Buyers hit pause on DVD sales

June 14, 2007 [...] don't think this is a strategic shift by studios to concentrate their bigger releases in the weeks leading up to the holidays, when consumer spending on DVDs traditionally reaches its peak. It's more a function of a weak slate of theatricals, combined with rapidly depleted catalogs and a flattening of the TV-DVD business, now that so many popular shows, such as "Friends" and "Six Feet Under," have completed their runs on DVD. "A lot of it has to do with the fact that they don't have much inventory (of new releases)," said Ralph Tribbey, editor of the DVD Release Report, which just performed a studio-by-studio study of release patterns.

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