Adele beats FIFA and Call Of Duty to become the biggest entertainment hit of 2015

As if you needed any more proof of just how big Adele’s comeback has been, the superstar’s latest album 25 beat competition from gaming giants FIFA and Call Of Duty to be the biggest overall entertainment hit of 2015.

As well as being the biggest artist album of the year – check out the full Top 40 list for that here – Adele’s 2.5 million sales of her third album also means it comes out on top of all entertainment releases in a list compiled by the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA), which includes computer games, DVDs and Blu-rays.

25 narrowly beat out FIFA 16 to top the list, followed by Call Of Duty: Black Ops III at 3 and Paddington at 4 – the biggest DVD/Blu-ray of 2015.

MORE: The Official Top 40 Biggest DVD/Blu-rays of 2015 revealed

The news comes as the combined music, video and games markets reached an all-time high of £6.1 billion in 2015 thanks to surging digital revenues, according to figures from ERA, GfK Chart-track (video games) and the Official Charts Company (music and video).

Entertainment sales had previously been in decline for the last ten years, having peaked at £6.04 billion in 2004 and hitting a low of £5.2 billion in 2012. In 2015, video finished up by 1.5%, music by 3.5% and games by 10%.

In terms of music, streaming was the driving force behind the boost, with services including Spotify, Deezer, Apple Music and Amazon Prime Music increasing sales by nearly 50% to £251 million.

Interestingly, CDs showed stronger resilience than downloads last year; the former saw a 3.7% decline last year compared to 13% for downloads.

MORE: The Official Top 40 Biggest Songs of 2015 revealed

ERA’s CEO Kim Bayley said: "It is clearly way too soon to write off the CD or other disc-based formats. Hopefully we have now all learned the lesson of the vinyl LP that older formats can happily co-exist with newer ways of enjoying entertainment. The fact is that different formats provide different benefits to different groups of entertainment fans. That diversity is proving to be the entertainment market’s greatest strength."

In video, revenues from digital services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime and Sky Store passed £1 billion for the first time, making video a majority-digital business for the very first time. And in games digital revenues - which are more than those of music and video combined – from online and mobile services grew by nearly 20% to £1.9 billion.

ERA’s Top 20 Entertainment Chart 2015 is…

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