Walt Disney Studios plans to cut up to 250 jobs which comprise five percent of its worldwide workforce, it was reported on Tuesday.
The cuts would take effect as early as next week and the bulk of the workforce reduction will be in Burbank near Los Angeles, company insiders were quoted as saying, who refused to be identified because they had not been authorized to discuss the matter.
The movie studio currently has about 5,000 people globally.
The reductions are expected to hit hardest in the studio's distribution operation, reflecting fundamental changes in the movie business, The Los Angeles Times said.
The report attributed the job cuts to a constellation of factors that are squeezing the industry. They include falling DVD sales, flat theater attendance and concerns that one of the biggest technological boons to hit the megaplex, 3-D, may have peaked.
Meanwhile, new forms of digital distribution, including Amazon. com's video streaming service and Apple Inc.'s iTunes download store, have yet to contribute significantly to the studios' bottom lines, the report said.
The decline in home entertainment revenue has been particularly problematic for the studios, prompting industrywide layoffs. Sales of DVDs, Blu-ray discs and digital movies fell 18 percent in the first quarter compared with a year earlier, according to industry trade organization Digital Entertainment Group.
Disney, for the three months that ended April 2, reported a 14- percent drop in home entertainment revenue.
The cuts would take effect as early as next week and the bulk of the workforce reduction will be in Burbank near Los Angeles, company insiders were quoted as saying, who refused to be identified because they had not been authorized to discuss the matter.
The movie studio currently has about 5,000 people globally.
The reductions are expected to hit hardest in the studio's distribution operation, reflecting fundamental changes in the movie business, The Los Angeles Times said.
The report attributed the job cuts to a constellation of factors that are squeezing the industry. They include falling DVD sales, flat theater attendance and concerns that one of the biggest technological boons to hit the megaplex, 3-D, may have peaked.
Meanwhile, new forms of digital distribution, including Amazon. com's video streaming service and Apple Inc.'s iTunes download store, have yet to contribute significantly to the studios' bottom lines, the report said.
The decline in home entertainment revenue has been particularly problematic for the studios, prompting industrywide layoffs. Sales of DVDs, Blu-ray discs and digital movies fell 18 percent in the first quarter compared with a year earlier, according to industry trade organization Digital Entertainment Group.
Disney, for the three months that ended April 2, reported a 14- percent drop in home entertainment revenue.
