Dvd Makes Strides In Home Fitness

In the last decade, the health and fitness video category has lost much of its retail muscle, but DVD-Video could revitalize the genre.

DVD offers home fitness consumers more flexibility than VHS by eliminating tedious rewinding and fast-forwarding to find a favorite part of a workout. In addition, as DVD-player penetration accelerates to more than 30 million households, the format is attracting more female purchasers.

Gary Goldman, president of Goldhil Home Entertainment, says, "Retailers are gravitating toward DVD at an accelerated rate, and the [VHS] fitness section is contracting."

Many suppliers admit that fitness programs in general will never again enjoy the explosive sales of the '80s, when Jane Fonda's aerobic programs dominated the sales charts. Nevertheless, Goldman says, diminishing retail shelf space for VHS product has forced the company to make the move into DVD.

Goldhil will release Belly Dance Fitness: Basic Moves and Fat Burning and Belly Dance Fitness: Arms, Abs, Hips, Buns, and Thighs Aug. 29 to test the DVD waters. Both the Belly Dance titles will have such interactive elements as chapter stops to help viewers tailor their workouts. The suggested list price for each is $19.95.

first steps

Goldman says, "Women have not been the primary purchasers of DVD players, and women's product has not done that well in the format so far."

Hosea Belcher, senior VP of marketing for Artisan Home Entertainment, agrees that the DVD fitness category cannot even be called a niche market at this point. Dramatic new releases are key to gaining a retail foothold.

As an example, Artisan released Denise Austin's Pilates on DVD last March and will follow it up with Power Yoga Plus in December. But Belcher says the company will hold off releasing more fitness DVD titles to retail: "We have just started to venture into DVD in fitness. We absolutely see the need for it, and DVD is the perfect format because you can customize workouts. But we are stepping lightly until we think the market becomes a little broader."

Like most DVDs, some exercise product will include bonus features. On Austin's Power Yoga Plus, a feature called "pick a pose" allows users to get a closeup view of the various positions. A list of healthy recipes from Austin's kitchen is also included.

Although Belcher won't give sales figures, he says that Austin's Pilates DVD has "performed up to expectations" and has been placed with most mass merchants, including Kmart, Wal-Mart, and Target.

Austin has heard from fans who say they bring the Pilates DVD on business trips and play it on their laptop computers. "The beauty of DVD is the convenience factor," the fitness expert says. "You can pick and choose what you like best."

exercising new options

While DVD is much more functional than VHS, its high price will be a tough hurdle. Current fitness tapes are priced at $9.95 or below, but most suppliers are releasing DVD fitness product priced at $19.95. Anchor Bay Entertainment is tackling the issue by pricing its Sept. 11 fitness releases Basic Yoga for Dummies and Pilates for Dummies at $14.95 each.

Anchor Bay senior brand manager Michelle Rygiel stresses that the company isn't skimping on quality: "In most cases, you are getting two workouts on each disc, and we've included an 'instructor cuing only' feature," which allows viewers to mute the music on the disc and still hear the instructor speaking. "We've tried to keep fitness DVDs affordable by concentrating on the features that add real function."

While exercise DVDs have just begun hitting the market, online retailer Amazon says the category is popular enough to warrant its own virtual room within its DVD store. The dedicated area was added to the Web site in June.

Jenny Brown, Amazon editor in chief of DVD and video, says that a number of DVD fitness titles, including All Day Yoga Workout from Living Arts, Denise Austin's Pilates, and Yoga Zone's Sculpting and Yoga for a Strong and Healthy Back, have sold well.

But Kathy Smith's Kickboxing, which was the first fitness program released on DVD, was not embraced by Smith's core audience, Brown says: "It seems that her fans skew a little older than the average DVD consumer."

Smith, who has been a leader in the category for more than 20 years, will release her second DVD title, Moving Through Menopause, Dec. 4 through Sony Music Video. A price point hasn't been determined, but it will not exceed $20, according to a Sony representative. The program combines a full workout and interviews with doctors and a nutritionist. Bonus features include a list of questions for women to ask their doctors, recipes, and articles about nutrition. Four of Smith's catalog titles will also be available on DVD in October.