Disney DVD sales drop 9% in Q1 (actually Q4 last year)

[2099net]

http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA ... c=topstory

Well, perhaps if they put out decent DVDs in the first place, and people didn't suspect double-dipping and hold back, the drop in sales wouldn't be as huge. I know most people are anticipating a new Ratatouille release, for example. Especially as Europe got a 2 disc set.

Even PotC: World's End had the commentary controversy (which I have no doubt was recorded, being as various publications in the UK had information listing names). Being as the commentary didn't appear on the BD release, this indicates a double-dip by Disney is most likely already planned.

The less said about the 2 disc Aristocats promises the better too.

It's just an idea BVHE-Rep. Go back to making decent and informative 2 disc sets without holding anything back, and sales may increase.

[buffalobill]

A return to catalog releases might help too. Poor Di$ney'$ $ale$ dropped. Makes me feel all warm inside. Try 2 disc Pixar releases again too. And how about Lilo & Stitch SE? And you wonder why sales drop & it makes people .

[PatrickvD]

a tenth anniversary 2-disc special edition of Hercules might have helped somewhat too.

[SleepingBeautyAurora]

a tenth anniversary 2-disc special edition of Hercules might have helped somewhat too.

I agree. I wonder if they'll ever upgrade Hercules from the Gold Classic Collection.....

[merlinjones]

Well, there are a slew of Walt Disney era catalog titles (The Monkey's Uncle, Dr Syn alias the Scarecrow, So Dear to My Heart, The Inccredible Journey, Sign of Zorro, Prince and the Pauper, Escapade in Florence, The Horsemasters, Sammy the Way-Out Seal, etc.) that I'd be chomping at the bit to buy, but they don't care about incremental sales...

What about season sets for Wonderful World of Color, Disneyland, Zorro, etc?

And who wants to rebuy classic titles presented in the totally wrong aspect ratio (Jungle Book, Aristocats, Robin Hood, Shaggy Dog, etc.)?

And what about the big fish everyone wants to buy but no one will let them: Song of the South?

Marketers with blinders on to the classic material and those who want it only have themselves to blame when they ring up short at the cash register.

[Escapay]

Disney DVD sales drop 9% in Q1 (actually Q4 last year)

Why am I not surprised? This is what happens when Disney decides to slack off on their home video releases, be it DVD or Blu-Ray.

"<strike>Build</strike> Improve it and they will <strike>come</strike> buy more"

It's just an idea BVHE-Rep. Go back to making decent and informative 2 disc sets without holding anything back, and sales may increase.

Word!

While we're out suggesting ways to bring these numbers back up...

1. NO MORE SLIPCOVERS - save a few trees, even if more are being wasted for stupid promotional inserts and booklets. But at least the inserts provide something practical, the slipcover is just a waste.

2. NO MORE STORE EXCLUSIVES! - let the consumer choose where they'll spend/waste/donate their money.

3. DO NOT PUT THE DISNEY MOVIE REWARDS LOGO IN THE LOWER CORNER, JUST KEEP IT AS A STICKER ON THE SHRINKWRAP - seriously, the program's set to expire in the future anyway, how do you think some Joe Bob will feel when he buys a 2007 title in 2010 and finds out his DMR code is null and void? Plus, the logo doesn't complement the cover very well anyway.

4. MORE SERIOUS BONUS FEATURES - yes, even though a greater majority of your consumers are families and kids, they're not the ones who'll really appreciate serious stuff like vintage TV material, trailers, new documentaries, pencil animation, live-action reference, commentaries, etc. Take a page from Warner Brothers and release ULTIMATE COLLECTOR'S EDITIONS! Everything but the kitchen sink for the ultimate fan, but also a nice regular release for everyone else.

Scaps

[Mouseketodd]

...Marketers with blinders on to the classic material and those who want it only have themselves to blame when they ring up short at the cash register.

MJ, you have a VERY good, quick list of yet-to-be-released Disney titles in your post, but, regarding the last remark of your last sentence, are you talking about us, and if so, what are you implying?

= = = = = =

Disney, PLEASE dust off the rest of your library and archives and publish these older classics and their supplemental material!

[Timon/Pumbaa fan]

I hate to defend Disney here, but the poor decreased sales aren't due to their laziness of bonus features on Disney's part.

Two words: HD war.

The fact is with Blu-Ray, the general public is slowing down on buying movies because they're thinking they're going to have to rebuy all their DVDs in Blu-Ray now.

Don't believe me? Sony and Paramount also reported decreased sales on DVDs. In fact, DVD sales in general decreased from the previous year for the first time in it's history. Although At World's End was the best selling DVD of 2007, it didn't come close to Dead Man's Chest sales, despite the huge fanbase. Same with Ratatouille and Cars last year.

So sadly, I don't think going back to their terrific releases of the "good ol' days" are going to help Disney.

[Escapay]

Don't believe me? Sony and Paramount also reported decreased sales on DVDs. In fact, DVD sales in general decreased from the previous year for the first time in it's history.

Yes, but none of the studios had severely cut back on the content and the amount of releases the way Disney has.

Look at Warner's continued dedication to many classic films. While a nice selection of well-known titles get single-disc Deluxe Editions or multi-disc Special Editions (or Ultimate Collectors' Editions), they also have a variety of titles that will almost always include the theatrical trailer, a vintage theatrical short, and a vintage theatrical cartoon. In addition, several are branded as Warner Night at the Movies and include additional materials such as newsreels and period trailers. Many of their boxset collections (Film Noir, Gangsters, Classic Musicals, Signature Collection, etc.) have commentaries on at least one film in the set, and some even have short-but-informative featurettes.

Fox likewise has a series of devoted DVD lines that range from Film Noir, Cinema Classics, Marquee Musicals, etc. and they ALL have commentaries, photo galleries, and trailers, and in the past year or so, most will always have one or several featurettes.

Columbia may not be as active as Warner and Fox when it comes to their older movies, but at least they put some effort into releasing well-known titles (The Caine Mutiny and The Guns of Navarone had nice upgrades last year), and they put together a nice Frank Capra box set, and there was a great Cary Grant box set that came the year before.

Paramount isn't the greatest when it comes to classic films, but at least they offer nice special edition re-releases of contemporary films. Did a film like Flashdance really need a 49-minute documentary (well...5 featurettes)? Would many people flock to the two-disc edition of Face/Off? Well, maybe they would, but still, they know there's money to be made in re-releases that actually offer something of substance. And they put better effort into some of their less successful films. The Stardust DVD has an excellent half-hour documentary that would likely be only 7 minutes long if Disney had its hand on it. And most importantly, Paramount includes the trailers! The easiest bonus feature ever and Disney doesn't add them, unless it's to promote another film! I don't want to have to take out DVD "K" to see the trailer for movie "P"!

The Criterion Collection has consistently maintained high-quality releases for a variety of titles and their DVDs almost always puts others to shame.

A few years ago, Disney had some effort. Minor releases like The Black Hole had a featurette and trailer. Tron got a two-disc set. The Shaggy Dog had a commentary and a couple of featurettes. And yet today Disney can't be bothered to release any more catalog live-action titles, unless it's a lousy laserdisc-to-DVD transfer that is touted as a Disney Movie Club exclusive. They find room for tons of games and music videos but can't be bothered to offer open-matte and theatrical-matted animated films, or just scrounge up a couple people and some Disney historians and interview them for retrospective featurettes on lesser-known titles (come on, even a 10 minute featurette about Robin Hood is better than just a deleted scene and an art gallery!), and feel that the only thing they can really offer collectors and enthusiasts are limited-run two-disc sets every Christmas season.

Scaps

[Timon/Pumbaa fan]

Don't believe me? Sony and Paramount also reported decreased sales on DVDs. In fact, DVD sales in general decreased from the previous year for the first time in it's history.

Yes, but none of the studios had severely cut back on the content and the amount of releases the way Disney has.

Yes Al, but you didn't answer my question. If supposably Disney's laziness is the blame for decrease sales, how do you explain the decrease sales of every other company?

[Escapay]

Yes, but none of the studios had severely cut back on the content and the amount of releases the way Disney has.

Yes Al, but you didn't answer my question. If supposably Disney's laziness is the blame for decrease sales, how do you explain the decrease sales of every other company?

Sorry, I forgot about that part (I was too busy comparing other studios's releases of old films to Disney's lack of).

I partly agree that the format war has to do with some decrease in DVD sales across the board.

But also, think about what titles are being released. Most of the really great movies have already been released, from all studios. They're either repackaging them with different covers, upgrading/double-dipping them with additional features, or releasing lesser-known titles. And general consumers won't buy (insert a movie title that is generally well-regarded by everyone) again if they already have it on an earlier DVD (or...*gasp* VHS). And when a little-known title like Boxey and the Ill-Tempered Ghost shows up on shelves, only Boxey aficionados who have cradled their old VHS for years will be the ones to pick it up. (Boxey... is a fake movie, just written to use as an example)

And many new releases simply suck. Sh!te like Epic Movie or Ghost Rider clog up store shelves and aren't even worth the slipcovers they're trapped in.

Scaps

[merlinjones]

>>...Marketers (with blinders on toward the classic material and toward those who want it) only have themselves to blame when they ring up short at the cash register.<<

>>MJ, you have a VERY good, quick list of yet-to-be-released Disney titles in your post, but, regarding the last remark of your last sentence, are you talking about us, and if so, what are you implying?<<

I adjusted the sentence structure above to make the intent clearer. : )

[jediliz]

a 30th anniversary DVD w/ great special features of the movie PETE's DRAGON would have helped, too. I know I would have bought one.

[Lazario]

You Reap What You Sew.

Greedy Disney bites the hand that feeds them and expects us to feed them back? HA!

[Lars Vermundsberget]

9% isn't bad at all if they have less good or great releases nowadays than they used to. From the point-of-view of a fan of classic Disney material it might even have been preferable to see the sales drop more, just to give Disney a message. At least I can tell that my Disney DVD purchases have dropped a lot more than 9% lately...

[buffalobill]

I wonder if BVHE-rep read this thread. If he did I wonder what he thinks about the Di$ney fans' disgust at the lack of catalog & decent 2 disc SEs lately from his company.

[DarthPrime]

I hate to defend Disney here, but the poor decreased sales aren't due to their laziness of bonus features on Disney's part.

Two words: HD war.

The fact is with Blu-Ray, the general public is slowing down on buying movies because they're thinking they're going to have to rebuy all their DVDs in Blu-Ray now.

Don't believe me? Sony and Paramount also reported decreased sales on DVDs. In fact, DVD sales in general decreased from the previous year for the first time in it's history. Although At World's End was the best selling DVD of 2007, it didn't come close to Dead Man's Chest sales, despite the huge fanbase. Same with Ratatouille and Cars last year.

So sadly, I don't think going back to their terrific releases of the "good ol' days" are going to help Disney.

I don't think the HD formats are making much of a difference on the average person. A lot of reports have basically said that most people are happy with DVD and don't care to upgrade anytime soon. While some are holding out, most see HD DVD/Blu-ray like they did Laserdiscs when VHS was out (at least in my experience lately). You have to remember that HDTVs are still not in every home as well.

I also don't think the lack of 2 disc sets or extra bonus features is slowing down DVD sales. Again most do not care about these. Of course people like us, and people on other DVD sites care, but to the average person the movie is all they care about. Studios have seen this, and thats why we have 1 disc and 2 disc releases, or just a barebones with a double dip down the road.

DVD sales are slowing for a lot of reasons I think. A ton of catalog titles are now available. People have also built up collections and have slowed down on titles unless they are "must haves". Also you can factor in the economy. As with everything else lately DVDs are taking a hit.

[Voiceroy]

It won't help matters any in this thread, but Video Business made an error in their report.

Disney's sales were actually 9% HIGHER between 2007 and 2006. See for yourself:

http://corporate.disney.go.com/investor ... 008_q1.pdf

The following table summarizes the first quarter results for fiscal 2008 and
2007 (in millions, except per share amounts):
Quarter Ended ~~~~~ Dec. 29, 2007 ~~~~~ Dec. 30, 2006 ~~~ Change
Revenues ~~~~~~~~ $ 10,452 ~~~~~~~~$ 9,581 ~~~~~~~~ 9 %

And the above excerpt from the report is from Disney's OVERALL revenue, not just Studio Entertainment/DVD sales.

Decreases in this report are marked by numbers in parentheses. You'll note there's no parentheses around the 9% value above.

But while overall revenues were 9% higher, segment operating income for Studio Entertainment was 15% lower, as detailed in this paragraph:

Studio Entertainment

Studio Entertainment segment operating income for the quarter decreased
15% to $514 million while revenues were essentially flat at $2.6 billion. Lower
segment operating income was primarily due to a decrease in domestic home
entertainment partially offset by increases in worldwide theatrical distribution and
music distribution.
At domestic home entertainment, despite the strong performance in the
current quarter of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, Ratatouille and Jungle Book
Platinum Release, results were down due to lower unit sales compared to the prioryear
quarter, which included Cars, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest and Little
Mermaid Platinum Release.

And I'm nitpicking, but the reference to Q1 vs Q4 in the topic title is incorrect. Q1 in a fiscal year generally runs from October 1 to December 31. While a calendar year can be divided into 4 equal quarters, a fiscal year uses a different method of grouping them:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_quarter

[Lars Vermundsberget]

Now we look sheepish...

[Voiceroy]

Now we look sheepish...

There was still a decrease in DVD sales so this discussion is still legit. But the decrease itself is not as significant has Video Business has reported it to be.

But if you want a better figure on just how much the decrease was, you'll need a financial expert to explain the difference between revenue and "segment operating income". That's outside my sphere of knowledge.

ADDED LATER:

The only detail I can find in the report that shows actual DVD revenue is this:

Studio Entertainment ~~~ 2007 -- 2,641 ~~~ 2006 -- 2,633

According to those figures, DVD sales were just barely marginally higher in 2007, and in Disney's eyes that's considered "flat revenue" with no change in percentage either way.