Some of the changes have already become notable, such as the lack of disc art on recent releases of Mary Poppins and Oliver & Company.“Disney had a challenging quarter in what is likely to be the weakest economy in our lifetime,” said Bob Iger, president and CEO, in a call with investors. It was packaged media, however, that appeared to give the executive the most concern.
Iger said the results, which he didn’t attribute solely to the economy, would have a long-term impact on the DVD business and would have the company “examining much of what we do,” including differentiating between the type of DVDs released versus their release schedules. He said Disney is taking numerous steps companywide to reduce costs, with each business segment adjusting to meet its revised needs.
“Our goal is to spend, in total, less on films,” Iger said. “We do believe production and marketing of DVD needs to be addressed.”
Specifically the CEO eyes reducing the number of bonus features included with a DVD and improving the price-to-value relationship. He wants to include standard-DVD and digital copy with the Blu-ray release and market it as a value-add to consumers.
“We’ve been taking a hard look at this business for a while,” Iger said. “The cost of those systems needs to come down.”
The executive said DVD sales in the fourth quarter were directly impacted by the “cataclysmic” events in the economy. He also said consumer options for home entertainment had evolved whereby the average household was in possession of about 80 DVDs, compared to 135-140 DVDs for avid consumers.
“This suggests that going forward, people potentially will be more selective about what they buy,” Iger said.
He said the studio would be mindful of consumer habits and be more careful in the timing and placement of DVD product at the retail level.
When asked whether Disney would release titles through video-on-demand at the same time as DVD, Iger said altering the release window was not a solution. Instead he advocated turning DVD releases into a retail event rather than stocking up on catalog titles earmarked for the dump bin.
Frankly, I'm not surprised by the decision to cut back on the production of bonus features, especially since all future Platinum Editions that Disney plans to release (except for Pinocchio) have already received multi-disc sets therefore reducing the need for lots of new bonus material.
However, this is a disappointment for me because I've been an avid collector of catalog releases, particularly Walt-era films.
I think this is a hint that we won't be seeing 2-disc sets of Hercules or The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
I really hope these decisions don't lead to the cancellation of the Treasures line. I know Iger has never been very concerned with what diehard Disney fans want since his approach is typically to look to the future, not the past.
