International Disney Exiting Physical Media in Australia (1 Viewer)

[Sam Favate]

Disney is not going to continue with physical media in Australia after the release of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3. It was confirmed by the Digital Bits.

Confirmed: Disney is exiting physical media in Australia, plus Fast X announced, more on Exorcist, Duel & American Graffiti in 4K, plus Space Patrol (UK) on Blu-ray

All right... as one might expect, we’ve got a lot to talk about again today here at The Bits. First of all, we don’t have any new information on Manta Lab’s “disc-less” WandaVision packaging, except to reiterate that while this is a licensed Disney Consumer Products item, it’s most definitely...

thedigitalbits.com

Why couldn’t Disney license their titles for physical media in Australia and Asia (another market they exited, minus Japan)? I can’t see a downside for them. They collect a license fee, and another, smaller company sells discs where they see a market.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

They had been licensing in Australia - Random Space Media has been handling physical media for Disney, Sony and Universal down under. I would guess that they looked at the numbers and determined that the revenue generated wasn’t worth the effort it took to coordinate the effort.

Obviously not an ideal situation for our Australian physical media collecting friends but sadly I think we’re gonna see a lot more of this in the future. I keep thinking back to when Warner and Universal formed their domestic joint physical media company, SDS, and in their government filings establishing the company, cited the reason for forming it as no longer selling enough discs to justify each company having its own home video department, but that they hoped with the efficiencies gained and money saved from partnering, that perhaps physical media could be viable for ten more years. And I think that was four years ago. Sony is exiting some European markets. Criterion did a major round of layoffs last year. Kino Lorber said in a podcast interview recently that each year’s total number of discs sold for them is fewer than the last.

Each company is finding its way through this changing landscape but sadly this seems to be the direction gravity is pulling in.

 

[Jake Lipson]

I really hate to agree with Josh on this particular point because this is not something that anybody who posts here would want. But I think he is right.

I will continue to buy Blu-rays as long as I can, but there is no question that it continues to become more and more of a nice business. We don't like to think about this because physical media is our collective passion on this board, but it is a business. If Disney does not feel that the business model of releasing physical media will bring in more money than it costs for them to produce discs, then obviously they're not going to do that.

 

[Sam Posten]

The only reasonable path forward is to push for higher quality AV encodes available as digital, ala Uncompressed Atmos Music. The end of shiny plastic disks is happening faster than folks would like, but that doesn't mean it's slower than predicted.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Given the declining market share for physical media, it probably makes sense for all of the studios to go region-free and ship the same release worldwide.

For DVD, you also have the NTSC/PAL divide, but that shouldn't be an issue for Blu-ray or UHD.

 

[Desslar]

Hope Viavision is still doing OK.

 

[Bernard McNair]

As an Australian collector I have built a good collection of Classic Disney over the years and my preference is to physical media. This news both saddens and frustrates me as the chance of now having more classic Disney released is zero. I don’t purchase much modern Disney product so I suppose that I have contributed in my very small way to this decision; however, most of the modern Disney product is of little to no interest.
Thank you, Mr. Iger…… for nothing!!!

 

[Alan Tully]

Blu-rays may be a niche market by now, but as I understand it, they're still making a profit (esp. on new releases), why cancel a profit stream? But when you think of Disney, you're not really thinking of a profitable company making sensible business decisions

 

[Bryan^H]

Blu-rays may be a niche market by now, but as I understand it, they're still making a profit (esp. on new releases), why cancel a profit stream?

More incentive to join Disney+.

Dedicated 4K Disc players may be drying up in the near future too. Enjoy what you have while you have it

 

[Alan Tully]

More incentive to join Disney+.

Dedicated 4K Disc players may be drying up in the near future too. Enjoy what you have while you have it

Oh yes. If Panasonic stop manufacturing the 4K players, 4K could go the same way as 3D. I hope that's just panic talk.

 

[Malcolm R]

Blu-rays may be a niche market by now, but as I understand it, they're still making a profit (esp. on new releases), why cancel a profit stream? But when you think of Disney, you're not really thinking of a profitable company making sensible business decisions

For Disney, the profits have to be tremendous to even bother. They're not interested in small amounts of profit, even if the venture would be considered "successful" by many other businesses. If they can't make hundreds of millions, they're not interested.

 

[Edwin-S]

The Ubisoft account debacle shows what the real future of 'owning" digital" copies means, no matter how high the quality becomes.

The only reasonable path forward is to push for higher quality AV encodes available as digital, ala Uncompressed Atmos Music. The end of shiny plastic disks is happening faster than folks would like, but that doesn't mean it's slower than predicted.

 

[cineMANIAC]

There was a 2000 print run preorder for an upcoming fancy Collector's Edition of The Exorcist exclusive to the UK that sold out in just a matter of hours the same day the preorder went up - pardon me if I don't see what all the doomsday fuss is about. Our friends down under will just have to import if studios are abandoning them.

 

[Robert Crawford]

There was a 2000 print run preorder for an upcoming fancy Collector's Edition of The Exorcist exclusive to the UK that sold out in just a matter of hours the same day the preorder went up - pardon me if I don't see what all the doomsday fuss is about. Our friends down under will just have to import if studios are abandoning them.

I don’t think you understand that importing is a much more expensive option for those in Australia.

 

[cineMANIAC]

Certain territories are going to have to pay more if they want discs, yes. No way around that.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Certain territories are going to have to pay more if they want discs, yes. Sign of the times.

That doesn’t make it right! Something tells me you wouldn’t have this lack of empathy if this was happening to you.

 

[Douglas R]

With the way things are going I think I’ll stop selling off my rarely watched DVDs and Blu-rays and stock up on spare Blu-ray players, before they disappear!

 

[Jesse Skeen]

Well, it looks like Disney is finally getting what they wanted.

 

[Dick]

Hope Viavision is still doing OK.

To say nothing of WAC, KINO, SHOUT!, etc.!

 

[cineMANIAC]

That doesn’t make it right!

Tell it to Disney