Joseph Weisenthal
paidContent.org
Monday, July 7, 2008 4:07 PM

Here's a bracing tonic to cure that post-holiday hangover: Lehman analyst Anthony DiClemente kicked off the fresh week with a big, across-the-board downgrade of the entertainment industry. His message: digital media is proving too disruptive to the film and TV industries. The companies he called out specifically were Disney ( NYSE: DIS), Time Warner ( NYSE: TWX), Viacom ( NYSE: VIA), News Corp ( NYSE: NWS). and CBS ( NYSE: CBS). This is kind of old news (see the stocks of all these companies), so the interesting question is timing. Why now? DiClimente's view is that the cannibalization of physical media, DVDs particularly, has so far been limited, but that this is set to rapidly accelerate.

Accelerating the decline of the DVD are a slew of new digital distribution models that are starting to crack the mainstream: "To date, we have argued that until a capable video distribution player device finds a user-friendly means of transferring Internet-based movies and TV shows to the living room HDTV screen (i.e., widespread take-up of Apple ( NSDQ: AAPL) TV penetration, Slingbox, Tivo, Xbox, or PS3 as potential device platforms), the traditional home video model remains "safe." But given 1) recent declines in standard-definition DVD sales reported by the big box retailers, 2) new strategies from Apple that may emphasize lower-priced movie options including the more popular iTunes rentals; 3) a recent strategy from Sony ( NYSE: SNE) that underscores the value of distribution as opposed to content; and 4) given the increasing likelihood of PC/TV integration, this "status quo" argument is bound to failure, and no longer tenable, in our view. We humbly believe the "long tail" argument of why packaged media "will last longer than you think" is also untenable, as investors who have touted the structural benefits of the newspaper, radio/TV station, and broadcast TV businesses have all recently observed."

Boiled down, the core argument is basically: You saw what happened to the music industry and the dramatic fall-off in CD prices. You've seen what's happened to the broadcast TV and newspaper industries. Now it's time for it to happen to TV and filmed entertainment. Hopes that digital revenue might somehow make up for lost physical sales are misguided, he says, and again, you just have to look back at the music industry. Or, as a more direct example, he cites the CW's decision to pull episodes of Gossip Girl off the web, because they were too popular, and too difficult to monetize.

To illustrate the ominous parallels, he offers a couple of charts next to each other. The first shows the clean, hand-off between VHS and DVD sales between 1997-2008.The second shows what happened, over a longer period, when the music industry switched from tape to CD. At first they just traded off, and then the CD market started to decline, a few years after it become the pre-eminent medium. And as we know, digital sales for the music industry haven't come close to offsetting this fall. As for deams that Blu-ray might prove some salvation, it's hard to see consumers flocking to expensive new upgrades offering marginal benefit, especially during a recession.

VHS and DVD sales (click to enlarge):

Cassette and CD sales (click to enlarge: