel.

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