Pixar’s Finding Nemo was Disney’s all-time biggest disc seller, moving 38 million discs. (Disney image)
April 16, 2026
The Walt Disney Co. has gutted its home entertainment team, eliminating the entire publicity division, under Chris Bess, that had been responsible for publicizing the studio’s DVD, Blu-ray Disc, 4K Ultra HD and Steelbook releases.
“I’m still in a bit of shock,” said one veteran Disney home entertainment executive whose last day on the job was Tuesday.
The story was first reported by The Wrap but has since been confirmed by departing Disney team members.
Disney entered into a licensing agreement with Sony Pictures in 2024 to distribute physical home entertainment product. Some home entertainment staffers remain, in product management, marketing and digital retail partnerships.
The cuts are part of an overall downsizing orchestrated by new CEO Josh D’Amaro and his senior leadership team that calls for as many as 1,000 layoffs.
In a memo, D’Amaro wrote that even before the leadership transition in March, “we have looked at ways in which we can streamline our operations in various parts of the company to ensure we deliver the world-class creativity and innovation our fans value and expect. … Given the fast-moving pace of our industries, this requires us to constantly assess how to foster a more agile and technologically-enabled workforce. … As a result, we will be eliminating roles in some parts of the company. …”
Disney has a long and storied history in traditional, transactional home entertainment, entering the market in 1980 when the majority of the business came from studios releasing high-priced ($60 and up) videocassettes to retailers who then rented them to their customers for a dollar or two a night.
Studios never liked the rental model, and given its unique kid- and family-friendly brand Disney soon pioneered the sellthrough business with its animated classics and, later, other releases.
Cassettes were priced around $20 or $30 and, under a strategy devised by then-Disney home video chief Bill Mechanic, were packaged in plastic “clamshell” cases and placed on the market for a limited time before returning to “the vault” in the hopes of spurring demand. The ploy worked, and led to Disney selling millions of copies of films such as Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and, later, Lady and the Tramp, Aladdin and The Lion King — not once, but each time a film was re-released after seven to 10 years of unavailability.
When the 1997 launch of DVD shifted the whole home video business from a rental to a purchase model, Disney already had years of sellthrough experience and continued to see bigger and bigger sales numbers, culminating with the 2003 release of Finding Nemo, which reportedly sold more than 38 million DVDs.
But with the advent of streaming, disc sales began to plummet, despite the arrival of two DVD successor formats, Blu-ray Disc and then 4K Ultra HD disc. In 2006, total revenue generated from the sale and rental of discs to consumers peaked at $24 billion, according to DEG: The Digital Entertainment Group.
Last year, according to DEG, consumer spending on disc purchases was estimated at just $870 million (the disc rental business is so small that it is no longer tracked).
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‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
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