PR in the Philippines

(SeaPRwire) –   Disney is a massive corporation with operations spanning film, television, theme parks, merchandise and more, but its workforce shrank yesterday. As part of a large-scale layoff round, more than 1,000 positions were eliminated to “streamline” business operations. This development comes shortly after the leadership handover from outgoing CEO Bob Iger to new chief executive Josh D’Amaro, who previously led Disney’s Parks division.

While these job cuts were distributed across the entire company, one specific department was hit especially hard, which serves as a worrying sign for the entertainment industry’s undervalued physical media space.

According to The Wrap, Disney’s home entertainment team, which oversees physical media products such as Blu-rays, has been completely dissolved. Though Disney has long had a consistent track record of releasing physical copies of its content, these offerings have grown increasingly scarce in recent years, particularly for its streaming original titles. At a time when TV shows — including series that were previously available on Disney+ — can be removed from streaming platforms with almost no advance notice, physical media is more valuable to fans than ever before. It remains possible that Disney will outsource its physical media release operations moving forward, but this move clearly indicates the company is shifting its priorities to other areas.

This is an especially disappointing development for Marvel fans. Not only will owning physical copies of future Marvel projects likely become far more difficult, but a large number of Marvel Studios employees were also laid off. Deadline reports that the visual development team saw significant cuts, with Disney only retaining “a small team to oversee the hiring of artists on a project-by-project basis, all of whom will work as external contractors going forward.” The sky-high production costs of MCU blockbusters appear to finally be catching up with the studio.

It is still too early to determine how these layoffs will shape Disney’s future direction, but one phrase in D’Amaro’s internal memo to employees is particularly notable. “Given the fast-moving pace of our industries,” the memo reads, “this requires us to constantly assess how to foster a more agile and technologically-enabled workforce to meet tomorrow’s needs.”

While physical media may not count as “technologically-enabled” in a streaming-dominated landscape, it is far more reliable for consumers than a digital access license that can be revoked at any time. If a company as large as Disney is no longer committed to selling physical media to fans, what does the future hold for the rest of the physical media industry?