SPENDING MORE AGAIN: For the three months through September, U.S. home movie spending rose nearly 5 percent from last year, the first increase since early 2008.
WHAT’S BEHIND IT: Contributing factors include more purchases of higher-priced Blu-ray discs and greater outlays on cut-rate rentals from Netflix and Redbox. Buying digital copies of movies and ordering them from set-top box video-on-demand services also rose.
NOT SO GREAT: People bought fewer DVDs and made fewer trips to brick-and-mortar video rental stores, cutting into the gains. And spending is still down 2 percent for the year so far.
