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This doesn't sound good...I wonder if it will trickle down into the parks?

AP source: Disney to lay off nearly 250 at studio
Disney to lay off 250 at studio, largest cut since closure of Zemeckis unit, AP source says

Ryan Nakashima, AP Business Writer, On Monday June 6, 2011, 5:48 pm EDT
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A person familiar with the matter says The Walt Disney Co. is preparing to lay off under 5 percent of the employees at its studio, or up to about 250 people, next week.

Most of the people work in home video distribution, which was merged with the theatrical distribution division late last year, the person said.

DVD sales have been plunging industrywide and the studio is looking to cut costs.

The person was not authorized to speak publicly since the affected employees won't be told until next week.

The layoffs are the largest since last year, when Disney shut a Robert Zemeckis-run motion-capture facility in the San Francisco area last year and let go about 450 people.

I don't see things getting any better for Disney with the world economy the way it is. I hope these people affected can find employment after they get laid off.

I heard about this yesterday. Very sad. I hope the people affected will be able to find work elsewhere.

Disney does this alot; many of the companies it takes over and it ill either kill off (mostly video game companies) or close down after it turns out to be a failure (such as the motion-capture company)...

theBIGyowski wrote:I don't see things getting any better for Disney with the world economy the way it is. I hope these people affected can find employment after they get laid off.

WalMart is always hiring!

But the taliban has better benefits (one week off a month).

The DVD sales thing, that's sort of a bad stat apparently. It some cases when low dvd sales are cited, they are only counting DVDs and ignoring bluray, downloads, and streaming.

I seen some that consider it "DVD/BR" for a combined sales stats.

Downloads: does Disney do legal downloads? I notice most of the time the electronic version is a separate disc when you buy the "combo" pack. I figured most downloads of Disney films are probably illegal...

Streaming: is Disney into that?

Saddening for those 250 families that have now lost a source of income. It kind of seems like a planned thing from the merger and Disney is using some stats to cover that up.

Sometimes, if something is a bust (like the Zemeckis deal) you shut it down to stop the bleeding of cash. That's unavoidable.

As for the merger, you could be right, but then again - is the merger also a result of the drop of sales? Merging the two divisions in an attempt to reorganize and reduce costs due to the drop in revenue from the DVD sales. Maybe those stats are driving more than just layoffs...

mindflipper wrote:
As for the merger, you could be right, but then again - is the merger also a result of the drop of sales? Merging the two divisions in an attempt to reorganize and reduce costs due to the drop in revenue from the DVD sales. Maybe those stats are driving more than just layoffs...

Valid point, but I usually think mergers are a means for one company to become a larger force in the market to boost profits that will thus satisfy investors.

mindflipper wrote:I seen some that consider it "DVD/BR" for a combined sales stats.

Downloads: does Disney do legal downloads? I notice most of the time the electronic version is a separate disc when you buy the "combo" pack. I figured most downloads of Disney films are probably illegal...

Streaming: is Disney into that?

Disney does (most/all major studios do) legal downloads, but it looks like they realized the great satan that is Apple's cut on itune's sales (no one is exempt!). But, like with netflix, they are moving towards a discless system http://disneymoviesonline.go.com/movies

I wouldn't be surrpised if we start seeing more and more layoffs at entertainment and rental by mail places. Netflix CEO even plans on no longer mailing discs. The only problem that they are facing right now are the ISPs, aside from monthly limits for the home users, the ISPs want to charge both netflix and the consumer (double dipping) for using broadband they already paid for.

I've hear about that with the ISPs wanting to surcharge what the consumer is already paying for. I recall hearing rumors of bandwidth limits and charged per usage. Kind of shocking how we are gradually progressing to a virtual cloud society.

Len90 wrote:I've hear about that with the ISPs wanting to surcharge what the consumer is already paying for. I recall hearing rumors of bandwidth limits and charged per usage. Kind of shocking how we are gradually progressing to a virtual cloud society.

No, not really that shocking at all. The virtual cloud method allows them to sell things to consumers without the worry about file-sharing problem of the past (like napster) and eliminate a great deal of internet piracy.

Len90 wrote:I've hear about that with the ISPs wanting to surcharge what the consumer is already paying for. I recall hearing rumors of bandwidth limits and charged per usage. Kind of shocking how we are gradually progressing to a virtual cloud society.

Caps/allotments aren't rumors, they are actually standard in Canada now and they've been testing them out here. The only problem is that researcher apparently are finding the practice to only be a money grab rather than protection of a finite resource.

Companies like cloud stuff (not virtual darn) because it saves them a boatload of cash on their media products. Instead of having to pay for shelf space, some adverts, printing, packaging, shipping, sales tax (I'm not positive on that one since it's not a tangable good), and the ineveitable problem of printing more copies than you can sell, they only pay the royalty fees and hosting fees. At the end the consumer gets the same basic product but they just can't use it quite as freely as before.

Sony's new handheld (I hate the name Vita) and the PSP Go both do not use any phsyical media (UMD got the axe last week) or stores to sell the media, which sucks since it also means no sale prices.

I have noticed that Best Buy has revamped all their stores nationwide to carry less media in them. CDs were cut down to the bare minimum and DVD/Blu-Ray sections were also redone.