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wabbott
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https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/b...er-streaming-pivot-korean-content-1235831271/
Pivot and the “Gold Rush” for Korean Content
Luke Kang shares how the media giant has come to its streaming strategy for the region and his current views on major content markets like China, South Korea and Japan.
by Patrick Brzeski
February 20, 2024 - 10:37pm PST
During the short period that Disney+ has been active across the major markets of the Asia-Pacific region — just a little over two years in most countries — the Walt Disney Co. has gone through a period of uncharacteristic turmoil. A CEO shakeup, a secular reassessment of the streaming business, cost-cutting, shaky box-office results, speculation over asset sales and activist investors clamoring at the gates. But the company’s most recent earnings report beat analysts’ forecasts and gave CEO Bob Iger some of his Magic Kingdom mojo back. Iger reaffirmed that the company’s streaming operation will be profitable by this summer, while also unveiling a slew of projects and deals.
When Disney first began rolling out Disney+ across APAC in 2021, the company signaled it was preparing to go toe-to-toe with Netflix as a mass entertainment platform that would invest heavily in local content throughout the region. At a splashy content showcase in Singapore that year, Disney’s president of Asia-Pacific, Luke Kang, promised to greenlight over 50 Asian originals by 2023. With the industry — and Wall Street — still exclusively focussed on streaming platforms’ subscriber numbers, the populous Asia-Pacific region was the place where analysts believed most of the globe’s growth resided.
That first slate yielded several content successes for Disney+, including Japanese thriller hit Gannibal, musical documentary BTS Monuments: Beyond The Star, and Korean action thriller Moving, which became the streaming service’s most-watched international original of 2023. Disney has doubled down on Korean content with a growing 2024 slate, featuring a new series in the Moving universe, Light Shop, and a period drama starring Korean film icon, Song Kang-ho (Parasite). But Korea aside, amid the fiscal discipline that has defined the second coming of Iger, Disney has conspicuously downshifted on the scale of its local content output.
To get a clearer sense of the current streaming strategy in Asia and how Iger’s new initiatives are being enacted in this vital region, The Hollywood Reporter connected with Kang over Zoom for a wide-ranging discussion (the interview has been edited for length and clarity).
You’re a veteran of both Disney and the Asian entertainment business, so I’m curious to hear whether you encountered anything during the first couple of years of Disney+ in APAC that surprised you.
You know, it’s interesting, because, yes, the service has only really been in this region for a couple of years. People seem to forget that. The company has been here for decades, but we’ve been in the streaming business for a very short time — and we’re very happy with the progress we’ve made.
I don’t think anything really surprised us, but we’re learning a few things. For one, the consumers are extremely sophisticated — not just in what they want in terms of content, but also in terms of product and engagement with the brand. All of that is magnified in the direct-to-consumer business because you have that direct link. Previously, in most of our businesses, we had that middle layer and we were mostly a B2B business. Now, we’re interacting with consumers directly. We knew our consumers were sophisticated, but how quickly they know when something is good or bad has really impressed us. That applies when something doesn’t work, but also when a title hits. Our Korean series Moving became the globally most-watched international original on Disney+ in 2023. Now, we were very confident in that title and had high hopes for it, but we were really surprised at the speed with which that happened — it came on very fast.
These past two years have certainly been eventful for the Walt Disney Company overall. How has the streaming strategy for this part of the world evolved over that period
Well, when we first started out in streaming, let’s just say that it was a different environment — whether the macro environment, the industry environment or the internal environment at the company. So, the decision that was made at the time was to try new things. If you look at those first 12 months, we did a bit of everything — lots of genres and different types of content. For North America, Western Europe and the higher per capita markets of Asia — Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore — our strategy was to go with a more traditional pricing for streaming. But in some markets of Southeast Asia, where per capita incomes aren’t as high, we tried something new by going with a much lower-priced, mass-market pricing strategy.
If you want to go after the masses, you need to produce a lot of mass-oriented content, and that was reflected in our slate at that time. But as the macro environment evolved —and the internal environment evolved with Bob [Iger] coming back — we had to pivot. What Bob asked us to do was really to focus. So we had to focus on where we felt we would get the biggest bang for the buck in the region. We also realized that the mass strategy in Southeast Asia would have been a very long-term trek. So we decided to pivot to a much more traditional, high ARPU (average revenue per user) strategy in Southeast Asia. That wasn’t easy to do — it’s kind of like changing the wheels while the car is already driving down the road — but over the last 18-24 months we’ve successfully gotten to a solid subscriber base with good ARPUs in a lot of our Southeast Asian markets.
How would you describe the content strategy for the region now?
Well, we’ve put the focus on our higher ARPU markets and focused on what resonates. Obviously, our global franchise content resonates everywhere, and that’s something that we know we have as our bread and butter. But we have to ask ourselves, what more can we do to enhance engagement and the quality of the service? Time has validated our early belief that we would get the most value from focusing our resources on Korean live-action and Japanese anime. This is fairly well known in the industry now — these are the categories that are traveling.
We’ve also dug into our data and we’ve done a lot of consumer research over these years and learned a lot about how these markets are evolving. As the consumer in many markets goes from having 1.2 to 2.1 streaming accounts, on average, the dynamics of the market change. We don’t necessarily have to be all things to all people right away, because they have more than one account. There are different angles we can pursue to grow our business. Many analysts wanted us to be a certain thing and to compete with a certain company, but what we have learned pretty quickly is that we have to chart our own course. We want to be a specific type of service for specific types of people in each of our markets — and, again, we can’t be all things to all people. And if you look back, we’re very happy with what we’ve achieved so far. With our early focus on Korean entertainment, nine out of the top 15 international originals on Disney+ last year by views were Korean. We don’t have the same volume as some of our competitors, but what we’re focusing on now is getting big titles that will have a big impact.
I’m compelled by the realization that you can’t be everything to all people in APAC. Because during the early phases of the Bob Iger 2.0 era, there were questions among analysts about whether Disney+ should streamline around the core Disney family IP or continue to try to go big as a mass-market entertainment platform. Based on recent moves, it seems like the decision has been made to go for the latter. The Hulu buy-out was contractually required, so perhaps that kind of forced the company’s hand in that direction. But with the new joint-venture sports platform, the standalone plans for ESPN+, and the ambitions to create a new Disney mini-bundle for streaming, it seems like Iger’s plan is to continue to go big. But perhaps some of this strategy doesn’t fit for Asia. For example, outside of India and Australia, I don’t believe Disney owns any sports rights in the region. So, is the mid-term strategy in APAC fundamentally different from the ambitions in the domestic U.S. market?
I think you have to look at a couple of factors here. First, we’re very early in the cycle here in Asia. Disney+ has been in the U.S. for five years already, and Hulu much longer. So we’re in a very different stage of growth in APAC. We’re also dealing with an environment in which there is very aggressive competition — global competition, but also local competition. Every market in Asia has some strong local competitors. And if you look at the movie and television businesses in these countries, they are very much driven by local content. Given that we didn’t really do local content before in these places, I would say we are doing pretty well — especially considering how young we are in that game.
So, if you look at all of those factors, obviously we had to make some choices to establish a beachhead in a certain way. But that absolutely doesn’t mean that we’re not eventually going to go after the mass consumer that’s out there in the region. This is the fastest growing region in the world and we want to be a major part of that tremendous opportunity. But we have to make some choices to establish our service. You know, the Disney brand is so strong that people sometimes seem to think we have a birthright or something to be successful. But none of this is easy and you have to make smart strategic calls. We’re very happy with the great foundations we’ve established to build upon. So, we do have those big ambitions, we’re just at a very different stage in the growth story over here.
Amid the moves being made in the U.S., it’s also pretty clear that advertising will be central to Disney’s strategy for sizable growth in the streaming business. Netflix has now switched on its ad tier in Japan and Korea. Is that something Disney+ will soon do? Or is it a matter of waiting until the subscriber base is big enough in these APAC markets to take that step?
Yeah, we’re looking at it. It really depends on multiple factors in each market. One, is our sub base, but we also have to look at our proxies, such as pay TV. Asia-Pacific overall had a very different development pattern for multi-channel TV and advertising, so we want to make sure we tread carefully and make these moves at the right time. But honestly, it’s just a matter of when and how.
Similarly, it’s now clear that sports will be a pillar of Disney’s streaming strategy in North America. In Australia, a sports bundle would make a lot of sense, but elsewhere in APAC — where you don’t currently hold rights — will sports have a role in the eventual strategy?
Again, that’s something we’re always looking at, but always on a market-by-market basis. In Australia, we have two ESPN channels and we’re well positioned as the home of American sports. So you’re right, we’re looking at that there.
People perhaps forget that we used to run Fox Sports in the region, so we do have a lot of experience in the sports sector here. It’s the diversity of these markets that presents some challenges that you don’t find in other regions. There are very few sports that cut across all of APAC — even [soccer]. Some of the leagues do fairly well, but they vary in their popularity depending on the market. We had a relationship with F1 for a long time, and that cuts across countries in some demographics. But generally, it’s very diverse. Japan and South Korea, for example, love baseball and golf — but that’s basically non-existent in Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand. The Philippines loves basketball, and that has some appeal in Taiwan, Japan and Korea, but nowhere near to the same degree. So, it’s challenging. That’s not to say there isn’t a play. Nothing is off the table. It’s just a matter of finding the right opportunity at the right time.
Turning back to Korea briefly, on the one hand, you’ve had your biggest content successes with Korean titles and the new Korean slate is impressive. But on the other hand, the streaming market within Korea is very competitive and Disney+ ranks pretty far down the charts in terms of market share there. Netflix has a healthy lead on everyone, and several strong local players rank ahead of you. To win more of the Korean market, you would probably have to boost your output of local content considerably. So, is the goal in Korea to win more of that local pie, or is it more about using Korea as a content hub to create titles that appeal to other markets? And how does that unique dynamic sit with you?
That’s a very interesting question. But, to begin with, we can’t just utilize Korea as a creative base without having a major presence in the market. Those two things are not mutually exclusive. But you are right; it is a hyper-competitive market. Right now, it’s kind of like a gold rush. Everybody wants a piece of Korean content. Korean content being popular across the region is not a new thing; it’s been popular across Asia for 20 years. The fact that it can now travel globally — that’s something new. But there’s a very limited supply; it’s not a massive factory that can relentlessly produce hits. So, getting access to that content was critical for us. We had to build an infrastructure that allowed us to get access to top stars and writers. We’re very happy with the foundation and reputation we’ve built. We may not be producing the same volume as some of our competitors, but in terms of the scale and star power of our projects, we’re right at the top. Moving had the biggest budget per episode of any Korean series ever — which was then justified by its success. And our new slate features some of the very top names in Korean entertainment.
Looking to Japan, The Hollywood Reporter put out a piece late last year arguing that all of the big investments being made by the global streamers in Japanese original content, which are injecting international content standards into the local industry, might reawaken the Japanese live-action film and TV sectors — which once were regional and global leaders but have fallen into an inward-looking stasis in recent decades. What do you make of that thesis?
I would fully agree with you there. If you look back 30 years ago, Japanese content was the benchmark for the region, right? Everybody in Asia watched Japanese dramas and movies — and not just anime, but live-action too. If you look at the size of the market and the resources available, there’s no reason why Japan shouldn’t go back to being a major player. Some structural challenges developed in the TV industry over the years, but those obstacles have started to crumble. I fully believe the Japanese entertainment industry will have a renaissance — but exactly when that will come is the question. Nothing happens overnight.
One of the things that happened in Korea was that as the industry grew and became more popular overseas, more young talent came in. Many of Korea’s brightest college graduates were drawn to work in the content industry and there was this flood of young talent. That hasn’t happened in Japan yet. When you look at Japanese entertainment, a lot of the top stars are people who were popular 20 or 30 years ago. The amount of capital in the industry also needs to increase. Japan has a much bigger economy than Korea, but the average budget of a Korean drama is several multiples more than a typical Japanese series. Japan should be outspending Korea, but right now there just aren’t enough high-quality productions to justify that. So, Japan needs some of these virtuous cycles to take hold. I’m in constant contact with our Japan team and we want to be right there when it eventually happens.
Is there anything we should look out for in your Japan slate?
Honestly, at the moment, we’re more focused on anime than live-action. But we’re always looking for exciting, big projects. We’ve got a second season coming for Gannibal, our first Japanese live-action hit. And I hope that a show like Shogun, which is packed with Japanese talent, will help stimulate the industry in some of the positive ways we’ve been talking about.
China’s movie box office just set a new record during the Chinese New Year holiday period. And Chinese tentpoles are earning more than ever, despite the economic slowdown in the country. But Hollywood films, including Disney’s, have fallen out of favor. The market share for U.S. movies in China is now smaller than it has been in a generation. Is there anything in particular that Disney is doing to try to win back the Chinese filmgoer — beyond the usual belief that China requires patience and the long view?
You know, having lived there for several years and having run our business there directly, the one thing that I know Chinese consumers love is good storytelling. If you look at our record, there were titles that people said would never work in China, but then somehow they broke out hugely. So, as always, it’s really about quality storytelling and positioning those stories in the right way so that they are relevant to people’s lives. Yes, since COVID the market has pivoted much more toward local tastes. But I think that will come into balance. At some point, the pendulum will swing the other way. The thing about China is you just need one big, breakout film to set a new trend. Then, all of a sudden, people will start saying, let’s go see Hollywood stuff again. I think the whole industry just needs that one big breakthrough. Hopefully, it will come from us. We’re as optimistic as ever about our upcoming slate and we’re very focused on positioning those stories in the right way.
Are there any additional trends in the Asian entertainment landscape that excite you?
Well, for a long time, the question was always, “How is Hollywood content resonating in Asia?” Now, we’re in a new period of asking, “How is Asian content resonating in the West?” It’s a very different era with streaming. That’s very exciting — not just for Disney, but for all of the creative communities of this region.
Pivot and the “Gold Rush” for Korean Content
Luke Kang shares how the media giant has come to its streaming strategy for the region and his current views on major content markets like China, South Korea and Japan.
by Patrick Brzeski
February 20, 2024 - 10:37pm PST
During the short period that Disney+ has been active across the major markets of the Asia-Pacific region — just a little over two years in most countries — the Walt Disney Co. has gone through a period of uncharacteristic turmoil. A CEO shakeup, a secular reassessment of the streaming business, cost-cutting, shaky box-office results, speculation over asset sales and activist investors clamoring at the gates. But the company’s most recent earnings report beat analysts’ forecasts and gave CEO Bob Iger some of his Magic Kingdom mojo back. Iger reaffirmed that the company’s streaming operation will be profitable by this summer, while also unveiling a slew of projects and deals.
When Disney first began rolling out Disney+ across APAC in 2021, the company signaled it was preparing to go toe-to-toe with Netflix as a mass entertainment platform that would invest heavily in local content throughout the region. At a splashy content showcase in Singapore that year, Disney’s president of Asia-Pacific, Luke Kang, promised to greenlight over 50 Asian originals by 2023. With the industry — and Wall Street — still exclusively focussed on streaming platforms’ subscriber numbers, the populous Asia-Pacific region was the place where analysts believed most of the globe’s growth resided.
That first slate yielded several content successes for Disney+, including Japanese thriller hit Gannibal, musical documentary BTS Monuments: Beyond The Star, and Korean action thriller Moving, which became the streaming service’s most-watched international original of 2023. Disney has doubled down on Korean content with a growing 2024 slate, featuring a new series in the Moving universe, Light Shop, and a period drama starring Korean film icon, Song Kang-ho (Parasite). But Korea aside, amid the fiscal discipline that has defined the second coming of Iger, Disney has conspicuously downshifted on the scale of its local content output.
To get a clearer sense of the current streaming strategy in Asia and how Iger’s new initiatives are being enacted in this vital region, The Hollywood Reporter connected with Kang over Zoom for a wide-ranging discussion (the interview has been edited for length and clarity).
You’re a veteran of both Disney and the Asian entertainment business, so I’m curious to hear whether you encountered anything during the first couple of years of Disney+ in APAC that surprised you.
You know, it’s interesting, because, yes, the service has only really been in this region for a couple of years. People seem to forget that. The company has been here for decades, but we’ve been in the streaming business for a very short time — and we’re very happy with the progress we’ve made.
I don’t think anything really surprised us, but we’re learning a few things. For one, the consumers are extremely sophisticated — not just in what they want in terms of content, but also in terms of product and engagement with the brand. All of that is magnified in the direct-to-consumer business because you have that direct link. Previously, in most of our businesses, we had that middle layer and we were mostly a B2B business. Now, we’re interacting with consumers directly. We knew our consumers were sophisticated, but how quickly they know when something is good or bad has really impressed us. That applies when something doesn’t work, but also when a title hits. Our Korean series Moving became the globally most-watched international original on Disney+ in 2023. Now, we were very confident in that title and had high hopes for it, but we were really surprised at the speed with which that happened — it came on very fast.
These past two years have certainly been eventful for the Walt Disney Company overall. How has the streaming strategy for this part of the world evolved over that period
Well, when we first started out in streaming, let’s just say that it was a different environment — whether the macro environment, the industry environment or the internal environment at the company. So, the decision that was made at the time was to try new things. If you look at those first 12 months, we did a bit of everything — lots of genres and different types of content. For North America, Western Europe and the higher per capita markets of Asia — Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore — our strategy was to go with a more traditional pricing for streaming. But in some markets of Southeast Asia, where per capita incomes aren’t as high, we tried something new by going with a much lower-priced, mass-market pricing strategy.
If you want to go after the masses, you need to produce a lot of mass-oriented content, and that was reflected in our slate at that time. But as the macro environment evolved —and the internal environment evolved with Bob [Iger] coming back — we had to pivot. What Bob asked us to do was really to focus. So we had to focus on where we felt we would get the biggest bang for the buck in the region. We also realized that the mass strategy in Southeast Asia would have been a very long-term trek. So we decided to pivot to a much more traditional, high ARPU (average revenue per user) strategy in Southeast Asia. That wasn’t easy to do — it’s kind of like changing the wheels while the car is already driving down the road — but over the last 18-24 months we’ve successfully gotten to a solid subscriber base with good ARPUs in a lot of our Southeast Asian markets.
How would you describe the content strategy for the region now?
Well, we’ve put the focus on our higher ARPU markets and focused on what resonates. Obviously, our global franchise content resonates everywhere, and that’s something that we know we have as our bread and butter. But we have to ask ourselves, what more can we do to enhance engagement and the quality of the service? Time has validated our early belief that we would get the most value from focusing our resources on Korean live-action and Japanese anime. This is fairly well known in the industry now — these are the categories that are traveling.
We’ve also dug into our data and we’ve done a lot of consumer research over these years and learned a lot about how these markets are evolving. As the consumer in many markets goes from having 1.2 to 2.1 streaming accounts, on average, the dynamics of the market change. We don’t necessarily have to be all things to all people right away, because they have more than one account. There are different angles we can pursue to grow our business. Many analysts wanted us to be a certain thing and to compete with a certain company, but what we have learned pretty quickly is that we have to chart our own course. We want to be a specific type of service for specific types of people in each of our markets — and, again, we can’t be all things to all people. And if you look back, we’re very happy with what we’ve achieved so far. With our early focus on Korean entertainment, nine out of the top 15 international originals on Disney+ last year by views were Korean. We don’t have the same volume as some of our competitors, but what we’re focusing on now is getting big titles that will have a big impact.
I’m compelled by the realization that you can’t be everything to all people in APAC. Because during the early phases of the Bob Iger 2.0 era, there were questions among analysts about whether Disney+ should streamline around the core Disney family IP or continue to try to go big as a mass-market entertainment platform. Based on recent moves, it seems like the decision has been made to go for the latter. The Hulu buy-out was contractually required, so perhaps that kind of forced the company’s hand in that direction. But with the new joint-venture sports platform, the standalone plans for ESPN+, and the ambitions to create a new Disney mini-bundle for streaming, it seems like Iger’s plan is to continue to go big. But perhaps some of this strategy doesn’t fit for Asia. For example, outside of India and Australia, I don’t believe Disney owns any sports rights in the region. So, is the mid-term strategy in APAC fundamentally different from the ambitions in the domestic U.S. market?
I think you have to look at a couple of factors here. First, we’re very early in the cycle here in Asia. Disney+ has been in the U.S. for five years already, and Hulu much longer. So we’re in a very different stage of growth in APAC. We’re also dealing with an environment in which there is very aggressive competition — global competition, but also local competition. Every market in Asia has some strong local competitors. And if you look at the movie and television businesses in these countries, they are very much driven by local content. Given that we didn’t really do local content before in these places, I would say we are doing pretty well — especially considering how young we are in that game.
So, if you look at all of those factors, obviously we had to make some choices to establish a beachhead in a certain way. But that absolutely doesn’t mean that we’re not eventually going to go after the mass consumer that’s out there in the region. This is the fastest growing region in the world and we want to be a major part of that tremendous opportunity. But we have to make some choices to establish our service. You know, the Disney brand is so strong that people sometimes seem to think we have a birthright or something to be successful. But none of this is easy and you have to make smart strategic calls. We’re very happy with the great foundations we’ve established to build upon. So, we do have those big ambitions, we’re just at a very different stage in the growth story over here.
Amid the moves being made in the U.S., it’s also pretty clear that advertising will be central to Disney’s strategy for sizable growth in the streaming business. Netflix has now switched on its ad tier in Japan and Korea. Is that something Disney+ will soon do? Or is it a matter of waiting until the subscriber base is big enough in these APAC markets to take that step?
Yeah, we’re looking at it. It really depends on multiple factors in each market. One, is our sub base, but we also have to look at our proxies, such as pay TV. Asia-Pacific overall had a very different development pattern for multi-channel TV and advertising, so we want to make sure we tread carefully and make these moves at the right time. But honestly, it’s just a matter of when and how.
Similarly, it’s now clear that sports will be a pillar of Disney’s streaming strategy in North America. In Australia, a sports bundle would make a lot of sense, but elsewhere in APAC — where you don’t currently hold rights — will sports have a role in the eventual strategy?
Again, that’s something we’re always looking at, but always on a market-by-market basis. In Australia, we have two ESPN channels and we’re well positioned as the home of American sports. So you’re right, we’re looking at that there.
People perhaps forget that we used to run Fox Sports in the region, so we do have a lot of experience in the sports sector here. It’s the diversity of these markets that presents some challenges that you don’t find in other regions. There are very few sports that cut across all of APAC — even [soccer]. Some of the leagues do fairly well, but they vary in their popularity depending on the market. We had a relationship with F1 for a long time, and that cuts across countries in some demographics. But generally, it’s very diverse. Japan and South Korea, for example, love baseball and golf — but that’s basically non-existent in Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand. The Philippines loves basketball, and that has some appeal in Taiwan, Japan and Korea, but nowhere near to the same degree. So, it’s challenging. That’s not to say there isn’t a play. Nothing is off the table. It’s just a matter of finding the right opportunity at the right time.
Turning back to Korea briefly, on the one hand, you’ve had your biggest content successes with Korean titles and the new Korean slate is impressive. But on the other hand, the streaming market within Korea is very competitive and Disney+ ranks pretty far down the charts in terms of market share there. Netflix has a healthy lead on everyone, and several strong local players rank ahead of you. To win more of the Korean market, you would probably have to boost your output of local content considerably. So, is the goal in Korea to win more of that local pie, or is it more about using Korea as a content hub to create titles that appeal to other markets? And how does that unique dynamic sit with you?
That’s a very interesting question. But, to begin with, we can’t just utilize Korea as a creative base without having a major presence in the market. Those two things are not mutually exclusive. But you are right; it is a hyper-competitive market. Right now, it’s kind of like a gold rush. Everybody wants a piece of Korean content. Korean content being popular across the region is not a new thing; it’s been popular across Asia for 20 years. The fact that it can now travel globally — that’s something new. But there’s a very limited supply; it’s not a massive factory that can relentlessly produce hits. So, getting access to that content was critical for us. We had to build an infrastructure that allowed us to get access to top stars and writers. We’re very happy with the foundation and reputation we’ve built. We may not be producing the same volume as some of our competitors, but in terms of the scale and star power of our projects, we’re right at the top. Moving had the biggest budget per episode of any Korean series ever — which was then justified by its success. And our new slate features some of the very top names in Korean entertainment.
Looking to Japan, The Hollywood Reporter put out a piece late last year arguing that all of the big investments being made by the global streamers in Japanese original content, which are injecting international content standards into the local industry, might reawaken the Japanese live-action film and TV sectors — which once were regional and global leaders but have fallen into an inward-looking stasis in recent decades. What do you make of that thesis?
I would fully agree with you there. If you look back 30 years ago, Japanese content was the benchmark for the region, right? Everybody in Asia watched Japanese dramas and movies — and not just anime, but live-action too. If you look at the size of the market and the resources available, there’s no reason why Japan shouldn’t go back to being a major player. Some structural challenges developed in the TV industry over the years, but those obstacles have started to crumble. I fully believe the Japanese entertainment industry will have a renaissance — but exactly when that will come is the question. Nothing happens overnight.
One of the things that happened in Korea was that as the industry grew and became more popular overseas, more young talent came in. Many of Korea’s brightest college graduates were drawn to work in the content industry and there was this flood of young talent. That hasn’t happened in Japan yet. When you look at Japanese entertainment, a lot of the top stars are people who were popular 20 or 30 years ago. The amount of capital in the industry also needs to increase. Japan has a much bigger economy than Korea, but the average budget of a Korean drama is several multiples more than a typical Japanese series. Japan should be outspending Korea, but right now there just aren’t enough high-quality productions to justify that. So, Japan needs some of these virtuous cycles to take hold. I’m in constant contact with our Japan team and we want to be right there when it eventually happens.
Is there anything we should look out for in your Japan slate?
Honestly, at the moment, we’re more focused on anime than live-action. But we’re always looking for exciting, big projects. We’ve got a second season coming for Gannibal, our first Japanese live-action hit. And I hope that a show like Shogun, which is packed with Japanese talent, will help stimulate the industry in some of the positive ways we’ve been talking about.
China’s movie box office just set a new record during the Chinese New Year holiday period. And Chinese tentpoles are earning more than ever, despite the economic slowdown in the country. But Hollywood films, including Disney’s, have fallen out of favor. The market share for U.S. movies in China is now smaller than it has been in a generation. Is there anything in particular that Disney is doing to try to win back the Chinese filmgoer — beyond the usual belief that China requires patience and the long view?
You know, having lived there for several years and having run our business there directly, the one thing that I know Chinese consumers love is good storytelling. If you look at our record, there were titles that people said would never work in China, but then somehow they broke out hugely. So, as always, it’s really about quality storytelling and positioning those stories in the right way so that they are relevant to people’s lives. Yes, since COVID the market has pivoted much more toward local tastes. But I think that will come into balance. At some point, the pendulum will swing the other way. The thing about China is you just need one big, breakout film to set a new trend. Then, all of a sudden, people will start saying, let’s go see Hollywood stuff again. I think the whole industry just needs that one big breakthrough. Hopefully, it will come from us. We’re as optimistic as ever about our upcoming slate and we’re very focused on positioning those stories in the right way.
Are there any additional trends in the Asian entertainment landscape that excite you?
Well, for a long time, the question was always, “How is Hollywood content resonating in Asia?” Now, we’re in a new period of asking, “How is Asian content resonating in the West?” It’s a very different era with streaming. That’s very exciting — not just for Disney, but for all of the creative communities of this region.
wabbott
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wabbott
DIS Veteran
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https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/b...b-iger-ceo-succession-dana-walden-1235831004/
Inside Disney’s Shadow Succession Game
Dana Walden undertakes a major shake-up at ABC News with hopes to stabilize the unit and showcase her mettle as a top decision-maker in Bob Iger’s empire.
by Lachlan Cartwright
February 21, 2024 - 8:05am PST
In the bowels of the Washington Hilton in April, just hours before the White House Correspondents’ dinner, several ABC News staffers were seen hastily carrying furniture, including couches and high-top tables, out of a room on the terrace level of the hotel that was about to host executives and talent at the network’s pre-dinner reception. The room that the No. 1-rated news network used for the previous year’s shindig was under construction, so they had booked another (albeit much smaller) space. ABC News boss Kim Godwin was ready to welcome two very special guests: Disney CEO Bob Iger and the person who is the leading candidate to one day succeed him, Dana Walden, the co-chairman of Disney Entertainment and Godwin’s boss, who along with Iger had flown in from Los Angeles for the night.
But the room quickly became overcrowded, and ventilation was poor. A perspiring U.S. Senator, Charles Schumer, was overheard telling an ABC News staffer that he had to leave. Iger was seen wiping his forehead and was forced to stand in the hallway to greet Caitlyn Jenner. A star of the network remarked to a guest that the room was a “sweat box.” To some Disney execs, the party disaster was emblematic of Godwin’s at-times rocky tenure managing the news division.
Just weeks earlier, Godwin had received a stay of execution after Walden had threatened to layer her with an additional manager, Debra OConnell, a television division president, in a reorganization. Godwin made a case that she deserved another shot. Walden relented and decided to give the first Black female news boss more time in the role.
By Feb. 12, the clock had run out. From Burbank, Walden and Disney HR called Godwin in New York and delivered the news. Godwin was told Disney would announce the next day that OConnell was being elevated to become the president of a newly created division that would include ABC News and the company’s local stations. The former CBS News No. 2 was given fewer than 24 hours to decide if she would stay. There would be no negotiating and no time for the story to leak. It was a stealth move led by Walden, in keeping with Disney’s style of handling difficult personnel matters.
Just before ABC News’ daily 3 p.m. news meeting on Feb. 14, Godwin called her inner circle into her office on the fifth floor of the Barbara Walters Building in Manhattan. She refers to the executives as “the keys”: Jose Andino, who carries the verbose title of vp — office of the president & process management; Katie den Daas, who has experienced a meteoric rise at ABC to become vp global newsgathering; Derek Medina, executive vp of ABC News; and Stacia Philips Deshishku, executive editor and executive vp, who had referred in a meeting with top producers to the “cult of [David] Muir.”
Within minutes, the execs trickled out looking “stupefied,” according to two people who witnessed the situation. Shortly after that, the announcement from Walden went wide, hitting inboxes with stunned staffers shrieking, “Check your email.” The OConnell news was official, and while Godwin was staying — given a two-year extension on a contract that was previously for three years, as The Hollywood Reporter understands it — it was clear to everyone that she had been layered. Godwin had asked for a quote from Walden in the news release praising her leadership, two people familiar with the matter say. Walden declined.
OConnell, a former ad sales exec who has been with Disney for 26 years, now has the unenviable task of overseeing a legacy and declining linear TV business that Iger just months ago proposed selling (no real bidder has stepped forward). She is known as a micromanager who works 90-hour weeks and will schedule meetings late at night and as early as sunrise. (Godwin has espoused a work-life balance.)
In one fell swoop, Walden had essentially demoted a division leader who had created headaches for top brass in Burbank. Those included her handling of the T.J. Holmes and Amy Robach debacle, in which the public disclosure of their affair played out across tabloids before Godwin took them off the air; the fact that ABC News has been without a head of talent for almost a year; and falling ratings for such marquee shows as World News Tonight and Good Morning America. While it’s clear that ABC News, which makes up a small fraction of Disney’s bottom line, would not be a factor in Walden getting Iger’s job that she so clearly desires, several more Godwin gaffes and controversies could’ve hurt her chances.
Walden is one of the few execs, with the exception of Peter Chernin and Richard Plepler, to have risen through the PR department to become a highly respected entertainment executive. While Disney insiders say Iger is close with Walden — the two live just blocks from each other in Brentwood and are regularly spotted on walks together — questions abound about whether she has the House of Mouse running through her veins. (Disney declined to comment for this report.)
While the job appears to be Walden’s to lose, there is some internal competition. James Pitaro, the ESPN chairman with a background in digital media, is in the mix, as is Alan Bergman, co-chairman of Disney entertainment. Josh D’Amaro, the chairman of Disney Experiences who has a loyal following at Disney and received a $60 billion vote of confidence by way of Iger’s investment in the parks division, is seen as a rival to Walden.
Insiders note that Disney has always had a culture that cares deeply about the legacy of Walt Disney and needs someone to nurture and protect the company’s history and reputation. “I have a lot of respect for her,” David Madden, who worked with Walden when he was president of Fox Television Studios, tells THR. “I thought she was really skillful, bouncing from a detailed creative problem to a sophisticated negotiating issue to a larger corporate agenda she had to fulfill. If she ends up getting Iger’s job, she would end up doing a great job.”
Inside Disney’s Shadow Succession Game
Dana Walden undertakes a major shake-up at ABC News with hopes to stabilize the unit and showcase her mettle as a top decision-maker in Bob Iger’s empire.
by Lachlan Cartwright
February 21, 2024 - 8:05am PST
In the bowels of the Washington Hilton in April, just hours before the White House Correspondents’ dinner, several ABC News staffers were seen hastily carrying furniture, including couches and high-top tables, out of a room on the terrace level of the hotel that was about to host executives and talent at the network’s pre-dinner reception. The room that the No. 1-rated news network used for the previous year’s shindig was under construction, so they had booked another (albeit much smaller) space. ABC News boss Kim Godwin was ready to welcome two very special guests: Disney CEO Bob Iger and the person who is the leading candidate to one day succeed him, Dana Walden, the co-chairman of Disney Entertainment and Godwin’s boss, who along with Iger had flown in from Los Angeles for the night.
But the room quickly became overcrowded, and ventilation was poor. A perspiring U.S. Senator, Charles Schumer, was overheard telling an ABC News staffer that he had to leave. Iger was seen wiping his forehead and was forced to stand in the hallway to greet Caitlyn Jenner. A star of the network remarked to a guest that the room was a “sweat box.” To some Disney execs, the party disaster was emblematic of Godwin’s at-times rocky tenure managing the news division.
Just weeks earlier, Godwin had received a stay of execution after Walden had threatened to layer her with an additional manager, Debra OConnell, a television division president, in a reorganization. Godwin made a case that she deserved another shot. Walden relented and decided to give the first Black female news boss more time in the role.
By Feb. 12, the clock had run out. From Burbank, Walden and Disney HR called Godwin in New York and delivered the news. Godwin was told Disney would announce the next day that OConnell was being elevated to become the president of a newly created division that would include ABC News and the company’s local stations. The former CBS News No. 2 was given fewer than 24 hours to decide if she would stay. There would be no negotiating and no time for the story to leak. It was a stealth move led by Walden, in keeping with Disney’s style of handling difficult personnel matters.
Just before ABC News’ daily 3 p.m. news meeting on Feb. 14, Godwin called her inner circle into her office on the fifth floor of the Barbara Walters Building in Manhattan. She refers to the executives as “the keys”: Jose Andino, who carries the verbose title of vp — office of the president & process management; Katie den Daas, who has experienced a meteoric rise at ABC to become vp global newsgathering; Derek Medina, executive vp of ABC News; and Stacia Philips Deshishku, executive editor and executive vp, who had referred in a meeting with top producers to the “cult of [David] Muir.”
Within minutes, the execs trickled out looking “stupefied,” according to two people who witnessed the situation. Shortly after that, the announcement from Walden went wide, hitting inboxes with stunned staffers shrieking, “Check your email.” The OConnell news was official, and while Godwin was staying — given a two-year extension on a contract that was previously for three years, as The Hollywood Reporter understands it — it was clear to everyone that she had been layered. Godwin had asked for a quote from Walden in the news release praising her leadership, two people familiar with the matter say. Walden declined.
OConnell, a former ad sales exec who has been with Disney for 26 years, now has the unenviable task of overseeing a legacy and declining linear TV business that Iger just months ago proposed selling (no real bidder has stepped forward). She is known as a micromanager who works 90-hour weeks and will schedule meetings late at night and as early as sunrise. (Godwin has espoused a work-life balance.)
In one fell swoop, Walden had essentially demoted a division leader who had created headaches for top brass in Burbank. Those included her handling of the T.J. Holmes and Amy Robach debacle, in which the public disclosure of their affair played out across tabloids before Godwin took them off the air; the fact that ABC News has been without a head of talent for almost a year; and falling ratings for such marquee shows as World News Tonight and Good Morning America. While it’s clear that ABC News, which makes up a small fraction of Disney’s bottom line, would not be a factor in Walden getting Iger’s job that she so clearly desires, several more Godwin gaffes and controversies could’ve hurt her chances.
Walden is one of the few execs, with the exception of Peter Chernin and Richard Plepler, to have risen through the PR department to become a highly respected entertainment executive. While Disney insiders say Iger is close with Walden — the two live just blocks from each other in Brentwood and are regularly spotted on walks together — questions abound about whether she has the House of Mouse running through her veins. (Disney declined to comment for this report.)
While the job appears to be Walden’s to lose, there is some internal competition. James Pitaro, the ESPN chairman with a background in digital media, is in the mix, as is Alan Bergman, co-chairman of Disney entertainment. Josh D’Amaro, the chairman of Disney Experiences who has a loyal following at Disney and received a $60 billion vote of confidence by way of Iger’s investment in the parks division, is seen as a rival to Walden.
Insiders note that Disney has always had a culture that cares deeply about the legacy of Walt Disney and needs someone to nurture and protect the company’s history and reputation. “I have a lot of respect for her,” David Madden, who worked with Walden when he was president of Fox Television Studios, tells THR. “I thought she was really skillful, bouncing from a detailed creative problem to a sophisticated negotiating issue to a larger corporate agenda she had to fulfill. If she ends up getting Iger’s job, she would end up doing a great job.”
wabbott
DIS Veteran
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https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/m...el-fantastic-four-avengers-movies-1235830951/
How Marvel Is Quietly Retooling Amid Superhero Fatigue
The studio’s golden box office aura has been dented, but chief architect Kevin Feige isn’t scrapping his years-long cinematic universe plan, just refining it: “They’re not going to give up,” says an insider.
By Borys Kit, Aaron Couch
February 21, 2024 - 6:45am PST
Just over a year ago, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania was set to take Marvel Studios to the next level. A new villain was going to be introduced, setting the stage for several years’ worth of storytelling. And the movie itself was a giant-sizing of a franchise that was previously modest in scope. Instead, the Peyton Reed-directed movie heralded a year’s worth of missteps, box office blunders and PR nightmares. It was all uncharted territory for Marvel, which had steadily been generating box office gold for 15 years.
But the Disney division is in the midst of a pretty darn good February, all things considered, despite the general gloom that surrounds the superhero genre as of late. The Super Bowl trailer for Deadpool & Wolverine became the most watched trailer of all time, with 365 million views in 24 hours. Yes, Disney’s math includes the 123 million people who tuned in for the game, which included just 30 seconds of the trailer, but Super Bowl fudging or not, the clip’s reach was an encouraging number for a studio whose last movie, The Marvels, became the lowest-grossing in the MCU’s 33-film run, hitting just $206 million globally.
Next came the Valentine’s Day unveiling of the cast of Fantastic Four — Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Joseph Quinn, coupled with retro art teasing a 1960s setting for the movie. (The Fantastic Four are a cornerstone of the Marvel mythos, with writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby introducing the team in 1961’s Fantastic Four No. 1, the comic that would initiate the Marvel Universe, so the symbolic launch of the new team carries a lot of weight for the film division. This will be the third incarnation of the Fantastic Four to hit the big screen, not counting the infamous Roger Corman version.)
A day later, Marvel launched the trailer for X-Men ’97, a revival of the 1990s cartoon that debuts in March. The trailer set an internal Disney record as the biggest launch for an animated series on Disney+, ahead of other Marvel shows such as What If …? and any animated Star Wars series.
These public-facing moves come as studio boss Kevin Feige recalibrates the creative direction behind the scenes. Early in February, the company completed reshoots for Agatha: Darkhold Diaries, the WandaVision spinoff starring Kathryn Hahn that is expected to hit Disney+ this fall. The company usually budgets five days of reshoots into the schedule, but the studio completed the work in just one, fueling a sunny outlook around the show internally, according to sources associated with the series.
The studio also quietly hired Eric Pearson to polish the script for Fantastic Four, which will shoot this summer in London. Pearson is a company stalwart who worked on Thor: Ragnarok and Black Widow and has a reputation for taking projects over the finish line. The stakes for that movie are high, as the studio is still searching for characters and actors who can carry its universe forward after the exits of Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans.
Marvel also hired Joanna Calo, the showrunner of acclaimed FX series The Bear, to work on the script for Thunderbolts, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. The film will begin shooting in March in Atlanta. Her hiring adds a flair of prestige to the project, which stars Florence Pugh and — according to a source who has read previous drafts of the script — centers on villains and antiheroes going on a mission that was supposed to end with their deaths.
Marvel is also cleaning up the creative mess left in the wake of Jonathan Majors, the once-rising actor cast to play the lynchpin villain role in the next Avengers movies but who in December was found guilty of reckless assault in the third degree and harassment in a Manhattan court after a domestic incident with his ex-partner, a movement coach he met while working on Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Marvel dropped Majors hours after the conviction and is rewriting those movies, which will now either minimize the character or excise him entirely. The first of the new Avengers movies, due out in 2026, was initially titled Avengers: The Kang Dynasty but will be getting a new title to remove the character’s name, though sources say that even before Majors’ conviction, the studio was making moves to minimize the character after Quantumania underperformed, grossing $476 million.
On the TV side, Marvel has been reorganizing its operations to allow for greater control from showrunners, a move made after the critical failure of the expensive Samuel L. Jackson spy series Secret Invasion, which sidelined executive producer Kyle Bradstreet after a year, with various creative factions vying for influence in his wake. The show had about 2.5 billion minutes of viewing over its six-week run, per Nielsen, in the bottom third of Marvel’s live-action Disney+ offerings so far.
“The focus is internal this year,” says one insider of all the tinkering going on behind the scenes.
Execs are not calling it a reboot, not even a soft one, but more of a creative retooling. It’s no secret that since the 2019 Avengers: Endgame, the company was asked to scale up in an unprecedented way to feed its fledgling streaming service, Disney+, then a top priority for Disney, which was in the thick of the streaming wars. First under the direction of Disney CEO Bob Iger and, later, his short-lived successor, Bob Chapek, Marvel expanded into TV series and animation, with the goal of the MCU becoming a place with a seemingly endless procession of year-round releases. It was an ask that proved too unwieldy to sustain.
“Some of our studios lost a little focus. So the first step that we’ve taken is that we’ve reduced volume,” Iger said on a Feb. 7 earnings call. “We’ve reduced output, particularly at Marvel,” in order to ensure “the films you’re making can be even better.”
As the Hollywood strikes ended in November, the studio delayed Captain America: New World Order seven months to Feb. 14, 2025, to give it time to undergo reshoots. Iger touted Captain America 4, starring Anthony Mackie, as among the 2025 Disney releases he was most excited for during the earnings call. He did not mention Blade, leading to speculation it will be moved from its November 2025 date; it’s unlikely Marvel will release four films that year given Iger’s mandate to slim down.
The dual writers and actors strikes, while costly to Hollywood, ironically gave Marvel breathing space. It was able to reschedule its movies so that only Deadpool & Wolverine will be released in 2024. And only two series — Echo and Agatha — are bowing on Disney+ this year. Other movies remain in the script stage, while TV shows (such as Ironheart) have filmed, but have no release date in sight. It is all designed to give creatives some breathing room and give audiences the chance to miss the MCU, just a little bit.
“They’re not going to give up,” says a source who has worked with Marvel over the past year. “They want to make something great.”
How Marvel Is Quietly Retooling Amid Superhero Fatigue
The studio’s golden box office aura has been dented, but chief architect Kevin Feige isn’t scrapping his years-long cinematic universe plan, just refining it: “They’re not going to give up,” says an insider.
By Borys Kit, Aaron Couch
February 21, 2024 - 6:45am PST
Just over a year ago, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania was set to take Marvel Studios to the next level. A new villain was going to be introduced, setting the stage for several years’ worth of storytelling. And the movie itself was a giant-sizing of a franchise that was previously modest in scope. Instead, the Peyton Reed-directed movie heralded a year’s worth of missteps, box office blunders and PR nightmares. It was all uncharted territory for Marvel, which had steadily been generating box office gold for 15 years.
But the Disney division is in the midst of a pretty darn good February, all things considered, despite the general gloom that surrounds the superhero genre as of late. The Super Bowl trailer for Deadpool & Wolverine became the most watched trailer of all time, with 365 million views in 24 hours. Yes, Disney’s math includes the 123 million people who tuned in for the game, which included just 30 seconds of the trailer, but Super Bowl fudging or not, the clip’s reach was an encouraging number for a studio whose last movie, The Marvels, became the lowest-grossing in the MCU’s 33-film run, hitting just $206 million globally.
Next came the Valentine’s Day unveiling of the cast of Fantastic Four — Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Joseph Quinn, coupled with retro art teasing a 1960s setting for the movie. (The Fantastic Four are a cornerstone of the Marvel mythos, with writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby introducing the team in 1961’s Fantastic Four No. 1, the comic that would initiate the Marvel Universe, so the symbolic launch of the new team carries a lot of weight for the film division. This will be the third incarnation of the Fantastic Four to hit the big screen, not counting the infamous Roger Corman version.)
A day later, Marvel launched the trailer for X-Men ’97, a revival of the 1990s cartoon that debuts in March. The trailer set an internal Disney record as the biggest launch for an animated series on Disney+, ahead of other Marvel shows such as What If …? and any animated Star Wars series.
These public-facing moves come as studio boss Kevin Feige recalibrates the creative direction behind the scenes. Early in February, the company completed reshoots for Agatha: Darkhold Diaries, the WandaVision spinoff starring Kathryn Hahn that is expected to hit Disney+ this fall. The company usually budgets five days of reshoots into the schedule, but the studio completed the work in just one, fueling a sunny outlook around the show internally, according to sources associated with the series.
The studio also quietly hired Eric Pearson to polish the script for Fantastic Four, which will shoot this summer in London. Pearson is a company stalwart who worked on Thor: Ragnarok and Black Widow and has a reputation for taking projects over the finish line. The stakes for that movie are high, as the studio is still searching for characters and actors who can carry its universe forward after the exits of Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans.
Marvel also hired Joanna Calo, the showrunner of acclaimed FX series The Bear, to work on the script for Thunderbolts, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. The film will begin shooting in March in Atlanta. Her hiring adds a flair of prestige to the project, which stars Florence Pugh and — according to a source who has read previous drafts of the script — centers on villains and antiheroes going on a mission that was supposed to end with their deaths.
Marvel is also cleaning up the creative mess left in the wake of Jonathan Majors, the once-rising actor cast to play the lynchpin villain role in the next Avengers movies but who in December was found guilty of reckless assault in the third degree and harassment in a Manhattan court after a domestic incident with his ex-partner, a movement coach he met while working on Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Marvel dropped Majors hours after the conviction and is rewriting those movies, which will now either minimize the character or excise him entirely. The first of the new Avengers movies, due out in 2026, was initially titled Avengers: The Kang Dynasty but will be getting a new title to remove the character’s name, though sources say that even before Majors’ conviction, the studio was making moves to minimize the character after Quantumania underperformed, grossing $476 million.
On the TV side, Marvel has been reorganizing its operations to allow for greater control from showrunners, a move made after the critical failure of the expensive Samuel L. Jackson spy series Secret Invasion, which sidelined executive producer Kyle Bradstreet after a year, with various creative factions vying for influence in his wake. The show had about 2.5 billion minutes of viewing over its six-week run, per Nielsen, in the bottom third of Marvel’s live-action Disney+ offerings so far.
“The focus is internal this year,” says one insider of all the tinkering going on behind the scenes.
Execs are not calling it a reboot, not even a soft one, but more of a creative retooling. It’s no secret that since the 2019 Avengers: Endgame, the company was asked to scale up in an unprecedented way to feed its fledgling streaming service, Disney+, then a top priority for Disney, which was in the thick of the streaming wars. First under the direction of Disney CEO Bob Iger and, later, his short-lived successor, Bob Chapek, Marvel expanded into TV series and animation, with the goal of the MCU becoming a place with a seemingly endless procession of year-round releases. It was an ask that proved too unwieldy to sustain.
“Some of our studios lost a little focus. So the first step that we’ve taken is that we’ve reduced volume,” Iger said on a Feb. 7 earnings call. “We’ve reduced output, particularly at Marvel,” in order to ensure “the films you’re making can be even better.”
As the Hollywood strikes ended in November, the studio delayed Captain America: New World Order seven months to Feb. 14, 2025, to give it time to undergo reshoots. Iger touted Captain America 4, starring Anthony Mackie, as among the 2025 Disney releases he was most excited for during the earnings call. He did not mention Blade, leading to speculation it will be moved from its November 2025 date; it’s unlikely Marvel will release four films that year given Iger’s mandate to slim down.
The dual writers and actors strikes, while costly to Hollywood, ironically gave Marvel breathing space. It was able to reschedule its movies so that only Deadpool & Wolverine will be released in 2024. And only two series — Echo and Agatha — are bowing on Disney+ this year. Other movies remain in the script stage, while TV shows (such as Ironheart) have filmed, but have no release date in sight. It is all designed to give creatives some breathing room and give audiences the chance to miss the MCU, just a little bit.
“They’re not going to give up,” says a source who has worked with Marvel over the past year. “They want to make something great.”
wabbott
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- Aug 4, 2021
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https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/why-hollywood-t-seem-solve-140000316.html
Why Hollywood Can’t Seem to Solve the Streaming Bundle Puzzle
Lucas Manfredi
Wed, February 21, 2024 at 8:00 AM CST
Streaming companies have promised consumers more flexibility and a better overall experience than cable. But as Wall Street has pivoted from subscriber growth to profitability, it’s become messy. Today, consumers are confronted with ads, password sharing crackdowns, multiple bills and logins to juggle and more difficulty finding content — in some cases making their overall household streaming outlay just as expensive as before, resulting in canceled subscriptions that send churn rates trending in the wrong direction.
It’s a vicious cycle.
One short-term solution, streaming companies are finding, is a more flexible recreation of the cable bundle that streaming was supposed to leave behind.
Recent examples include Disney+, ESPN+ and Hulu, Verizon’s ad-supported Netflix and Max offering, Amazon Prime, which offers streaming alongside perks like free shipping, and Apple One, which offers Apple TV+ along with music, news, fitness subscriptions and iCloud storage.
So far, bundle offerings are having an impact. Disney+ and Hulu saw churn rates in November of 6.6% and 9.06%, respectively, on their own, according to Antenna. But when included in a bundle, the churn rates for the same month dropped to 4.74% and 5.49%. Likewise, Apple TV+ experienced a churn rate of 10.53% for November on its own, compared to 4.5% for the month when included in a bundle.
But simply bundling all streaming services together — in a so-called “super bundle” as Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav has referred to it — doesn’t solve a key issue: The lack of one single interface where consumers can manage all their subscriptions, even those outside of streaming video.
Hollywood is obsessed with “getting back to the economics of the last era,” Evan Shapiro, a media professor at New York University and Fordham University, told TheWrap. “But in reality, we’re entering a completely new era where you can get all that money back, but it’s going to be from a completely different shape of offerings. The puzzle pieces are very, very different, but the margins exist.”
Consumers use a total of about 12 entertainment sources across categories including streaming, gaming, music — but only half of those sources are considered “must haves,” according to Hub Entertainment’s latest Battle Royale survey of nearly 3,000 consumers. Broken out by age, individuals between 18 and 37 use 16 entertainment sources with eight being must haves, while those above 35 years old use 10 total sources with about half of those being must haves.
Courtesy of Hub Entertainment Research
With the abundance of subscriptions, 35% said they have lost track of how much they’re spending, while 32% said they’re consistently frustrated with how they currently manage and pay their subscription bills. Over half of subscribers (57%) surveyed said they have discontinued their subscriptions because of unanticipated price hikes.
But pricing is only part of the problem. The current bundle offerings don’t do anything to improve a user’s experience on an individual streaming platform, analysts with MoffettNathanson said in a recent research note.
A partial solution is integrated search through platforms like Roku or Comcast and Charter Communications’ joint streaming venture Xumo, which has deployed 1 million of its streaming boxes nationwide since launching in October. That still requires multiple clicks to switch between services and “meaningful cooperation among the media companies,” who would need to grant access to programming choice data and confirm whether individual customers are subscribed and if they’re on ad-supported or ad-free tiers.
The share of video streaming services accessed as a channel on Apple TV+ increased 45% over the last six months of 2023. The firm also found that Prime Video benefitted Amazon Prime shipping during its fourth quarter events including Prime Day in October and Cyber Monday in November, as well as holiday shopping in December, while Apple TV+ benefitted from iPhone sales during the same period.
“Typically, the more engaged you are with an ecosystem, the more engaged you are with streaming,” Kantar’s Consumer Insights Director Hannah Avery told TheWrap.
Among Prime subscribers who are monthly users of two Prime services, 68% of them use Prime Video, Avery said. Compared to Prime subscribers who use five or more Prime services, 96% of them use Prime Video monthly. When bundled, Apple TV+’s weekly non-usage declined 20% compared to subscribers who do not bundle the service, Avery added.
MoffettNathanson warned that interface integration requires individual streamers to agree to be housed under one aggregator’s brand — a price that may be “too high to pay” for some.
“It’s always been very clear that there’s a lot more that can be brought to the table for subscribers that goes beyond simply watching video,” Bloxham said. “If I’m buying stuff through a service that is also a streaming service, I’m much less likely to just hop because I’m not watching any shows right now.”
Shapiro said that the key to any bundle is adding a “high touch utility” — a service that consumers are more likely to interact with on a daily basis. He touted Paramount+’s partnership with Walmart+ as one notable example and said Netflix bundling with Peloton or The New York Times could be a potential “home run.”
Another offering that could help Disney and Comcast’s streaming services stand out is a bundle that would include theme park tickets or merchandise. In January, Disney announced that Disney+ subscribers could get a free dining plan with travel packages that include a Disney Resort hotel room and a theme park ticket with a park hopper option.
“This is the time for companies to be innovative and think and swing big rather than incrementally create bundles that still look the same as the other bundles that are out there,” Hub Entertainment Research founder Jonathan Giegengack told TheWrap.
Last April, Hub Entertainment Research asked 3,000 consumers what they would want in an ideal bundle. The results were broken into four types: streaming bundles, utility bundles, gaming bundles and live TV bundles.
About 40% of respondents chose the live TV bundle, which was most likely to include a home internet and mobile phone plan, a network bundle with live TV, Netflix and a news aggregator.
One quarter of respondents chose the streaming bundle, which was most likely to include Netflix, Hulu, Max, Disney+ and a home internet subscription.
Slightly fewer — 22% — chose a utility bundle, which was most likely to include a home internet and mobile phone plan, Netflix and Hulu and some form of streaming music or audio.
Slightly less than half as many — 13% — chose a gaming bundle, which were most likely to include a game console or gaming subscription, a home internet plan, some form of streaming music or audio and Netflix.
When asked which brands were best positioned to create these bundle offerings, consumers’ top choices included Netflix, Amazon, Apple, AT&T, Verizon and Xfinity.
Courtesy of Hub Entertainment Research
Courtesy of Hub Entertainment Research
Courtesy of Hub Entertainment Research
Courtesy of Hub Entertainment Research
Courtesy of Hub Entertainment Research
Courtesy of Hub Entertainment Research
Courtesy of Hub Entertainment Research
Courtesy of Hub Entertainment Research
In the short term, he said, “it’s a lot less of a lift for the Verizons and Amazons of the world than it is for Netflix because they have to create their own content and they’re more likely to be part of somebody else’s bundle.”
For the tech giants, a notable barrier is Hollywood’s fear that a possible team up would allow them to monopolize the entertainment industry. “That’s a very real fear because they’ve shown how they can pretty much take over industries,” Bloxham told TheWrap.
Last year, Verizon launched its +play platform, a one-stop shop where consumers can access their subscriptions all in one place. The telecommunications giant, which manages nearly 12 million content subscriptions, has over 30 partners affiliated with the offering, including Peloton and DuoLingo. The initial concept for the idea came after a 2019 promotion with Disney+ prompted interest from other streamers like Apple TV+ and Discovery+.
“We realized that we were in a unique position because you had more programmers who wanted a deal like Disney and an efficient channel to go to market,” Verizon Chief Revenue Officer Frank Boulben told TheWrap. “And on the other side, for many consumers managing their digital subscription services was becoming a pain point.”
Through its myPlan perk program for $10 per month, Verizon offers access to the Disney Bundle and an ad-supported Netflix and Max bundle. The company earns an average of about 15% on the price consumers pay for its bundles, though that percentage varies depending on the services included. Users who don’t want the streaming bundles can also receive a $15 per month credit to spend on individual streaming services or other offerings such as Xbox GamePass Ultimate or MasterClass.
“The benefit is two-fold,” Boulben said. “On our side, customers who take content subscriptions with us and use them churn less on the mobile side. So it helps our connectivity business. On the other side, content subscribers that get their subscription via Verizon churn less from a content provider standpoint.”
Aggregation also may be a “less heavy lift” for cable providers like Comcast and Charter, Giegengack said. In addition to Xumo, Charter started bundling Disney+ with its Select TV packages in January as part of its latest carriage agreement.
“The problem with cable is not so much the cost, but how much of what people are paying goes to pay for stuff they never use,” Giegengack said. “If you can give consumers a mechanism to create a bundle that they actually want to use and the cable company can be the facilitator of that, that would help transform the business of what a pay TV provider offers into something that’s more relevant to what consumers today are looking for.”
When asked by Bango, half of respondents said they want their mobile operators to offer a single platform to manage and bill all their subscriptions in one place. About 19% said they’d even be willing to pay 50% more on their monthly bill if their favorite subscriptions were included in the price — equivalent to an extra $364 per year based on the average monthly U.S. phone bill. In comparison, 29% of respondents said they would want their cable or TV providers to do so.
The future of bundling
Shapiro anticipates a significant uptick in the number of bundled streaming offerings over the next five years, with bundles similar to Amazon Prime, Paramount+ and Walmart+, and Verizon+ play being the most successful.
“People who try to only bundle TV with TV will sell subscriptions, but they’re not going to make any money because it’s only based on discounts,” he added.
While Boulben believes bundles across different companies will “have their place,” he does not see them dominating the industry anytime soon. Instead, he expects a “coexistence” between bundled and a la carte offerings.
Verizon +play plans to add category marketing on the platform as it continues to gain scale, with areas including streaming, lifestyle and wellness and education services. But Boulben stressed that aggregating everything in one place under one login is still years away.
“It requires technical development and changes with our partners,” he added. “The model has to mature more before we can convince all the partners that it’s an investment worth making.”
The post Why Hollywood Can’t Seem to Solve the Streaming Bundle Puzzle appeared first on TheWrap.
Why Hollywood Can’t Seem to Solve the Streaming Bundle Puzzle
Lucas Manfredi
Wed, February 21, 2024 at 8:00 AM CST
Streaming companies have promised consumers more flexibility and a better overall experience than cable. But as Wall Street has pivoted from subscriber growth to profitability, it’s become messy. Today, consumers are confronted with ads, password sharing crackdowns, multiple bills and logins to juggle and more difficulty finding content — in some cases making their overall household streaming outlay just as expensive as before, resulting in canceled subscriptions that send churn rates trending in the wrong direction.
It’s a vicious cycle.
One short-term solution, streaming companies are finding, is a more flexible recreation of the cable bundle that streaming was supposed to leave behind.
Recent examples include Disney+, ESPN+ and Hulu, Verizon’s ad-supported Netflix and Max offering, Amazon Prime, which offers streaming alongside perks like free shipping, and Apple One, which offers Apple TV+ along with music, news, fitness subscriptions and iCloud storage.
So far, bundle offerings are having an impact. Disney+ and Hulu saw churn rates in November of 6.6% and 9.06%, respectively, on their own, according to Antenna. But when included in a bundle, the churn rates for the same month dropped to 4.74% and 5.49%. Likewise, Apple TV+ experienced a churn rate of 10.53% for November on its own, compared to 4.5% for the month when included in a bundle.
But simply bundling all streaming services together — in a so-called “super bundle” as Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav has referred to it — doesn’t solve a key issue: The lack of one single interface where consumers can manage all their subscriptions, even those outside of streaming video.
Hollywood is obsessed with “getting back to the economics of the last era,” Evan Shapiro, a media professor at New York University and Fordham University, told TheWrap. “But in reality, we’re entering a completely new era where you can get all that money back, but it’s going to be from a completely different shape of offerings. The puzzle pieces are very, very different, but the margins exist.”
A desire for a simplified experience and fewer transactions
The bundling push stems from consumers’ desire for a simplified experience and fewer transactions.Consumers use a total of about 12 entertainment sources across categories including streaming, gaming, music — but only half of those sources are considered “must haves,” according to Hub Entertainment’s latest Battle Royale survey of nearly 3,000 consumers. Broken out by age, individuals between 18 and 37 use 16 entertainment sources with eight being must haves, while those above 35 years old use 10 total sources with about half of those being must haves.
Courtesy of Hub Entertainment Research
Pricing is only part of the churn problem
The average U.S. subscriber pays $924 annually for subscriptions, or $77 per month, according to a survey of 5,000 subscribers conducted by online payment technology company Bango between December and January. One quarter pay $100 per month and one in 20 pay over $200 per month, Bango noted.With the abundance of subscriptions, 35% said they have lost track of how much they’re spending, while 32% said they’re consistently frustrated with how they currently manage and pay their subscription bills. Over half of subscribers (57%) surveyed said they have discontinued their subscriptions because of unanticipated price hikes.
But pricing is only part of the problem. The current bundle offerings don’t do anything to improve a user’s experience on an individual streaming platform, analysts with MoffettNathanson said in a recent research note.
A partial solution is integrated search through platforms like Roku or Comcast and Charter Communications’ joint streaming venture Xumo, which has deployed 1 million of its streaming boxes nationwide since launching in October. That still requires multiple clicks to switch between services and “meaningful cooperation among the media companies,” who would need to grant access to programming choice data and confirm whether individual customers are subscribed and if they’re on ad-supported or ad-free tiers.
Another option is interface integration through platforms like Amazon and Apple’s channel stores. Channel add-ons, such as Paramount+ on Apple TV+ or Max on Prime Video, accounted for 23% of all streaming services as of the fourth quarter of 2023, up from 20% in the third quarter of 2023, according to a Kantar Research study conducted between October and December.
The share of video streaming services accessed as a channel on Apple TV+ increased 45% over the last six months of 2023. The firm also found that Prime Video benefitted Amazon Prime shipping during its fourth quarter events including Prime Day in October and Cyber Monday in November, as well as holiday shopping in December, while Apple TV+ benefitted from iPhone sales during the same period.
“Typically, the more engaged you are with an ecosystem, the more engaged you are with streaming,” Kantar’s Consumer Insights Director Hannah Avery told TheWrap.
Among Prime subscribers who are monthly users of two Prime services, 68% of them use Prime Video, Avery said. Compared to Prime subscribers who use five or more Prime services, 96% of them use Prime Video monthly. When bundled, Apple TV+’s weekly non-usage declined 20% compared to subscribers who do not bundle the service, Avery added.
MoffettNathanson warned that interface integration requires individual streamers to agree to be housed under one aggregator’s brand — a price that may be “too high to pay” for some.
Thinking outside the streaming video box
The streaming industry has “been slow to think beyond the bounds of Hollywood,” Magid global media, entertainment and games executive vice president Michael Bloxham told TheWrap.“It’s always been very clear that there’s a lot more that can be brought to the table for subscribers that goes beyond simply watching video,” Bloxham said. “If I’m buying stuff through a service that is also a streaming service, I’m much less likely to just hop because I’m not watching any shows right now.”
Shapiro said that the key to any bundle is adding a “high touch utility” — a service that consumers are more likely to interact with on a daily basis. He touted Paramount+’s partnership with Walmart+ as one notable example and said Netflix bundling with Peloton or The New York Times could be a potential “home run.”
Another offering that could help Disney and Comcast’s streaming services stand out is a bundle that would include theme park tickets or merchandise. In January, Disney announced that Disney+ subscribers could get a free dining plan with travel packages that include a Disney Resort hotel room and a theme park ticket with a park hopper option.
“This is the time for companies to be innovative and think and swing big rather than incrementally create bundles that still look the same as the other bundles that are out there,” Hub Entertainment Research founder Jonathan Giegengack told TheWrap.
Last April, Hub Entertainment Research asked 3,000 consumers what they would want in an ideal bundle. The results were broken into four types: streaming bundles, utility bundles, gaming bundles and live TV bundles.
About 40% of respondents chose the live TV bundle, which was most likely to include a home internet and mobile phone plan, a network bundle with live TV, Netflix and a news aggregator.
One quarter of respondents chose the streaming bundle, which was most likely to include Netflix, Hulu, Max, Disney+ and a home internet subscription.
Slightly fewer — 22% — chose a utility bundle, which was most likely to include a home internet and mobile phone plan, Netflix and Hulu and some form of streaming music or audio.
Slightly less than half as many — 13% — chose a gaming bundle, which were most likely to include a game console or gaming subscription, a home internet plan, some form of streaming music or audio and Netflix.
When asked which brands were best positioned to create these bundle offerings, consumers’ top choices included Netflix, Amazon, Apple, AT&T, Verizon and Xfinity.
Courtesy of Hub Entertainment Research
Courtesy of Hub Entertainment Research
Courtesy of Hub Entertainment Research
Courtesy of Hub Entertainment Research
Courtesy of Hub Entertainment Research
Courtesy of Hub Entertainment Research
Courtesy of Hub Entertainment Research
Courtesy of Hub Entertainment Research
The aggregator wars
While Shapiro argued that any bundle that includes Netflix will be in a “pole position,” Giegengack is skeptical that the company would lead the charge on aggregation.In the short term, he said, “it’s a lot less of a lift for the Verizons and Amazons of the world than it is for Netflix because they have to create their own content and they’re more likely to be part of somebody else’s bundle.”
For the tech giants, a notable barrier is Hollywood’s fear that a possible team up would allow them to monopolize the entertainment industry. “That’s a very real fear because they’ve shown how they can pretty much take over industries,” Bloxham told TheWrap.
Last year, Verizon launched its +play platform, a one-stop shop where consumers can access their subscriptions all in one place. The telecommunications giant, which manages nearly 12 million content subscriptions, has over 30 partners affiliated with the offering, including Peloton and DuoLingo. The initial concept for the idea came after a 2019 promotion with Disney+ prompted interest from other streamers like Apple TV+ and Discovery+.
“We realized that we were in a unique position because you had more programmers who wanted a deal like Disney and an efficient channel to go to market,” Verizon Chief Revenue Officer Frank Boulben told TheWrap. “And on the other side, for many consumers managing their digital subscription services was becoming a pain point.”
Through its myPlan perk program for $10 per month, Verizon offers access to the Disney Bundle and an ad-supported Netflix and Max bundle. The company earns an average of about 15% on the price consumers pay for its bundles, though that percentage varies depending on the services included. Users who don’t want the streaming bundles can also receive a $15 per month credit to spend on individual streaming services or other offerings such as Xbox GamePass Ultimate or MasterClass.
“The benefit is two-fold,” Boulben said. “On our side, customers who take content subscriptions with us and use them churn less on the mobile side. So it helps our connectivity business. On the other side, content subscribers that get their subscription via Verizon churn less from a content provider standpoint.”
Aggregation also may be a “less heavy lift” for cable providers like Comcast and Charter, Giegengack said. In addition to Xumo, Charter started bundling Disney+ with its Select TV packages in January as part of its latest carriage agreement.
“The problem with cable is not so much the cost, but how much of what people are paying goes to pay for stuff they never use,” Giegengack said. “If you can give consumers a mechanism to create a bundle that they actually want to use and the cable company can be the facilitator of that, that would help transform the business of what a pay TV provider offers into something that’s more relevant to what consumers today are looking for.”
When asked by Bango, half of respondents said they want their mobile operators to offer a single platform to manage and bill all their subscriptions in one place. About 19% said they’d even be willing to pay 50% more on their monthly bill if their favorite subscriptions were included in the price — equivalent to an extra $364 per year based on the average monthly U.S. phone bill. In comparison, 29% of respondents said they would want their cable or TV providers to do so.
The future of bundling
Shapiro anticipates a significant uptick in the number of bundled streaming offerings over the next five years, with bundles similar to Amazon Prime, Paramount+ and Walmart+, and Verizon+ play being the most successful.
“People who try to only bundle TV with TV will sell subscriptions, but they’re not going to make any money because it’s only based on discounts,” he added.
While Boulben believes bundles across different companies will “have their place,” he does not see them dominating the industry anytime soon. Instead, he expects a “coexistence” between bundled and a la carte offerings.
Verizon +play plans to add category marketing on the platform as it continues to gain scale, with areas including streaming, lifestyle and wellness and education services. But Boulben stressed that aggregating everything in one place under one login is still years away.
“It requires technical development and changes with our partners,” he added. “The model has to mature more before we can convince all the partners that it’s an investment worth making.”
The post Why Hollywood Can’t Seem to Solve the Streaming Bundle Puzzle appeared first on TheWrap.
Aluminum Falcon
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Favorite questions! Although let me re-tool them a bit. Would you like cable haha
So true and cable could have possibly avoided their downfall if they went to full a la cart years ago, when consumers were begging for it.
Aluminum Falcon
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My guess is that streaming is headed down the same road. Sooner or later they will start partnering up and I’m sure they’ll be company who comes along to merge them seamlessly. We are still in early days.
Yep. I wonder what the price would look like if the cable companies started offering "make your own bundles" - choose anything from one network to 300 and get the respective ad supported streamers thrown in for "free". It would be a great way for legacy cable to fight things like the new Disney sports bundle - bundle it with your cable company instead and get a decent discount on your internet service, cell service, etc.
No matter what, the future is going to be different...or the same...or more accurately, History Doesn't Repeat Itself, but It Often Rhymes.
Brian Noble
Gratefully in Recovery
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The idea that somehow all of us would pay less for the things we watched never made sense to me. The only way that happens is if less gets produced, or it is produced more cheaply (and presumably at lower quality). Media companies aren't going to just suddenly be willing to give up profits.
irlandaise
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Yeah, years ago I saw people saying "Be careful what you wish for" to others who wanted an option to cable TV bundles. I think it was predictable that we'd end up in pretty much the same boat.
wabbott
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https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/digital/2024-amazon-upfront-joins-tv-week-1235832968/
Amazon Set to Invade TV’s Upfront Week
The tech giant is planning to host an event the morning of May 14 at New York's Pier 36.
February 22, 2024 12:03pm
by Alex Weprin
Another streaming giant will join TV’s upfront week this year.
Amazon will host an upfront event the morning of Tuesday, May 14, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. The upfront will be held at New York’s Pier 36 event space, with a reception to follow.
Amazon is expected to tout its media offerings at the event, including Prime Video, Prime Video Sports, Twitch, Amazon Freevee and Amazon Music.
The tech and retail giant hosted an event last year on May 1, connected to the IAB newfronts, but will move to the main TV upfront week this year, joining fellow streaming giants YouTube and Netflix, as well as more traditional entertainment companies like Disney, NBCUniversal, TelevisaUnivision and Fox.
YouTube was the first streaming platform to leave the newfronts for upfront week, making the jump in 2022, and Netflix joined last year following the launch of its ad tier (though it canceled the in-person event due to the writers strike).
Last year’s Amazon event featured a heavy dose of NFL football (a trend that will likely continue this year, with Amazon set to get its first NFL playoff game), as well as programming from Freevee and content involving Twitch.
This year, of course, it will be able to tout its core Prime Video service, which rolled out ads last month, except for users who opt to pay a $3 monthly fee. The scale of Prime Video, combined with its other supported offerings, may make its pitch more appropriate for upfront week than the more niche newfronts.
Amazon Set to Invade TV’s Upfront Week
The tech giant is planning to host an event the morning of May 14 at New York's Pier 36.
February 22, 2024 12:03pm
by Alex Weprin
Another streaming giant will join TV’s upfront week this year.
Amazon will host an upfront event the morning of Tuesday, May 14, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. The upfront will be held at New York’s Pier 36 event space, with a reception to follow.
Amazon is expected to tout its media offerings at the event, including Prime Video, Prime Video Sports, Twitch, Amazon Freevee and Amazon Music.
The tech and retail giant hosted an event last year on May 1, connected to the IAB newfronts, but will move to the main TV upfront week this year, joining fellow streaming giants YouTube and Netflix, as well as more traditional entertainment companies like Disney, NBCUniversal, TelevisaUnivision and Fox.
YouTube was the first streaming platform to leave the newfronts for upfront week, making the jump in 2022, and Netflix joined last year following the launch of its ad tier (though it canceled the in-person event due to the writers strike).
Last year’s Amazon event featured a heavy dose of NFL football (a trend that will likely continue this year, with Amazon set to get its first NFL playoff game), as well as programming from Freevee and content involving Twitch.
This year, of course, it will be able to tout its core Prime Video service, which rolled out ads last month, except for users who opt to pay a $3 monthly fee. The scale of Prime Video, combined with its other supported offerings, may make its pitch more appropriate for upfront week than the more niche newfronts.
wabbott
DIS Veteran
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https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/b...ng-profit-2023-q4-earnings-report-1235832538/
Warner Bros. Discovery Becomes First Hollywood Conglomerate to Turn Full-Year Streaming Profit, Hitting $103M
The company's ad revenue and studios unit profit fell, but CEO David Zaslav says: "We have an attack plan for 2024," including Max's rollout in key international markets and :a more robust creative pipeline."
by Georg Szalai
February 23, 2024 - 4:04am PST
Warner Bros. Discovery has become the first Hollywood conglomerate to turn a streaming profit for a full year. For the year 2023, the company, led by CEO David Zaslav, reported a streaming profit of $103 million, compared with a loss of nearly $2.1 billion for all of 2022.
During the fourth quarter, the streaming segment at WBD posted a loss of $55 million in adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), compared with a year-ago loss of $217 million. Streaming segment revenue continued to grow, helped by subscriber price increases and higher advertising revenue, driven by Max U.S. ad-lite subscriber gains.
The company had improved its streaming bottom line throughout two of the first three quarters of 2023. In the first quarter, it had swung to a $50 million profit from a year-ago loss of $654 million. In the second quarter, its streaming loss narrowed to $3 million compared with a bigger year-earlier loss. And in the third quarter, its $111 million streaming profit compared with a $634 million loss a year earlier.
All in all, WBD had entered fourth-quarter earnings season as the only Hollywood giant approaching a profitable year in streaming. Over the first nine months of this year, it had swung from a loss of $1.85 billion for the January-to-September 2022 period to a $158 million profit for the first three quarters of 2023, saying it would break even or even post a profit for all of 2023.
WBD on Friday also gave an update on its global streaming subscriber base, which had ended the third quarter at 95.1 million, down from 95.8 million in the second quarter. The company ended 2023 with a total of 97.7 million streaming subscribers. “Total DTC subscribers were 97.7 million which included 1.3 million subscribers from our acquisition of BluTV,” WBD said. “Excluding BluTV and TNT Sports Chile, subscribers increased by 0.5 million.”
With Netflix being profitable and being seen by some as the king of streaming, Wall Street has been looking for Hollywood conglomerates to make their streaming businesses profitable after an initial focus on subscriber growth.
WBD on Friday also posted free cash flow, a key performance metric for management, for its fourth quarter that pushed its full-year 2023 figure above its guidance target.
The company also achieved its year-end goal for debt reduction. Its net leverage ratio, defined as total debt divided by the sum of the most recent four quarters of adjusted EBITDA, came in at 3.9 times as of the end of 2023. WBD had targeted ending the year at four times or below.
WBD, however, also continued to struggle with a weaker advertising market in the fourth, just like its peers, with ad revenue in its networks segment dropping 12 percent, or 14 percent when excluding foreign exchange impacts.
And its studios segment reported an earnings miss amid difficult year-over-year comparisons, the impact of the dual Hollywood strikes and the fact that the company released more movies in the fourth quarter than in the year-ago period, meaning higher marketing costs. Adjusted EBITDA for the unit fell 30 percent.
“After executing against our strategic plan to reposition the company, we are now on solid footing with a clear pathway to growth,” said Zaslav in the earnings report on Friday. “We generated $6.2 billion in free cash flow and paid down $5.4 billion in debt in 2023, which puts us at 3.9 times net leverage.”
He added: “We have an attack plan for 2024 that includes the roll-out of Max in key international markets, a more robust creative pipeline across our film and TV studios, and further progress against our long-range financial goals and are confident in our ability to drive sustained operating momentum and enhanced shareholder value.”
https://s201.q4cdn.com/336605034/fi...earnings-result/WBD-4Q23-Earnings-Release.pdf
Warner Bros. Discovery Becomes First Hollywood Conglomerate to Turn Full-Year Streaming Profit, Hitting $103M
The company's ad revenue and studios unit profit fell, but CEO David Zaslav says: "We have an attack plan for 2024," including Max's rollout in key international markets and :a more robust creative pipeline."
by Georg Szalai
February 23, 2024 - 4:04am PST
Warner Bros. Discovery has become the first Hollywood conglomerate to turn a streaming profit for a full year. For the year 2023, the company, led by CEO David Zaslav, reported a streaming profit of $103 million, compared with a loss of nearly $2.1 billion for all of 2022.
During the fourth quarter, the streaming segment at WBD posted a loss of $55 million in adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), compared with a year-ago loss of $217 million. Streaming segment revenue continued to grow, helped by subscriber price increases and higher advertising revenue, driven by Max U.S. ad-lite subscriber gains.
The company had improved its streaming bottom line throughout two of the first three quarters of 2023. In the first quarter, it had swung to a $50 million profit from a year-ago loss of $654 million. In the second quarter, its streaming loss narrowed to $3 million compared with a bigger year-earlier loss. And in the third quarter, its $111 million streaming profit compared with a $634 million loss a year earlier.
All in all, WBD had entered fourth-quarter earnings season as the only Hollywood giant approaching a profitable year in streaming. Over the first nine months of this year, it had swung from a loss of $1.85 billion for the January-to-September 2022 period to a $158 million profit for the first three quarters of 2023, saying it would break even or even post a profit for all of 2023.
WBD on Friday also gave an update on its global streaming subscriber base, which had ended the third quarter at 95.1 million, down from 95.8 million in the second quarter. The company ended 2023 with a total of 97.7 million streaming subscribers. “Total DTC subscribers were 97.7 million which included 1.3 million subscribers from our acquisition of BluTV,” WBD said. “Excluding BluTV and TNT Sports Chile, subscribers increased by 0.5 million.”
With Netflix being profitable and being seen by some as the king of streaming, Wall Street has been looking for Hollywood conglomerates to make their streaming businesses profitable after an initial focus on subscriber growth.
WBD on Friday also posted free cash flow, a key performance metric for management, for its fourth quarter that pushed its full-year 2023 figure above its guidance target.
The company also achieved its year-end goal for debt reduction. Its net leverage ratio, defined as total debt divided by the sum of the most recent four quarters of adjusted EBITDA, came in at 3.9 times as of the end of 2023. WBD had targeted ending the year at four times or below.
WBD, however, also continued to struggle with a weaker advertising market in the fourth, just like its peers, with ad revenue in its networks segment dropping 12 percent, or 14 percent when excluding foreign exchange impacts.
And its studios segment reported an earnings miss amid difficult year-over-year comparisons, the impact of the dual Hollywood strikes and the fact that the company released more movies in the fourth quarter than in the year-ago period, meaning higher marketing costs. Adjusted EBITDA for the unit fell 30 percent.
“After executing against our strategic plan to reposition the company, we are now on solid footing with a clear pathway to growth,” said Zaslav in the earnings report on Friday. “We generated $6.2 billion in free cash flow and paid down $5.4 billion in debt in 2023, which puts us at 3.9 times net leverage.”
He added: “We have an attack plan for 2024 that includes the roll-out of Max in key international markets, a more robust creative pipeline across our film and TV studios, and further progress against our long-range financial goals and are confident in our ability to drive sustained operating momentum and enhanced shareholder value.”
https://s201.q4cdn.com/336605034/fi...earnings-result/WBD-4Q23-Earnings-Release.pdf
wabbott
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https://deadline.com/2024/02/warner...ports-streaming-bundle-disney-fox-1235835150/
Warner Bros. Discovery Chief David Zaslav On How Sports Streaming Bundle With Disney And Fox Will Help Viewers: “You Won’t Be Thinking, ‘What Channel Is It On?'”
By Dade Hayes - Business Editor @dadehayes February 23, 2024 - 7:25am PST
In his first public comments about a planned sports streaming joint venture with Disney and Fox, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said it will increase the companies’ reach and not add to their cord-cutting woes.
The JV partners “have a very rich target” of 60 million-plus sports fans who are not in the pay-TV ecosystem, Zaslav said during WBD’s fourth-quarter earnings call. “We’ll be able to go after those we are missing.”
The new service, whose name, pricing and launch date have not been announced, is “very modern,” Zaslav added, and will reduce friction in the viewing experience. “Today, when people are thinking, ‘What channel should I watch? What channel is my sport on?’ You’ll be able to go to this new product, this new app-based product, and if you watch the baseball playoffs, you’ll watch all of them and you won’t be thinking, ‘What channel is it on?’ Hockey, you’ll watch all of the hockey playoffs, right through the Stanley Cup.”
The sports bundle will offer linear streams of 14 combined networks operated by the JV partners. “We think it coexists quite effectively” with traditional linear offerings, Zaslav said. “We don’t see a lot of people un-subscribing to cable in order to get this.”
Noting he has reviewed prototypes for the service, Zaslav said, “We’re pretty far along.”
At another point in the call, the exec reiterated his belief that increased bundling of streaming services is inevitable, especially given the “confusing” state of the fragmented landscape. The goal of creating bundles like one WBD recently formed with Max and Netflix via Verizon, is to create a “simpler, easier, less anxious experience for people to find the content that they want and have it be simpler and fluid.”
Tech giants and large-scale distributors have been moving toward bundling, though content suppliers like WBD could “do it ourselves,” Zaslav said. “I’ve always advocated that we should do it ourselves. … In some ways, the sports venture is trying to meet that very need. When you put our product together with [Disney and Fox], it just has a much better, more fluid, more simple consumer experience. It’s not ‘Which channel is it on? Where do I go? How do I go? Do I have it? Don’t I have it?’ It’s in one place. More and more, we’ll be gravitating toward that.”
Max last year rolled out a live sports tier bearing the company’s Bleacher Report brand. Asked about the outlook for it in light of the multi-company sports venture, JB Perrette, CEO and President of Global Streaming and Games, said the company would “have more to say in the coming months. … In the meantime, we’re continuing to lean into our B/R Sports offering.”
Warner Bros. Discovery Chief David Zaslav On How Sports Streaming Bundle With Disney And Fox Will Help Viewers: “You Won’t Be Thinking, ‘What Channel Is It On?'”
By Dade Hayes - Business Editor @dadehayes February 23, 2024 - 7:25am PST
In his first public comments about a planned sports streaming joint venture with Disney and Fox, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said it will increase the companies’ reach and not add to their cord-cutting woes.
The JV partners “have a very rich target” of 60 million-plus sports fans who are not in the pay-TV ecosystem, Zaslav said during WBD’s fourth-quarter earnings call. “We’ll be able to go after those we are missing.”
The new service, whose name, pricing and launch date have not been announced, is “very modern,” Zaslav added, and will reduce friction in the viewing experience. “Today, when people are thinking, ‘What channel should I watch? What channel is my sport on?’ You’ll be able to go to this new product, this new app-based product, and if you watch the baseball playoffs, you’ll watch all of them and you won’t be thinking, ‘What channel is it on?’ Hockey, you’ll watch all of the hockey playoffs, right through the Stanley Cup.”
The sports bundle will offer linear streams of 14 combined networks operated by the JV partners. “We think it coexists quite effectively” with traditional linear offerings, Zaslav said. “We don’t see a lot of people un-subscribing to cable in order to get this.”
Noting he has reviewed prototypes for the service, Zaslav said, “We’re pretty far along.”
At another point in the call, the exec reiterated his belief that increased bundling of streaming services is inevitable, especially given the “confusing” state of the fragmented landscape. The goal of creating bundles like one WBD recently formed with Max and Netflix via Verizon, is to create a “simpler, easier, less anxious experience for people to find the content that they want and have it be simpler and fluid.”
Tech giants and large-scale distributors have been moving toward bundling, though content suppliers like WBD could “do it ourselves,” Zaslav said. “I’ve always advocated that we should do it ourselves. … In some ways, the sports venture is trying to meet that very need. When you put our product together with [Disney and Fox], it just has a much better, more fluid, more simple consumer experience. It’s not ‘Which channel is it on? Where do I go? How do I go? Do I have it? Don’t I have it?’ It’s in one place. More and more, we’ll be gravitating toward that.”
Max last year rolled out a live sports tier bearing the company’s Bleacher Report brand. Asked about the outlook for it in light of the multi-company sports venture, JB Perrette, CEO and President of Global Streaming and Games, said the company would “have more to say in the coming months. … In the meantime, we’re continuing to lean into our B/R Sports offering.”
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https://deadline.com/2024/02/paramo...negative-ratings-agency-cash-flow-1235835385/
Paramount Global Put On “Credit Watch” By Ratings Agency S&P Due To “Weak” Cash Flow Trends
By Dade Hayes - Business Editor @dadehayes February 23, 2024 - 8:56am PST
Paramount Global has been put on “credit watch negative” by ratings agency S&P Global due to discouraging trends in its cash flow.
S&P last December had warned about tough sledding for Paramount in 2024. A senior agency executive said the company “has to show us a path” to profitability in streaming in order to see a credit ratings rebound.
In a report Friday warning of another potential downgrade, S&P said Paramount’s free operating cash flow “remains weak.” The report blamed “the ongoing deterioration of the linear television ecosystem and the shift toward a lower margin direct-to-consumer (DTC) streaming model.”
The news only adds to recent investor uneasiness about Paramount as it mulls its strategic options. Company executives and controlling shareholder National Amusements have engaged in talks in recent months to gauge buyers’ interest in acquiring some or all of the company, though the talks remain at a fairly preliminary stage. Paramount was formed by the merger of CBS and Viacom in 2019. Its share price, down 4% in Friday morning trading, has drifted down to less than one-third of its level at the close of the merger.
S&P noted in its report that it is introducing cash flow metrics into its assessments across the media sector, combining them with measurements of company debt. That move triggered the warning about Paramount’s credit.
Moving forward, the agency said, cash flow across the industry will be “weaker than historical levels because the significant cash flows from the linear TV businesses will degrade rapidly as pay-TV subscribers continue to decline and advertisers migrate spending to streaming platforms.” Streaming margings and cash flows, which are replacing legacy linear TV, are lower given the level of spending required on content and technology, plus subscriber acquisition and retention.
Although Paramount and other traditional media companies have a chance to be contenders in the streaming era, S&P added, “the environment is more competitive than the traditional linear model due to the highly competitive landscape and higher churn dynamics.”
While Paramount is not the only company to face pressure on its cash flow as it transitions to streaming, “its cash flow declines have been worse than its industry peers because of its smaller scale, less business diversification, and slower DTC ramp up,” S&P concluded.
Free operating cash flow was negative in 2022 and is expected to be “minimal” in 2023. Paramount will report its fourth-quarter and full-year results next Wednesday.
Paramount Global Put On “Credit Watch” By Ratings Agency S&P Due To “Weak” Cash Flow Trends
By Dade Hayes - Business Editor @dadehayes February 23, 2024 - 8:56am PST
Paramount Global has been put on “credit watch negative” by ratings agency S&P Global due to discouraging trends in its cash flow.
S&P last December had warned about tough sledding for Paramount in 2024. A senior agency executive said the company “has to show us a path” to profitability in streaming in order to see a credit ratings rebound.
In a report Friday warning of another potential downgrade, S&P said Paramount’s free operating cash flow “remains weak.” The report blamed “the ongoing deterioration of the linear television ecosystem and the shift toward a lower margin direct-to-consumer (DTC) streaming model.”
The news only adds to recent investor uneasiness about Paramount as it mulls its strategic options. Company executives and controlling shareholder National Amusements have engaged in talks in recent months to gauge buyers’ interest in acquiring some or all of the company, though the talks remain at a fairly preliminary stage. Paramount was formed by the merger of CBS and Viacom in 2019. Its share price, down 4% in Friday morning trading, has drifted down to less than one-third of its level at the close of the merger.
S&P noted in its report that it is introducing cash flow metrics into its assessments across the media sector, combining them with measurements of company debt. That move triggered the warning about Paramount’s credit.
Moving forward, the agency said, cash flow across the industry will be “weaker than historical levels because the significant cash flows from the linear TV businesses will degrade rapidly as pay-TV subscribers continue to decline and advertisers migrate spending to streaming platforms.” Streaming margings and cash flows, which are replacing legacy linear TV, are lower given the level of spending required on content and technology, plus subscriber acquisition and retention.
Although Paramount and other traditional media companies have a chance to be contenders in the streaming era, S&P added, “the environment is more competitive than the traditional linear model due to the highly competitive landscape and higher churn dynamics.”
While Paramount is not the only company to face pressure on its cash flow as it transitions to streaming, “its cash flow declines have been worse than its industry peers because of its smaller scale, less business diversification, and slower DTC ramp up,” S&P concluded.
Free operating cash flow was negative in 2022 and is expected to be “minimal” in 2023. Paramount will report its fourth-quarter and full-year results next Wednesday.
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https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/b...y-stock-drop-analysts-q4-earnings-1235833761/
Warner Bros. Discovery Stock Drops as Wall Street Reacts to Earnings and Lack of Guidance
On its earnings call, management expressed more confidence about the road ahead, but didn't detail 2024 financial guidance — resulting in skepticism from financial observers.
by George Szalai
February 23, 2024 - 8:56am PST
Warner Bros. Discovery and its stock were in Wall Street’s focus Friday as analysts dissected its fourth-quarter and 2023 earnings report and management’s lack of outright 2024 guidance.
Before the market opened, the Hollywood conglomerate reported that it managed to turn a profit for its direct-to-consumer unit, which houses its streaming business, for the full year to the tune of $103 million in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), compared with a loss of nearly $2.1 billion for 2022. But its latest overall company earnings fell below Wall Street expectations.
“We have an attack plan for 2024 that includes the rollout of Max in key international markets, a more robust creative pipeline across our film and TV studios, and further progress against our long-range financial goals,” WBD CEO David Zaslav said in the earnings update.
On the call, management expressed more confidence about the road ahead, but didn’t detail 2024 financial guidance.
As of 11:30 a.m. ET, shares of the entertainment giant were down 11.4 percent at $8.47 after hitting a 52-week low and its lowest point since the merger that created it in April 2022 earlier in the trading session — $8.25.
Bank of America analyst Jessica Reif Ehrlich‘s team maintained a “buy” rating with a $17 price target, noting, “with the strikes now over and early signs of the advertising market stabilizing, we believe the company remains positioned for a recovery in 2024. The company should be aided by a restarting TV production, a solid film slate, an improving ad market and the launch of DTC in several international markets.”
Guggenheim Securities analyst Michael Morris noted, “the company did not provide 2024 adjusted EBITDA guidance (qualitatively or quantitatively) and provided some puts/takes affecting [free cash flow],” the analyst noted. But he maintained his “buy” rating with a $14 stock price target following what he dubbed “mixed” fourth-quarter results.
TD Cowen analyst Doug Creutz reiterated his “outperform” rating and $15 stock price target, but similarly noted: “Management provided some general expectations for 2024 but did not provide explicit EBITDA guidance, unlike the past few years.”
Looking ahead, Creutz noted, “Key KPIs, such as engagement, churn, and advertising revenue, are expected to improve throughout the year, in part due to a stronger content slate, including the second season of House of the Dragon and the debut of The Penguin. Management reiterated their confidence around the 2025 DTC operating income before depreciation and amortization (OIBDA) target of $1 billion.”
The TD Cowen analyst also liked what he heard about free cash flow ahead. “2024 FCF is expected to be healthy, with a mix of puts and takes,” Creutz wrote. “Negatives from return to full film/TV production and the Olympics, positives from lower cash restructuring costs, interest expense, and capital expenditures.”
Wolfe Research analyst Peter Supino, who has an “outperform” rating and $35 stock price target on WBD, shared a pre-earnings call first take on Friday, focusing on the company’s overall profitability challenges.
“Warner Bros. profitability was weaker than consensus, but free cash flow (FCF) was robust,” he wrote about the fourth-quarter results. “Studio results drove about two-thirds of the miss, impacted by talent strikes, with the other 9 percent accounted for by networks and 24 percent at DTC.” He concluded: “FCF was robust at $3.3 billion (versus $2.5 billion consensus, which should bring assurance that the de-levering story/strong conversion remains intact, though legacy business headwinds appear to be having a more materially negative impact on earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) trends.”
Brian Wieser, principal and analyst at Wall Street insights provider Madison and Wall, warned that the small 2023 DTC unit profit may not be something to celebrate at this stage. “Although the company proudly notes that the business segment produced EBITDA profitability in 2023, the overall WBD debt load and need to pursue profitability in the near term will probably lead to many of its growth constraints,” he argued.
About WBD’s ad trends, he noted that ad revenue was down sharply for the quarter and full year as it ended 2023 with $8.7 billion in ad revenue. “Despite the decline, this still ranks the company among the top 10 sellers of advertising globally outside of China,” Wieser emphasized. “Much of the story is the same as it has been both for WBD and for owners of TV properties in general.”
He also shared his take on management commentary about ad trends in the current first quarter, offering: “I interpret these comments as conveying that we should expect another quarter of single-digit declines for the total advertising business.”
Warner Bros. Discovery Stock Drops as Wall Street Reacts to Earnings and Lack of Guidance
On its earnings call, management expressed more confidence about the road ahead, but didn't detail 2024 financial guidance — resulting in skepticism from financial observers.
by George Szalai
February 23, 2024 - 8:56am PST
Warner Bros. Discovery and its stock were in Wall Street’s focus Friday as analysts dissected its fourth-quarter and 2023 earnings report and management’s lack of outright 2024 guidance.
Before the market opened, the Hollywood conglomerate reported that it managed to turn a profit for its direct-to-consumer unit, which houses its streaming business, for the full year to the tune of $103 million in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), compared with a loss of nearly $2.1 billion for 2022. But its latest overall company earnings fell below Wall Street expectations.
“We have an attack plan for 2024 that includes the rollout of Max in key international markets, a more robust creative pipeline across our film and TV studios, and further progress against our long-range financial goals,” WBD CEO David Zaslav said in the earnings update.
On the call, management expressed more confidence about the road ahead, but didn’t detail 2024 financial guidance.
As of 11:30 a.m. ET, shares of the entertainment giant were down 11.4 percent at $8.47 after hitting a 52-week low and its lowest point since the merger that created it in April 2022 earlier in the trading session — $8.25.
Bank of America analyst Jessica Reif Ehrlich‘s team maintained a “buy” rating with a $17 price target, noting, “with the strikes now over and early signs of the advertising market stabilizing, we believe the company remains positioned for a recovery in 2024. The company should be aided by a restarting TV production, a solid film slate, an improving ad market and the launch of DTC in several international markets.”
Guggenheim Securities analyst Michael Morris noted, “the company did not provide 2024 adjusted EBITDA guidance (qualitatively or quantitatively) and provided some puts/takes affecting [free cash flow],” the analyst noted. But he maintained his “buy” rating with a $14 stock price target following what he dubbed “mixed” fourth-quarter results.
TD Cowen analyst Doug Creutz reiterated his “outperform” rating and $15 stock price target, but similarly noted: “Management provided some general expectations for 2024 but did not provide explicit EBITDA guidance, unlike the past few years.”
Looking ahead, Creutz noted, “Key KPIs, such as engagement, churn, and advertising revenue, are expected to improve throughout the year, in part due to a stronger content slate, including the second season of House of the Dragon and the debut of The Penguin. Management reiterated their confidence around the 2025 DTC operating income before depreciation and amortization (OIBDA) target of $1 billion.”
The TD Cowen analyst also liked what he heard about free cash flow ahead. “2024 FCF is expected to be healthy, with a mix of puts and takes,” Creutz wrote. “Negatives from return to full film/TV production and the Olympics, positives from lower cash restructuring costs, interest expense, and capital expenditures.”
Wolfe Research analyst Peter Supino, who has an “outperform” rating and $35 stock price target on WBD, shared a pre-earnings call first take on Friday, focusing on the company’s overall profitability challenges.
“Warner Bros. profitability was weaker than consensus, but free cash flow (FCF) was robust,” he wrote about the fourth-quarter results. “Studio results drove about two-thirds of the miss, impacted by talent strikes, with the other 9 percent accounted for by networks and 24 percent at DTC.” He concluded: “FCF was robust at $3.3 billion (versus $2.5 billion consensus, which should bring assurance that the de-levering story/strong conversion remains intact, though legacy business headwinds appear to be having a more materially negative impact on earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) trends.”
Brian Wieser, principal and analyst at Wall Street insights provider Madison and Wall, warned that the small 2023 DTC unit profit may not be something to celebrate at this stage. “Although the company proudly notes that the business segment produced EBITDA profitability in 2023, the overall WBD debt load and need to pursue profitability in the near term will probably lead to many of its growth constraints,” he argued.
About WBD’s ad trends, he noted that ad revenue was down sharply for the quarter and full year as it ended 2023 with $8.7 billion in ad revenue. “Despite the decline, this still ranks the company among the top 10 sellers of advertising globally outside of China,” Wieser emphasized. “Much of the story is the same as it has been both for WBD and for owners of TV properties in general.”
He also shared his take on management commentary about ad trends in the current first quarter, offering: “I interpret these comments as conveying that we should expect another quarter of single-digit declines for the total advertising business.”
wabbott
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Cliff Notes of interview: Happy talk is great, but investors want to see the numbers.
https://www.cnbc.com/video/2024/02/...of-full-year-guidance-guggenheims-morris.html
Investors are surprised by Warner Bros. Discovery’s lack of full-year guidance: Guggenheim’s Morris
Michael Morris, Guggenheim Securities entertainment and media analyst, joins ‘Squawk on the Street’ to discuss what Morris makes of Warner Bros. Discovery’s quarterly earnings results, why the company decided not to release full-year guidance, and more.
Thought Zaslav knew how to deal with WS better than that.
Greenfield from LightShed, who always comments on DIS too, had some interesting things to say - That Max is a flawed strategy and they should drop it and become an arms dealer. I think that makes a lot of sense in WBD's case, maybe you keep HBO as a high end streamer (a la Apple) and rent out everything else.
https://finance.yahoo.com/video/warner-bros-discoverys-max-flawed-150620860.html
I think this also helps point to the fact that we are going to end up with the Big 3 streamers - Disney, Amazon, Netflix - and that is all. You'll have some niche and high end ones like HBO and Apple but I think all the rest either merge with a big 3 or go the arms dealer route. And it's funny, isn't it, that in the olden broadcast days, the Big 3 networks and a few local channels were all that could be supported by the viewing public and soon we will be back to where we started but with a slightly different (and of course more costly) delivery method (and a lot more viewing choices within those 3). As I said in a recent post, history repeats or at the very least rhymes.
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