HOLLYWOOD (Variety) - Despite Warner Home Video's dominance in the rapidly growing DVD market last year, Disney's Buena Vista Home Video generated the most supplier revenue from the homevid market overall with nearly $2.5 billion, according to Adams Media Research.

With DVD contributing $1.3 billion, overall 1999 homevideo revenue to studios and suppliers reached $9.5 billion -- nearly three times what studios generate from the theatrical side of the business.

Buena Vista dominated the VHS rental and sell-through market with 26.8 percent ($2.19 billion) of the overall $8.16 billion VHS market, despite a dramatic 20 percent drop from the studio's $2.7 billion in 1998.

Led by the industry's two best-selling titles of the year, ``A Bug's Life'' (14.5 million units, $215 million) and ``Mulan'' (11 million units, $163 million), Buena Vista collected $1.7 billion from the sell-through VHS market alone. The studio's 29.9 percent market share was nearly 11 points higher than closest competitor Warner Home Video.

The positions were nearly exactly reversed in the DVD market, where Warner held a similar lead over Buena Vista.

Warner's $397 million in revenue from DVD represented nearly 31 percent of that market compared to the 20.7 percent ($270 million) for Buena Vista.

About 15 percent of Warner's DVD revenue came from the two top-selling titles of 1999, ``The Matrix'' which generated more than $25 million (1. 6 million units shipped), followed closely by the $23.6 million (1.5 million units shipped) of New Line Home Video's ``Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me,'' distributed by Warner.

After DreamWorks' ``Saving Private Ryan'' and Universal's ``The Mummy'' Artisan Home Entertainment's ''The Blair Witch Project'' was the fifth top-selling DVD title with 1 million copies ($15.7 million) and the sixth biggest revenue-generating VHS title with 6.2 million copies ($85.1 million).

Reuters/Variety