fatmanatee
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And one of the movies that did do really well (#2 on the year) was absolutely not family friendly.
DIS Shareholders and Stock Info ONLY
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wabbott
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https://finance.yahoo.com/news/carnival-tops-earnings-estimates-gives-162929654.html
Carnival Tops Earnings Estimates, Gives Positive Booking Outlook
by Bill McColl - Investopedia
Fri, December 20, 2024 at 10:29 AM CST
Key Takeaways
Carnival Tops Earnings Estimates, Gives Positive Booking Outlook
by Bill McColl - Investopedia
Fri, December 20, 2024 at 10:29 AM CST
Key Takeaways
- Carnival Corp.'s fourth-quarter earnings exceeded forecasts, and the company gave optimistic guidance about demand.
- The cruise line operator posted strong gains in both passenger ticket revenue and onboard and other revenue.
- CEO Josh Weinstein said that 2025 is looking to be "another banner year" for the company, as bookings for future trips jumped.
Not to mention the not gigantic box office but highly profitable Fox IP like Planet of the Apes and Alien.
Elijah Abrams
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https://variety.com/2024/film/news/...tudios-disney-universal-paramount-1236236541/
Well, on Variety's box office report card for 2024, only the non-20th Century Studios films were box office highs, so there might be a problem.
fatmanatee
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There isn't a problem. Kingdom currently sits at #13 and Alien at #16 for worldwide box office gross on the year, and as indicated above, they were very profitable.
HokieRaven5
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Yep, Alien being made on the cheap certainly helped.
Fox properties are fine for now and until the Cameron trend changes Fox likely brings in another $Billion or 2 next December on one movie. The next Avatar film should also cost less than The Way of Water as a lot of the tech costs for the future films were baked into that one.
There have been many stories about Disney this week about George Stephanopolis and Bob Iger...
Here are two of them:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/poli...nopoulos-future/ar-AA1w6qBw?ocid=BingNewsSerp
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/poli...ir-hands-source/ar-AA1wbH7z?ocid=BingNewsSerp
Among others....
Not sure if these are permitted here or not, but a $15 m settlement as well as the retaining (with a payout) of a key employee of the company seems newsworthy to me.
Am not trying to start a discussion about politics, just am posting the articles.
Here are two of them:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/poli...nopoulos-future/ar-AA1w6qBw?ocid=BingNewsSerp
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/poli...ir-hands-source/ar-AA1wbH7z?ocid=BingNewsSerp
Among others....
Not sure if these are permitted here or not, but a $15 m settlement as well as the retaining (with a payout) of a key employee of the company seems newsworthy to me.
Am not trying to start a discussion about politics, just am posting the articles.
wabbott
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https://www.wsj.com/business/media/paramount-skydance-merger-shari-redstone-b4798703?mod=hp_lead_pos9
Paramount’s Media Heiress Will Leave the Stage After Last Act in a Chaotic Drama
An $8 billion deal Shari Redstone struck with Skydance Media must go through the FCC next year; new owners seek over $2 billion in cost cuts
By Jessica Toonkel
Updated Dec. 22, 2024 - 11:26 am EST
Paramount Global boss Shari Redstone took a winding path to sell her family’s media empire. Along the way, a CEO was dethroned, multiple board members resigned and investors lashed out.
Now, the 70-year-old media heiress is preparing to hand the reins to a new owner in 2025—but she promises not to go away entirely, and neither will Paramount’s problems.
Redstone earlier this year struck an $8 billion deal with Hollywood production company Skydance Media that will reshape the entertainment landscape. She is selling National Amusements, the family company that owns movie theaters and through which she controls Paramount.
As part of the transaction, Skydance, backed by investors including RedBird Capital Partners, will merge with Paramount, gaining control of a collection of assets that include the iconic studio behind “The Godfather” and “Titanic,” CBS and cable networks like MTV.
Skydance Chief Executive Officer David Ellison will face a formidable task: Paramount shares are down about 26% this year as a growing Paramount+ streaming business hasn’t been enough to offset the accelerating decline of the company’s cable business, which took a $6 billion write-down in August. The landscape is shifting as more people abandon traditional TV; Comcast is spinning off nearly all its cable channels in 2025.
Ellison and his top lieutenant, former NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell, have explored how to catapult Paramount’s position in streaming. They are looking at integrating the company’s free, ad-supported Pluto service into Paramount+, people familiar with the situation said.
Paramount’s current management had explored streaming partnerships with a number of companies including Amazon, YouTube, Warner Bros. Discovery and Netflix, though nothing has come to fruition. One main sticking point with Warner has been which company would have control of any joint venture, according to people involved in the discussions. Ellison and Shell are seeking over $2 billion in cost cuts.
Redstone, daughter of the late media titan Sumner Redstone, was a reluctant seller, and shortly after the deal was signed, she was already tearfully telling associates that she had regrets about relinquishing her family’s business. She managed to secure some trappings of mogul life. Skydance and its investors agreed to take on National Amusements’ financial obligations and pay for the remainder of Redstone’s lease for her private jet, and will cover the expenses for her Central Park-area apartment in New York City for the next few years, according to people familiar with the situation.
Redstone’s relationship with Donald Trump may also come in handy as the next administration evaluates the Paramount-Skydance deal. The president-elect’s incoming nominee for Federal Communications Commission chairman, Brendan Carr, has said the agency could scrutinize whether CBS’s handling of a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris—which critics said was edited in misleading ways—violated standards that require broadcasters to act in the public interest. Trump filed a $10 billion lawsuit against CBS, which has denied wrongdoing.
Redstone has told people close to her that she understands Trump’s frustration with CBS, even though she doesn’t support the lawsuit. She has gotten along well with Trump for years. He was supportive in the court battles that helped her gain control of Paramount several years ago, people familiar with the matter said, and the two still talk on occasion.
Larry Ellison, the billionaire co-founder of Oracle and father of David Ellison, also has a longstanding relationship with Trump.
Dance partners
The final deal came after a will-they, won’t-they corporate drama for the ages. The negotiations, in which Skydance was code-named “Sparrow” and Paramount “Pluto,” stopped and restarted multiple times.
Exclusive talks with Skydance, whose credits include TV shows such as Amazon’s “Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan” and movies like “Top Gun: Maverick,” started on April 3. Some Paramount investors balked at initial proposals that they said gave Redstone a sweeter deal than ordinary shareholders.
Meanwhile, Redstone and the Paramount board were losing faith in CEO Bob Bakish, who had voiced concerns about the Skydance deal and sought out alternatives. Some directors felt the long-range plans Bakish had presented to the board recently didn’t include enough cost-cutting and had overly optimistic growth projections, according to people familiar with the situation.
Certain board members approached George Cheeks, then the head of CBS, and two other top executives, studio chief Brian Robbins and cable networks chief Chris McCarthy, to get a sense of what the executives would do if they were running the company.
Later in April, Cheeks was getting off a plane in Las Vegas to see comedian Cedric the Entertainer perform when Redstone called to say Bakish was out. Meanwhile, merger talks with Skydance Media were stalling.
The Wall Street Journal first reported on Bakish’s fate on April 26. The company announced his exit days later, and named Cheeks, Robbins and McCarthy as co-CEOs.
‘The three amigos’
At that point, it seemed as if Redstone intended for Paramount to go it alone. Cheeks, Robbins and McCarthy’s initial plans called for the possibility of a streaming joint venture, cost cuts and a potential sale of Pluto, people close to the company said.
In the early going, staffers found the new arrangement inefficient and were confused about how to address the new leadership team, with the nickname “the three amigos” catching on. Officially, the trio was given the moniker of “Office of the CEO,” which was then changed to “Office of the co-CEOs.”
Skydance remained interested in Paramount, but it had competition. Apollo Global had sent a letter to Paramount expressing interest in buying the company for $26 billion. That offer looked compelling to many investors, compared with the math for Skydance, whose financials were revealed in a Journal report.
Eventually, Skydance sweetened its original offer. Under the new proposed terms, all nonvoting and voting shareholders would have an option to cash out at a premium. The talks accelerated, and the deal seemed to be nearing completion.
As the Paramount special board committee gathered on June 11 to consider the deal, Redstone was signaling to one board member that something was wrong, people familiar with the matter said. Minutes before the call, the special committee’s lawyer, Faiza Saeed, a partner with Cravath, Swaine & Moore, received an email from Redstone’s deal lawyer explaining that the parties had failed to find common ground on fundamental issues.
“As such we do not have an agreement on a deal with Skydance nor do we anticipate that we will find a path forward for this transaction,” the email said.
Redstone was still concerned about the legal risks from the deal as well as the financial haul for her family’s company, which she concluded was being watered down.
Almost immediately after the deal collapsed, Ellison wrote to Redstone and her son Tyler Korff, who had been working on the deal, acknowledging there were missteps on his side, according to people familiar with the exchange. The two sides quietly got back into negotiations, while the rest of the business world—including the Paramount board—thought the deal was dead.
Saeed, the attorney for Paramount’s special committee, received yet another unexpected email from Redstone’s side on July 2, this time to say that Redstone’s National Amusements had reached a deal with Skydance and it was now up to the board to finalize a merger of Paramount and Skydance.
I will never disappear’
To help pacify Paramount’s nonvoting investors, Skydance agreed to provide $4.5 billion that Paramount can use for an offer to buy out about 50% of nonvoting shares. Redstone got $1.75 billion for National Amusements.
Skydance’s Shell and Ellison are building out Paramount’s management team as they prepare to take control of the company. Former Netflix executive Cindy Holland is expected to oversee streaming, reporting to Ellison. Cheeks is expected to be head of TV, according to people familiar with the situation. Dana Goldberg, chief creative officer at Skydance, is expected to oversee the combined studio, and Robbins, one of the co-CEOs, is expected to depart. Bloomberg earlier reported some of the expected management changes.
Under the deal’s terms, Redstone and Korff could join the board of the combined company, but both have decided against it, according to people familiar with the situation.
Despite that, Redstone made it clear that even though she was selling the company, she wasn’t planning to go away completely.
“One thing I promised everybody in the company is I will never disappear in terms of being your advocate and in terms of helping you be who you need to be, who you want to be in this company,” Redstone said at Advertising Week New York in October, when addressing a controversy at CBS News.
Lauren Thomas contributed to this article.
Write to Jessica Toonkel at jessica.toonkel@wsj.com
Paramount’s Media Heiress Will Leave the Stage After Last Act in a Chaotic Drama
An $8 billion deal Shari Redstone struck with Skydance Media must go through the FCC next year; new owners seek over $2 billion in cost cuts
By Jessica Toonkel
Updated Dec. 22, 2024 - 11:26 am EST
Paramount Global boss Shari Redstone took a winding path to sell her family’s media empire. Along the way, a CEO was dethroned, multiple board members resigned and investors lashed out.
Now, the 70-year-old media heiress is preparing to hand the reins to a new owner in 2025—but she promises not to go away entirely, and neither will Paramount’s problems.
Redstone earlier this year struck an $8 billion deal with Hollywood production company Skydance Media that will reshape the entertainment landscape. She is selling National Amusements, the family company that owns movie theaters and through which she controls Paramount.
As part of the transaction, Skydance, backed by investors including RedBird Capital Partners, will merge with Paramount, gaining control of a collection of assets that include the iconic studio behind “The Godfather” and “Titanic,” CBS and cable networks like MTV.
Skydance Chief Executive Officer David Ellison will face a formidable task: Paramount shares are down about 26% this year as a growing Paramount+ streaming business hasn’t been enough to offset the accelerating decline of the company’s cable business, which took a $6 billion write-down in August. The landscape is shifting as more people abandon traditional TV; Comcast is spinning off nearly all its cable channels in 2025.
Ellison and his top lieutenant, former NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell, have explored how to catapult Paramount’s position in streaming. They are looking at integrating the company’s free, ad-supported Pluto service into Paramount+, people familiar with the situation said.
Paramount’s current management had explored streaming partnerships with a number of companies including Amazon, YouTube, Warner Bros. Discovery and Netflix, though nothing has come to fruition. One main sticking point with Warner has been which company would have control of any joint venture, according to people involved in the discussions. Ellison and Shell are seeking over $2 billion in cost cuts.
Redstone, daughter of the late media titan Sumner Redstone, was a reluctant seller, and shortly after the deal was signed, she was already tearfully telling associates that she had regrets about relinquishing her family’s business. She managed to secure some trappings of mogul life. Skydance and its investors agreed to take on National Amusements’ financial obligations and pay for the remainder of Redstone’s lease for her private jet, and will cover the expenses for her Central Park-area apartment in New York City for the next few years, according to people familiar with the situation.
Redstone’s relationship with Donald Trump may also come in handy as the next administration evaluates the Paramount-Skydance deal. The president-elect’s incoming nominee for Federal Communications Commission chairman, Brendan Carr, has said the agency could scrutinize whether CBS’s handling of a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris—which critics said was edited in misleading ways—violated standards that require broadcasters to act in the public interest. Trump filed a $10 billion lawsuit against CBS, which has denied wrongdoing.
Redstone has told people close to her that she understands Trump’s frustration with CBS, even though she doesn’t support the lawsuit. She has gotten along well with Trump for years. He was supportive in the court battles that helped her gain control of Paramount several years ago, people familiar with the matter said, and the two still talk on occasion.
Larry Ellison, the billionaire co-founder of Oracle and father of David Ellison, also has a longstanding relationship with Trump.
Dance partners
The final deal came after a will-they, won’t-they corporate drama for the ages. The negotiations, in which Skydance was code-named “Sparrow” and Paramount “Pluto,” stopped and restarted multiple times.
Exclusive talks with Skydance, whose credits include TV shows such as Amazon’s “Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan” and movies like “Top Gun: Maverick,” started on April 3. Some Paramount investors balked at initial proposals that they said gave Redstone a sweeter deal than ordinary shareholders.
Meanwhile, Redstone and the Paramount board were losing faith in CEO Bob Bakish, who had voiced concerns about the Skydance deal and sought out alternatives. Some directors felt the long-range plans Bakish had presented to the board recently didn’t include enough cost-cutting and had overly optimistic growth projections, according to people familiar with the situation.
Certain board members approached George Cheeks, then the head of CBS, and two other top executives, studio chief Brian Robbins and cable networks chief Chris McCarthy, to get a sense of what the executives would do if they were running the company.
Later in April, Cheeks was getting off a plane in Las Vegas to see comedian Cedric the Entertainer perform when Redstone called to say Bakish was out. Meanwhile, merger talks with Skydance Media were stalling.
The Wall Street Journal first reported on Bakish’s fate on April 26. The company announced his exit days later, and named Cheeks, Robbins and McCarthy as co-CEOs.
‘The three amigos’
At that point, it seemed as if Redstone intended for Paramount to go it alone. Cheeks, Robbins and McCarthy’s initial plans called for the possibility of a streaming joint venture, cost cuts and a potential sale of Pluto, people close to the company said.
In the early going, staffers found the new arrangement inefficient and were confused about how to address the new leadership team, with the nickname “the three amigos” catching on. Officially, the trio was given the moniker of “Office of the CEO,” which was then changed to “Office of the co-CEOs.”
Skydance remained interested in Paramount, but it had competition. Apollo Global had sent a letter to Paramount expressing interest in buying the company for $26 billion. That offer looked compelling to many investors, compared with the math for Skydance, whose financials were revealed in a Journal report.
Eventually, Skydance sweetened its original offer. Under the new proposed terms, all nonvoting and voting shareholders would have an option to cash out at a premium. The talks accelerated, and the deal seemed to be nearing completion.
As the Paramount special board committee gathered on June 11 to consider the deal, Redstone was signaling to one board member that something was wrong, people familiar with the matter said. Minutes before the call, the special committee’s lawyer, Faiza Saeed, a partner with Cravath, Swaine & Moore, received an email from Redstone’s deal lawyer explaining that the parties had failed to find common ground on fundamental issues.
“As such we do not have an agreement on a deal with Skydance nor do we anticipate that we will find a path forward for this transaction,” the email said.
Redstone was still concerned about the legal risks from the deal as well as the financial haul for her family’s company, which she concluded was being watered down.
Almost immediately after the deal collapsed, Ellison wrote to Redstone and her son Tyler Korff, who had been working on the deal, acknowledging there were missteps on his side, according to people familiar with the exchange. The two sides quietly got back into negotiations, while the rest of the business world—including the Paramount board—thought the deal was dead.
Saeed, the attorney for Paramount’s special committee, received yet another unexpected email from Redstone’s side on July 2, this time to say that Redstone’s National Amusements had reached a deal with Skydance and it was now up to the board to finalize a merger of Paramount and Skydance.
I will never disappear’
To help pacify Paramount’s nonvoting investors, Skydance agreed to provide $4.5 billion that Paramount can use for an offer to buy out about 50% of nonvoting shares. Redstone got $1.75 billion for National Amusements.
Skydance’s Shell and Ellison are building out Paramount’s management team as they prepare to take control of the company. Former Netflix executive Cindy Holland is expected to oversee streaming, reporting to Ellison. Cheeks is expected to be head of TV, according to people familiar with the situation. Dana Goldberg, chief creative officer at Skydance, is expected to oversee the combined studio, and Robbins, one of the co-CEOs, is expected to depart. Bloomberg earlier reported some of the expected management changes.
Under the deal’s terms, Redstone and Korff could join the board of the combined company, but both have decided against it, according to people familiar with the situation.
Despite that, Redstone made it clear that even though she was selling the company, she wasn’t planning to go away completely.
“One thing I promised everybody in the company is I will never disappear in terms of being your advocate and in terms of helping you be who you need to be, who you want to be in this company,” Redstone said at Advertising Week New York in October, when addressing a controversy at CBS News.
Lauren Thomas contributed to this article.
Write to Jessica Toonkel at jessica.toonkel@wsj.com
wabbott
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https://www.cnbc.com/2024/12/23/2025-anonymous-media-predictions.html
13 anonymous media executives make predictions for the new year
Published Mon, Dec 23 2024 - 7:00 AM EST
by Alex Sherman @in/alex-sherman@sherman4949
Key Points
13 anonymous media executives make predictions for the new year
Published Mon, Dec 23 2024 - 7:00 AM EST
by Alex Sherman @in/alex-sherman@sherman4949
Key Points
- Several media executives expect big transactions from Comcast and Warner Bros. Discovery.
- Other executives focused on Donald Trump’s regulatory administration loosening rules for TV broadcast affiliates to consolidate.
- Two executives predicted who will — and won’t — be considered to take over for Bob Iger as Disney CEO.
wabbott
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https://deadline.com/2024/12/moana-...ars-150m-international-box-office-1236241819/
‘Moana 2’ Surfs Past $800M Global; ‘Mufasa’ Nears $150M – International Box Office
By Nancy Tartaglione - International Box Office Editor/Senior Contributor @DeadlineNancy
December 24, 2024 - 11:05am PST
‘Moana 2’ Surfs Past $800M Global; ‘Mufasa’ Nears $150M – International Box Office
By Nancy Tartaglione - International Box Office Editor/Senior Contributor @DeadlineNancy
December 24, 2024 - 11:05am PST
wabbott
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https://finance.yahoo.com/news/disn...2025-heres-whos-in-the-running-110034494.html
Disney's CEO search is a top priority for Bob Iger in 2025. Here's who's in the running.
by Alexandra Canal · Senior Reporter
Wed, December 25, 2024 at 5:00 AM CST
Disney's CEO search is a top priority for Bob Iger in 2025. Here's who's in the running.
by Alexandra Canal · Senior Reporter
Wed, December 25, 2024 at 5:00 AM CST
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Happy to read that Disney is (probably) also looking at outside candidates. In fact, if they weren't it would be a gross failure of the succession planning committee. Please note that I'm not saying the next CEO must come from outside the company. Only that consideration should be given to other qualified candidates.
Elijah Abrams
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I’m still hoping that their pick for an outsider is from another film studio (like Tony Vinciquerra from Sony Pictures, who is leaving said studio next year), and not some techie like Andrew Wilson.
wabbott
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https://deadline.com/2024/12/streaming-report-card-2024-1236208785/
The Streaming Scene: As An Even-Murkier Era Of Scant Subscriber Numbers Nears, Another Volatile Year Winds Down
By Dade Hayes, Katie Campione
December 25, 2024 - 8:00am PST
The Streaming Scene: As An Even-Murkier Era Of Scant Subscriber Numbers Nears, Another Volatile Year Winds Down
By Dade Hayes, Katie Campione
December 25, 2024 - 8:00am PST
wabbott
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https://finance.yahoo.com/news/major-entertainment-companies-stocks-performed-140000953.html
How Major Entertainment Companies’ Stocks Performed in 2024
Netflix and Disney shares are poised to finish the year strong, while Comcast, Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount Global and Lionsgate have all lagged behind
by Lucas Manfredi
December 26, 2024 @ 6:00 AM PST
https://deadline.com/2024/12/2025-mergers-acquisitions-media-1236240769/
Media Spin Cycle: M&A Outlook For 2025
By Jill Goldsmith Co-Business Editor
December 26, 2024 - 8:00am PST
How Major Entertainment Companies’ Stocks Performed in 2024
Netflix and Disney shares are poised to finish the year strong, while Comcast, Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount Global and Lionsgate have all lagged behind
by Lucas Manfredi
December 26, 2024 @ 6:00 AM PST
https://deadline.com/2024/12/2025-mergers-acquisitions-media-1236240769/
Media Spin Cycle: M&A Outlook For 2025
By Jill Goldsmith Co-Business Editor
December 26, 2024 - 8:00am PST
wabbott
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https://www.wsj.com/business/media/netflix-2024-performance-2025-outlook-0af746a8?siteid=yhoof2
Netflix’s Big Game Is Just Getting Started
Foray into live sports caps a strong year, but stock’s rich valuation sets a high bar for follow-up act
By Dan Gallagher
Dec. 27, 2024 - 8:10 am EST
In show business, you’re only as good as your latest hit. And there’s never a guarantee that the next hit will be nearly as big.
For Netflix, this year has been a huge hit indeed. The company—already Hollywood’s largest streaming video provider by a long shot—is on pace to grow its annual revenue at more than double the rate of 2023 and grow its subscriber base more than it has in any year save for the Covid-induced surge seen in 2020. That has come from an unusual mix of hit shows, forays into live events and a crackdown on viewers who were borrowing others’ passwords.
Netflix is also ending a strong year on a high note. Its live broadcast of two NFL games on Christmas Day scored a big win, with the games averaging more than 24 million U.S. viewers each and peaking at 27 million for Beyoncé’s halftime show during the Ravens-Texans matchup. Those numbers broke previous streaming records for NFL games, and Netflix pulled off the event without the major technical glitches that marred last month’s live boxing match between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul.
Thursday saw the debut of the second season of “Squid Game,” the South Korean drama that racked up 2.2 billion hours viewed in its first season to become the most popular Netflix program ever.
The NFL broadcast and last week’s deal to stream the next two women’s World Cup events suggest Netflix is finally on the verge of becoming a major player in live sports—one of the few areas of broadcast TV it hasn’t yet fully disrupted. That would further solidify the company’s position as the undisputed victor in the streaming wars even as the rest of Hollywood still races to catch up.
This hope has helped drive Netflix’s share price up around 90% so far this year—setting up the stock’s best annual performance since 2015. Netflix is now sporting a market capitalization of just under $400 billion, roughly equal to the combined market caps of Disney, Comcast, Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Global. The stock is also now trading just under 39 times forward earnings, far above that of any media peer and a premium even to the megacap tech names like Apple, Amazon and Google that also operate major streaming services.
Can Netflix live up to that value? The strong slate of new content this month is expected to give a notable boost to the company’s already huge global audience. Analysts currently project about nine million net new subscribers joining Netflix in the fourth quarter, according to consensus estimates from Visible Alpha. That would be the most new subscribers during the year-end period ever save for last year’s fourth quarter, when its crackdown on password sharing helped boost additions to 13.1 million in that period.
But keeping up that sort of growth is going to be trickier than ever. Netflix says its fourth-quarter report on Jan. 21 will be the last time the company publicly discloses subscriber numbers. That could smooth out some of the volatility that the stock has historically seen following the company’s reports, as investors have long focused on subscriber growth to the exclusion of all else. But it also puts a greater onus on Netflix’s ability to reliably boost revenue through price hikes and advertising—and manage expectations while doing so. Note that the company’s forward revenue guidance has missed Wall Street’s consensus targets in eight of its last 10 quarterly reports, according to FactSet data.
Many analysts are still positive. In a report on Monday, Justin Patterson of KeyBanc Capital acknowledged that the stock was in a “valuation danger zone,” but added that the company’s strong operating profits relative to other streaming peers “provides ample flexibility for Netflix to invest in growth, whereas competitors must increasingly weigh tradeoffs between growth and profitability.”
Others are less sanguine; 57% of analysts rate Netflix shares as a buy compared with 62% at the start of the year, according to FactSet data. “Ad-tier optimism seems priced in,” wrote Jason Bazinet of Citigroup in a report earlier this month on the outlook for Netflix’s still-nascent advertising business. And Robert Fishman of MoffettNathanson called Netflix shares “massively expensive” in a report following the company’s last quarterly results in October, when the stock was about 26% below its current price.
Netflix put on a good show this year. Its encore will need to impress even more.
Write to Dan Gallagher at dan.gallagher@wsj.com
Netflix’s Big Game Is Just Getting Started
Foray into live sports caps a strong year, but stock’s rich valuation sets a high bar for follow-up act
By Dan Gallagher
Dec. 27, 2024 - 8:10 am EST
In show business, you’re only as good as your latest hit. And there’s never a guarantee that the next hit will be nearly as big.
For Netflix, this year has been a huge hit indeed. The company—already Hollywood’s largest streaming video provider by a long shot—is on pace to grow its annual revenue at more than double the rate of 2023 and grow its subscriber base more than it has in any year save for the Covid-induced surge seen in 2020. That has come from an unusual mix of hit shows, forays into live events and a crackdown on viewers who were borrowing others’ passwords.
Netflix is also ending a strong year on a high note. Its live broadcast of two NFL games on Christmas Day scored a big win, with the games averaging more than 24 million U.S. viewers each and peaking at 27 million for Beyoncé’s halftime show during the Ravens-Texans matchup. Those numbers broke previous streaming records for NFL games, and Netflix pulled off the event without the major technical glitches that marred last month’s live boxing match between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul.
Thursday saw the debut of the second season of “Squid Game,” the South Korean drama that racked up 2.2 billion hours viewed in its first season to become the most popular Netflix program ever.
The NFL broadcast and last week’s deal to stream the next two women’s World Cup events suggest Netflix is finally on the verge of becoming a major player in live sports—one of the few areas of broadcast TV it hasn’t yet fully disrupted. That would further solidify the company’s position as the undisputed victor in the streaming wars even as the rest of Hollywood still races to catch up.
This hope has helped drive Netflix’s share price up around 90% so far this year—setting up the stock’s best annual performance since 2015. Netflix is now sporting a market capitalization of just under $400 billion, roughly equal to the combined market caps of Disney, Comcast, Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Global. The stock is also now trading just under 39 times forward earnings, far above that of any media peer and a premium even to the megacap tech names like Apple, Amazon and Google that also operate major streaming services.
Can Netflix live up to that value? The strong slate of new content this month is expected to give a notable boost to the company’s already huge global audience. Analysts currently project about nine million net new subscribers joining Netflix in the fourth quarter, according to consensus estimates from Visible Alpha. That would be the most new subscribers during the year-end period ever save for last year’s fourth quarter, when its crackdown on password sharing helped boost additions to 13.1 million in that period.
But keeping up that sort of growth is going to be trickier than ever. Netflix says its fourth-quarter report on Jan. 21 will be the last time the company publicly discloses subscriber numbers. That could smooth out some of the volatility that the stock has historically seen following the company’s reports, as investors have long focused on subscriber growth to the exclusion of all else. But it also puts a greater onus on Netflix’s ability to reliably boost revenue through price hikes and advertising—and manage expectations while doing so. Note that the company’s forward revenue guidance has missed Wall Street’s consensus targets in eight of its last 10 quarterly reports, according to FactSet data.
Many analysts are still positive. In a report on Monday, Justin Patterson of KeyBanc Capital acknowledged that the stock was in a “valuation danger zone,” but added that the company’s strong operating profits relative to other streaming peers “provides ample flexibility for Netflix to invest in growth, whereas competitors must increasingly weigh tradeoffs between growth and profitability.”
Others are less sanguine; 57% of analysts rate Netflix shares as a buy compared with 62% at the start of the year, according to FactSet data. “Ad-tier optimism seems priced in,” wrote Jason Bazinet of Citigroup in a report earlier this month on the outlook for Netflix’s still-nascent advertising business. And Robert Fishman of MoffettNathanson called Netflix shares “massively expensive” in a report following the company’s last quarterly results in October, when the stock was about 26% below its current price.
Netflix put on a good show this year. Its encore will need to impress even more.
Write to Dan Gallagher at dan.gallagher@wsj.com
wabbott
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https://variety.com/2024/film/news/...uels-ruled-family-films-dominated-1236259940/
Dec 27, 2024 - 6:36am PST
Disney Recaptured Its Dominance in 2024 as Family Films and Sequels Ruled the Box Office
By Brent Lang, Rebecca Rubin
Dec 27, 2024 - 6:36am PST
Disney Recaptured Its Dominance in 2024 as Family Films and Sequels Ruled the Box Office
By Brent Lang, Rebecca Rubin
HokieRaven5
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Found some legs over the holiday week, should probably at the very least break even. Maybe will get into the $700M range by the end of its run.
fatmanatee
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Apparently at $300 mil worldwide now, chugging along. Obviously won't have the same success that 2019 did but will be profitable.
BayTower2010
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- Jan 25, 2019
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- 101
Disney fans want family entertainment, and when it is supplied they usually support the effort.
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