Everything's coming up roses

A new report from PricewaterhouseCoopers, "Global Entertainment and Media Outlook: 2007 - 2011," predicts that despite the disruptions caused by new media, things are looking bright: average annual growth will be 4.9 percent. From ZDNet's summary:

In the United States, digital cinema, with its superior images and ease of distribution, will reinvigorate the box office to the tune of $11.7 billion by 2011, the report said.

...The proliferation of digital cinema--expected to reach 40 percent of all U.S. screens by the middle of next decade--will shorten theatrical runs as studios push for wider releases and bring DVDs to market sooner to benefit from film ad campaigns.

Movie theater owners, long opposed to shortening the DVD release window, may continue to resist this strategy, which they believe cuts into box office revenues, but "digital distribution will minimize the potential adverse impact of a quicker home video release," the report said.

Digital 3D screens will have an impact later in the decade, as the number of available screens grows enough to allow wide releases of 3D films now in the production pipeline for 2009.

You can buy the full report for $995, or chunks of it for $95.