At the beginning of 2008 we were shocked with Warner's withdrawal from HD DVD and wanted to know what the studio's plans for this year were. Yesterday Jeff Bewkes, president and CEO of Warner Bros. Studios, said it will half its production of theatrical releases by 2009. During an investors meeting in New York, Bewkes said he felt the pressure to improve revenue and cash flow growth and that this was the reason for taking one step back.
Home Media Magazine did their own research and noticed that the studio introduced a total of 37 movies in 2006, which we can now expect to be half in 2008. Purely a business-related choice, but it is expected to have some impact. “Our motivation is to improve our return on capital,” Bewkes said. “Doing that we believe we can move profit up.”
To see the studio's income growing Bewkes believes they need to focus on Blu-ray adoption and need to expand the distribution of both VoD and DVD simultaneously.
