INCREASED SALES OF CHILD VIDEOS SEEN

This year will be even bigger than 1985 for children’s videocassettes, predicts Richard Fried, director of marketing for Disney Home Video.

Fried looks for the VCR market to expand, with machines now selling at a rate of nearly a million a month.

Children’s programming, with more than 2,000 titles currently available, accounts for 12% to 20% of the home video market. Fried doesn’t forecast an increase in the market share but expects that as the total market expands so will children’s video.

“The new VCR owners are likely to have at least two kids,” he said. “The market isn’t as upscale any more. There’s more middle-class and lower-middle-class families in it now, more families with children.”