Video Business editor Marcy Magiera notes in a recent issue that April was also a month of unseasonably good weather. Good weather translates into outdoor activities, not indoor video watching. Last year's April showers turned, instead, to a cold shower for video this April. That's Big Difference No. 2. Even combined with the calendar anomaly of five Saturdays, that's still not enough to explain a 30 percent drop.
Home video is a movie-driven industry.
If you've got the movies, people will come. April 2001 was an average release month. No blockbusters there. April's mediocre slate produced mediocre rentals. It opened on video at No. 9 and dropped to No. 11 the second week.