Disney a Hit on iTunes

The numbers are in for for The Walt Disney Co.'s most recent fiscal quarter, and the company reports continued strong sales of iTunes Store content -- totalling 23.7 million television episodes and two million movies, according to Disney CEO Bob Iger.

Last November Iger reported that Disney had sold close to 500,000 movies since launching them on the iTunes Store in September, 2006. He said at that time that Disney's ABC TV subsidiary had sold about 12 million TV shows through the iTunes Store since the service began offering TV shows for download.

In February, 2007, Iger followed up with news that Disney had sold 1.3 million films through the iTunes Store. Taken collectively, that shows that Disney movie sales through the iTunes Store have flatten slightly over the past quarter -- perhaps not surprising, given that some users were probably buying new content for video iPods purchased as gifts over the holiday season.

Looking forward to the rest of 2007, Disney's looking for major revenue from the third installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean movie franchise, which opens later this month, and with Ratatouille, Pixar's latest computer-animated feature, which hits theaters in June.