Within five years, a significant chunk of income generated by selling or rentals of DVDs and Blu-rays in the US, will have shifted to streaming services, a study by research firm In-Stat finds.

Between 2009 and 2014, sales of DVDs and Blu-rays will drop by 4,6 billion dollar, In-Stat told Cnet yesterday. Especially DVD sales are suffering. Blu-ray is on the rise, but falls short of making up for DVD losses.

This income is not entirely lost, however. Most of it, roughly 4 billion dollar, shifts to streaming services like Netflix, iTunes, Amazon, Hulu or Vudu “within 5 years”. Streaming is quickly becoming the arena of choice for media distributors.

Netflix, for example, has a history as a movie mail order service. Presenting the third quarter figures, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said streaming is now become the core business: "[Netflix is] now primarily a streaming company that also offers DVD-by-mail."

Apple’s Jobs also perceives a shift in consumer preference from ownership to access. The new Apple TV no longer has internal storage capacity. Users can either stream shows and movies from web services, or play them from their computer.

Not only the movie business is affected, though. In this era of access, television shows are becoming more and more popular. The US spending on downloading or streaming television shows is projected to “more than triple” between 2010 and 2014.

Source: Cnet