Abstract

Although theatrical box office results have traditionally been considered the most important measures of movie performances, the fact that movie studios' revenues are more dependent on the DVD retail sales rather than box office ticket sales ascertains the importance of investigating the DVD retail sales performance. While numerous studies explore the key drivers in theatrical performance, little is known about the specific drivers of DVD retail market performance. Therefore, this thesis aims to investigate: (1) whether the factors that have an impact on theatrical market also impact on DVD sales market and (2) whether certain factors are more (or less) important in DVD retail markets. The research questions are addressed by adopting a linear regression modeling and a quantile regression modeling approach. The results show that (1) theatrical performance is the key predictor of DVD performance and (2) DVD performance is more influenced by "reputation" factors, while theatrical performance is more influenced by "signaling" factors.