DIS Shareholders and Stock Info ONLY

[wabbott]

D+ Chief Technolgy Officer quit yesterday

 

[wabbott]

https://www.bqprime.com/amp/busines...-chief-jeremy-doig-leaves-ahead-of-staff-cuts

Disney Streaming Tech Chief Leaves Ahead Of Larger Staff Cuts​

Doig’s departure comes just days after Iger announced Disney would fire 7,000 employees and implement a new corporate structure.​

By Lucas Shaw, Thomas Buckley
2/11/2023

(Bloomberg) -- Jeremy Doig, chief technology officer of Walt Disney Co.’s streaming services, has left the company, according to an internal note seen by Bloomberg, the latest high-profile departure as Chief Executive Officer Bob Iger restructures the world’s largest entertainment company.

Doig joined Disney last March after a long run at Google and was in charge of technology for Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+. Aaron LaBerge, who has worked at Disney for the past decade, will now oversee technology and product for Disney’s media businesses.

“I have been informed that effective immediately Jeremy Doig is no longer with the company,” Mike Hanley, the senior vice president for engineering in Disney’s streaming division, wrote in a note to colleagues. Hanley will report to LaBerge. Representatives for Disney didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. Doig didn’t immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

Doig’s departure comes just days after Iger announced Disney would fire 7,000 employees and implement a new corporate structure, one that returns oversight of the streaming services to the company’s top creative executives. The moves elevated lieutenants Alan Bergman and Dana Walden, who run entertainment, and ESPN chief Jimmy Pitaro, but strips power from employees such as Rebecca Campbell, head of international content and operations, and Michael Paull, previously the president of Disney streaming.

Disney has announced Campbell will leave at the end of June, while Paull’s fate is the subject of much debate inside the company. When Bergman and Walden initially sent out a memo outlining their new structure, they made no mention of Paull. They then sent a follow-up note clarifying that he would report to them. Paull no longer oversees technology and product, which will report to Bergman, Walden and Pitaro. Paull joined Disney when the company acquired BAMTech, a leader in video streaming technology.

Iger has effectively dissolved Disney Media Entertainment & Distribution, a division created by his predecessor Bob Chapek to oversee the streaming services. DMED chief Kareem Daniel, a top Chapek lieutenant, left the company last November alongside the former CEO.

The latest announcements have left thousands of Disney employees unsure about their future at the company and how their divisions will operate. Most don’t know how the job cuts will be distributed, though many assume that employees of DMED and general entertainment will be hit the hardest. And while the programming and marketing for the three primary streaming services have been divvied up between two separate divisions, the technology employees must continue to work on all three.

In his own memo to colleagues also seen by Bloomberg, LaBerge said “the past 36 hours have been a whirlwind of events” after Disney reported first-quarter results that beat estimates.

 

[RivShore]

Not sure if this one has been posted already but some very interesting speculation on streamings future:

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/07/future-of-tv-predictions.html

 

[clarker99]

Not sure if this one has been posted already but some very interesting speculation on streamings future:

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/07/future-of-tv-predictions.html

In terms of new content, streaming has already started acting like linear (except Netflix) by releasing one episode a week. Soon we will only be able to watch a show at a specific time (10 Eastern) on Sunday night and then the episode will be locked out for a period of time. Ad breaks are coming. It will be full circle.

The strength of the streamer will be dependent on a strong back catalog of re-watchable stuff. Sadly, there is no Spotify or Apple Music for Movies/TV. In the end, the consumer will have fought super hard to cut the cable only to pay at least the same amount per month (bw services and your internet bill).

 

[Duckbug.Ducktales]

Soon we will only be able to watch a show at a specific time (10 Eastern) on Sunday night and then the episode will be locked out for a period of time.

I really don't see this happening. I don't think there's going back to watching something at a specific time.

 

[clarker99]

I really don't see this happening. I don't think there's going back to watching something at a specific time.

It is kind of already happening with new content. People are trying to watch as soon as it drops to avoid spoilers (HBO's The Last of Us is the latest craze) and be part of the buzz. I can see a streamer trying to capitalize on a super popular show by restricting to certain times. Even if they waited 48hours after the original airing to put the episode up for everyone else.

 

[bryaalre]

It is kind of already happening with new content. People are trying to watch as soon as it drops to avoid spoilers (HBO's The Last of Us is the latest craze) and be part of the buzz. I can see a streamer trying to capitalize on a super popular show by restricting to certain times. Even if they waited 48hours after the original airing to put the episode up for everyone else.

But this is how it is even with streaming.

Even when something comes out on Netflix, people need to watch as soon as possible to not get spoiled. It does not matter if one episode drops or a whole season, if it is hugely popular, there will always be a case of FOMO that perpetuates in people to avoid spoilers and watch as soon as possible but most people don't watch the first day something drops.

HBO, for example has stated that only about 20% of its viewership happens the day of release. Restricting people from watching a show for 24 or even 48 hours accomplishes little as the majority of viewers already wait a day or more and there would be no positive for anyone involved.

 

[wabbott]

In terms of new content, streaming has already started acting like linear (except Netflix) by releasing one episode a week. Soon we will only be able to watch a show at a specific time (10 Eastern) on Sunday night and then the episode will be locked out for a period of time. Ad breaks are coming. It will be full circle.

The strength of the streamer will be dependent on a strong back catalog of re-watchable stuff. Sadly, there is no Spotify or Apple Music for Movies/TV. In the end, the consumer will have fought super hard to cut the cable only to pay at least the same amount per month (bw services and your internet bill).

Except that there's an endless supply of content from other streamers, plus all the content now available on which the copyright has expired. And that brings up another point. What happens to DIS content when, not if, those copyrights expire?

There doesn't seem to be much "Must See TV" anymore, except maybe Yellowstone.

 

[wabbott]

https://www.ft.com/content/c45c5872...traffic/partner/feed_headline/us_yahoo/auddev

Disney: reinstated dividend is tmlikely to be Magic
Unless the company has time to improve its balance sheet, the sums involved will be trifling
2/13/2023

Scorched by activist investor Nelson Peltz, Disney has vowed to bring back its dividend. Instead of spending endless dollars on flashy streaming video content, the entertainment company will hand more money back to shareholders. Unless it has time to improve its balance sheet the sums involved will be trifling.

Reinstating the dividend is a symbolic gesture. Disney promises to be more exacting about costs. Resisting the urge to pour excessive capital into lossmaking streaming service Disney Plus is a good idea. An expensive area of combat, streaming in the US is approaching saturation. At the end of last year, households with video streaming reached 89 per cent, according to Kantar. Disney Plus subscriber numbers dipped in the past quarter.

Disney put a stop to its dividend in 2020 as the Covid-19 crisis shuttered P,arks,

hammering revenue and income. That business has since recovered. In the past quarter, revenue in parks, experiences and products rose 21 per cent on the previous year. Operating income jumped a quarter to just over $3bn.

But heavy spending means more Disneyland visitors alone will not do. Free cash flow is shrinking — down by half in fiscal year 2022 compared with the previous year. In the past quarter it was minus $2bn. Cost-cutting plans include lay-offs that will affect

3 per cent of the workforce. Free cash flow, though due to rise smartly, has been forecast by analysts at just $2.6bn this coming year.

Hence Disney’s cautious plan to offer a “small fraction of our pre-Covid dividend”. In 2019, Disney’s annual dividend payout was $1.76 per share. Using today’s share price even that would only mean a yield of 1.62 per cent. Meanwhile, the yield on much safer US 10-year Treasuries is 3.7 per cent.

Constraints on its cash flow mean a puny dividend could be coming. Consensus forecasts gathered by Visible Alpha suggest Disney will pay out about $1.5bn in dividends for 2023. Using today’s share price, that points to a not-so-inspiring yield of 0.8 per cent. The Magic Kingdom’s reputation as a dividend stock stays on hold.

 

[clarker99]

Except that there's an endless supply of content from other streamers, plus all the content now available on which the copyright has expired. And that brings up another point. What happens to DIS content when, not if, those copyrights expire?

There doesn't seem to be much "Must See TV" anymore, except maybe Yellowstone.

I don't think the Dutton's are must see anymore. The switch to Paramount seems to have killed the buzz. I have not seen/heard anyone talking about the new season. And the last season on Prime was definitely must see based on friends/family and co-workers.

 

[jade1]

Attendance is still down vs pre-Covid but it remains to be seen by how much.

Apparently as mentioned-20%.

 

[HokieRaven5]

Apparently as mentioned-20%.

That’s just what was known of what they controlled during peak times. It’s probably a higher percentage than that for the year vs 2019.

 

[wabbott]

We'll see if this rosy prediction turns out to be so.

https://www.barrons.com/articles/disney-stock-buy-upside-6d3d434f?siteid=yhoof2

Disney Stock Has 25% Upside, Says J.P. Morgan
By Connor Smith
Feb. 13, 2023 3:42 pm ET

Shares of media and entertainment firm Disney have slipped after some profit-taking, but J.P. Morgan analyst Philip Cusick sees the stock rising to $135.

Wall Street initially applauded Walt Disney’s DIS –0.40% latest earnings report and conference call, but the stock has languished in the days since. An analyst at J.P. Morgan now sees 25% upside ahead.

J.P. Morgan analyst Philip Cusick resumed coverage of Disney stock (ticker: DIS) at Overweight with a $135 December 2023 price target in a note on Monday. He had the same price target and rating until Jan. 12, when he temporarily suspended rating the stock due to a period of restriction.

J.P. Morgan and/or its affiliates were acting as a financial advisor in connection with Disney’s response to an activist campaign launched by Nelson Peltz’s Trian Partners. Trian ended the campaign last week.

“Our Overweight rating is driven by continued strength at Disney’s theme-park segment—domestically and internationally—despite a potential slowdown due to macro uncertainty,” Cusick wrote.

Disney stock surged more than 7% in after-hours trading following the media and entertainment firm’s fiscal-first-quarter earnings report—especially after Iger on the earnings call laid out plans to lay off 7,000 employees, implement $5.5 billion in cost cuts, and to ask the board to bring back the dividend by the end of the calendar year. Wall Street analysts gushed about the firm’s improved profitability prospects. Peltz then called off the battle, arguing that Disney had aligned itself with his firm’s thinking.

There’s been some profit-taking in the shares since. Disney stock Is flat at $107.94 in Monday afternoon trading, down 3.4% from where it closed prior to the earnings report on Wednesday.

Still, Cusick thinks Iger’s plans for the firm can drive shareholder returns, as the firm looks to focus on profitability in its direct-to-consumer segment, which includes its streaming assets. Cusick is also upbeat about organizational changes that Iger hopes will empower creatives at the firm. He said the firm’s decision to pull its fiscal 2024 subscriber guidance is understandable, given the focus on profits.

“While we are cautious on the media landscape overall due to sustained streaming losses and advertising headwinds,” Cusick wrote, “Disney is our favorite name among the group due to the company’s strong asset mix and what we expect to be a rapid decline in streaming losses in the next year.”

Though Disney hasn’t set the exact timing and size of the potential dividend, the analyst models it as $1 a share for fiscal 2024.

 

[wabbott]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-ne...amed-up-in-proxy-fight-fcb1602f?siteid=yhoof2

How Nelson Peltz and Disney's Marvel Chief Teamed Up in Proxy Fight; Ike Perlmutter,

How Nelson Peltz and Disney's Marvel Chief Teamed Up in Proxy Fight; Ike Perlmutter, known for frugalness and run-ins with CEO Robert Iger, also was concerned about the company's spending
Whelan, Robbie. 

Longtime friends Isaac "Ike" Perlmutter and activist investor Nelson Peltz shared a similar opinion: Walt Disney Co. was spending too much money.

Mr. Perlmutter, chairman of Disney's Marvel Entertainment unit, was known to be passionate about cost-cutting and once demanded that an action sequence in the 2008 movie "Iron Man" be shot with only three Humvees, instead of the 10 called for in the script. His feuds with Robert Iger during the chief executive's first tenure over how to run Marvel's movie studio caused a rift that remains.

Meanwhile, Mr. Perlmutter supported Mr. Peltz and his campaign to get onto Disney's board and push for significant changes to Disney's governance and operations, including cost cuts. Mr. Peltz ended that campaign Thursday after Mr. Iger announced plans to remove 7,000 jobs and reduce spending by $5.5 billion as part of a reorganization plan.
Though Disney didn't respond to all of Mr. Peltz's demands, the commitment to austerity pleased both him and Mr. Perlmutter. In a Thursday news release, Mr. Peltz's Trian Fund Management LP praised Mr. Iger's "recently announced operating initiatives, which are a win for all shareholders and broadly align with our thinking."

The changes would improve Disney's financial results, Trian said, and Disney's plan to restore its cash dividend—which it suspended in early 2020—by the end of 2023 was an bonus. Disney's shares fell 2% last week but remain up 24% for the year, through Friday.

Mr. Perlmutter declined to comment through a spokesman. He was impressed by the size of Disney's planned cuts, said a person close to the Marvel chairman who spoke with him after Disney made its announcement.

"This whole fight was not, in Ike's mind, about changing the Disney board. It was mostly about changing their attitude," this person said. "For him, overspending is like a cancer. If it's not constantly watched, it grows."

Mr. Perlmutter's views were relevant because as one of Disney's biggest individual shareholders and former CEO of Marvel, he had connections with Disney management and directors that he sought to use to advance both Mr. Peltz's activist campaign and his own agenda of clamping down on spending.

Disney saw Mr. Perlmutter's influence in Mr. Peltz's campaign, and viewed the two men as collaborators in trying to overhaul the company's board, according to people familiar with the matter.

On at least six occasions going back to July, Mr. Perlmutter reached out to top Disney executives, including former CEO Bob Chapek, Chief Financial Officer Christine McCarthy and General Counsel Horacio Gutierrez, as well as to Disney director Safra Catz, and had conversations seeking to persuade them to add Mr. Peltz to the board, according to proxy materials filed in January by Disney with financial regulators.

Messrs. Iger and Perlmutter have had a tense relationship since 2015, when Mr. Perlmutter's quarrels with Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige over budgets and movie slates grew so intense that Mr. Iger, then in his first stint as Disney's CEO, intervened and removed Mr. Perlmutter as CEO of Marvel's movie studio, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr. Iger later stripped Mr. Perlmutter of further responsibilities, including control over Marvel's television shows, heightening the acrimony between them, these people said.

"He was not happy about it," Mr. Iger said in a Thursday interview with CNBC. "And I think that unhappiness exists today."

Mr. Perlmutter continued to try to influence moviemaking decisions after being forced out as CEO of Marvel, according to people familiar with the matter. As recently as October, he sent emails to top Disney executives seeking financial information about the Marvel movies and questioning the studio's wisdom in greenlighting big-budget titles such as last year's "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness," which grossed $956 million at the global box office. Disney has interpreted these inquiries as efforts to undermine Mr. Feige, these people said.

While Mr. Perlmutter doesn't have a good relationship with Mr. Iger, the person familiar with his thinking said, the Marvel leader's motive was to get Disney to reduce spending and maximize profits, and it wasn't motivated by a grudge against Mr. Feige or anyone else at Disney.

Born in what is now known as Israel in 1942, Mr. Perlmutter grew up poor in Israel and served in the military, fighting for Israel in the Six-Day War of 1967. He later emigrated to the U.S. and worked as a toy merchant before building a fortune buying up bankrupt companies and liquidating their assets or reorganizing their operations.

One such company was Marvel, which Mr. Perlmutter gained control of in the late 1990s after outmaneuvering corporate raider Carl Icahn and investor Ronald Perelman. Marvel began licensing its library of superheroes, including Spider-Man and the X-Men, to Hollywood studios a few years later. In the early 2000s, when Marvel began producing its own movies, including "Iron Man" and "Captain America: The First Avenger," Mr. Perlmutter and other leaders of Marvel saw them primarily as promotional tools to sell toys and other merchandise.

Disney, under the leadership of Mr. Iger, bought Marvel in 2009 for $4 billion and took over its catalog of characters and its movie studio. Later, Mr. Perlmutter would try to discourage Disney from making certain titles, such as "Black Panther" and "Captain Marvel," which he thought wouldn't generate significant toy sales, especially overseas, according to people familiar with his thinking.

Over the years, Mr. Perlmutter's frugality became well-known. His colleagues tell stories of how Mr. Perlmutter, a billionaire with multiple houses, would fish paper clips and worn-down pencils out of the trash for re-use and for years refused to replace an aging Lincoln Town Car that he used to shuttle between meetings in New York. Mr. Perlmutter and his wife enjoyed getting a Saturday lunch of a hot dog, yogurt and a Diet Coke for $3.03 at the local Costco supermarket in Florida, but groused to colleagues that the same lunch cost pennies more at the store near the couple's home in the New York area.

Messrs. Perlmutter and Peltz have been friends for years and frequently dine together with their wives in Florida. Both men supported Donald Trump's campaigns for president, and Mr. Perlmutter, a member of Mr. Trump's Mar-a-Lago golf club, provided unofficial guidance to Mr. Trump on veterans affairs during his administration.

The pair saw an ally in Mr. Iger's predecessor, Mr. Chapek, a self-described salesman who rose to Disney's top job after leading its consumer-products and parks divisions, but who lacked experience making movies or television shows.

Disney's proxy statement describes a trip the former CEO took to Florida on Nov. 12, in which he met separately with Messrs. Peltz and Perlmutter, and both men "expressed support for Mr. Chapek." The board fired Mr. Chapek on Nov. 20 and brought back Mr. Iger as CEO .

Mr. Peltz began accumulating Disney shares in early November and in January announced a proxy battle against the company. In presentations supporting the campaign, Trian criticized Disney's "over-the-top" executive compensation, said Disney's board had failed to properly plan for CEO succession and decried what it described as weak governance and shareholder returns.

The changes that Disney announced Wednesday didn't deal with governance or board issues, and instead focused on consolidating operations and putting business strategy decisions in the hands of content executives. Mr. Iger said the company would make fewer movies and TV shows and focus more on Disney's core franchises.

In Thursday's televised interview, Mr. Iger said it was Messrs. Perlmutter and Peltz "working together to try to encourage the board or convince the board" to make Mr. Peltz a director.

After the interview, Mr. Peltz went on TV to end the proxy campaign, surprising Mr. Iger and Disney, which had been preparing for a lengthy fight, according to a person familiar with the matter. Mr. Iger learned the news from an assistant as he was walking back to his office after being on TV, the person said.

Proxy fights are expensive and time-consuming, and for Mr. Peltz, achieving part of his agenda is better than walking away empty-handed, said Charles Elson, a corporate-governance professor at the University of Delaware.

"Even if you get half a loaf, it's better than no loaf," he said.

 

[wabbott]

https://www.latimes.com/entertainme...t-cuts-whats-the-future-of-hulu-the-wide-shot

As Disney looks for cost cuts, what’s the future of Hulu?
By Ryan FaughnderCompany Town Senior Editor
Feb. 14, 2023 6 AM PST

Walt Disney Co. averted a nail-biter proxy fight, and all it took was for Chief Executive Bob Iger to promise 7,000 job cuts. That’s clearly an oversimplification, though it’s easy to look cynically at Disney’s cost-cutting measures — targeting $5.5 billion in savings, including $3 billion from content cost over the next few years — as a reaction to Nelson Peltz’s pressure campaign against the company.

But the need to rethink streaming (still the company’s “future,” according to Iger) and rein in costs would’ve existed with or without Peltz’s “Restore the Magic” attacks. In important ways, Disney’s austerity measures are just the biggest example yet of the retrenchment that has happened across the media and entertainment industry when it comes to the business of streaming.

Legacy media companies invested heavily in movies and TV shows to put on streaming services that made viewers feel as if they were getting the content on the cheap. And they were. Disney and Iger were particularly aggressive about giving viewers a bargain, with a starting price of $6.99 a month for Disney+. At the time, it was all good. Wall Street loved the subscriber growth story, and stocks were climbing.

But eventually the market turned against the strategy of pursuing subscriber growth at all costs, and now employees are paying for it. Add in a possible recession and a slowdown in the advertising market, along with the ongoing unraveling of the pay-TV bundle, and of course there are going to be layoffs. Anyway, that’s the layperson’s summary of the entertainment industry during the last year.

Iger’s cost-cutting plan is meant to help make Disney+ profitable by the previously targeted 2024, already a bold goal after its direct-to-consumer division (which also includes Hulu and ESPN+) lost $1.1 billion during the most recent quarter and $1.5 billion the quarter before that.

Which leads to one of the more interesting and longest-lasting questions facing Disney during the next year or so: Will Iger sell Hulu?

Disney owns two-thirds of Hulu and has long been expected to purchase the remaining 33% from Comcast as early as January 2024, paying some $9 billion. The company acquired a majority stake of Hulu through its $71.3-billion acquisition of 21st Century Fox in 2019. Gaining control of the “Handmaid’s Tale” streaming service has been touted as one of the big benefits of that deal.

However, Iger last week was clear in his intention to be much more selective “general entertainment” content (i.e., everything that doesn’t obviously fall under an easily identifiable Disney brand). That has, of course, sparked speculation that Disney might be a seller of Hulu instead of a buyer.

“Everything is on the table right now” when it comes to Hulu, Iger told CNBC last week, adding that he was “concerned about undifferentiated general entertainment, particularly in the competitive landscape that we’re operating in.”
Disney declined to comment.

Iger has been circumspect. He isn’t saying he wants to sell Hulu, though neither is he saying that he’s committed to fully owning it. There are reasons he might want to keep the Santa Monica-based service. Hulu has about 43.5 million subscribers, or 48 million when you include the 4.5 million who pay for its version with live TV channels. Its average revenue per user (excluding the live TV package) is $12.46 a month, versus the $5.95 Disney+ generates in the U.S. and Canada.

It’s the third-biggest streamer in the U.S., in terms of time watched, with 3.4% of all TV set viewing, according to Nielsen’s monthly pie chart. That puts it behind YouTube (8.7%) and Netflix (7.5%). And it’s where Disney streams its award-winning FX, Searchlight and ABC shows, though that programming appears on Disney+ in other countries.
But there are reasons to sell too. Disney’s debt stands at $45 billion, and while Iger told CNBC that leverage is not a huge concern right now, he noted that he’s “intent” on reducing Disney’s borrowings.

Rich Greenfield, at LightShed Partners, has long questioned the necessity of Hulu to Disney. Despite some brilliant shows, including “The Bear” (which appeared on countless year-end best-of 2022 lists, including ours), “Only Murders in the Building” and “The Dropout,” the unit hasn’t had many home runs in terms of viewership.

“It is hard to see why Hulu is a must-have asset regardless of whether or not Disney chooses to continue investing in adult-focused programming for Disney+ or pivot solely to kids/family programming,” Greenfield wrote in a blog post before Disney reported earnings. It would be ironic if Disney actually came around to Greenfield’s way of thinking.

But would Comcast be a willing buyer for the rest of Hulu, and if not, would anyone else be willing to pay for it? The Philadelphia telecommunications giant would have to fork over around $20 billion to acquire Disney’s stake in Hulu, which, as Michael Nathanson pointed out in a recent note to clients, is more or less a shell for reruns without Disney’s original content coming in. Plus, Comcast already has Peacock, which is growing but losing money. Companies are trying to spend less on streaming, not more.

Nathanson suggests there may be a compromise that benefits both companies. Disney and Comcast could renegotiate their partnership as a joint venture, split 50-50. That would return Hulu to a consortium-backed model similar to its origins as a streaming company owned by multiple competitors.

Such a change would come with its own complications for Hulu, which at times seemed like a child caught in a tense four-way marriage when its ownership was split between Disney, Fox, Comcast and Warner Bros. (Time Warner, then AT&T). And Comcast and Disney have been fierce rivals. Recall that it was a bitter contest between Iger and Comcast CEO Brian Roberts that bid up the value of Murdoch’s Fox assets before Disney ended up with them.

Questions remain about what a co-ownership arrangement would look like. How would a half-owned Hulu operate alongside Peacock, which is just starting to gather steam and has a similar mix of shows, unlike Disney+, which until recently had minimal overlap with Hulu? But there’s an argument that a joint venture could be the best option.

“It would not only offer a better path to profitability, it would also be a major step in rationalizing an industry that is today too fragmented,” Nathanson wrote. “To be sure, it might be a blow to the ego to cede ownership of the customer. But one of the clear lessons of the streaming wars thus far is that ‘owning the customer’ isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.”

It’s a different story with the other evergreen what-if scenario facing Disney — whether to sell or spin off ESPN. The sports cable network will now be its own reporting unit under Iger’s new structure, which would presumably make a spinoff easier. Not so fast, though. ESPN may be facing cord-cutting and growing sports-rights costs, but it still makes money, as Stephen Battaglio explained in his recent piece. Most importantly, Iger doesn’t seem interested in selling and he was clear that no conversations are currently taking place.

How much profit ESPN generates will become much clearer now that Disney will break out its financial results. It was a crown jewel of the Capital Cities/ABC deal that brought Iger to Disney in the first place. That’s the thing with crown jewels, though. Sometimes you have to auction off your valuables to protect the castle.

 

[jade1]

That’s just what was known of what they controlled during peak times. It’s probably a higher percentage than that for the year vs 2019.

The Disneyland and Walt Disney World resorts significantly increased revenue and income despite reducing attendance capacity by 20% during the most recent quarter that ran from October through December, Disney CFO Christine McCarthy said during an earnings call with investors on Feb. 8.

 

[HokieRaven5]

The Disneyland and Walt Disney World resorts significantly increased revenue and income despite reducing attendance capacity by 20% during the most recent quarter that ran from October through December, Disney CFO Christine McCarthy said during an earnings call with investors on Feb. 8.

Yes, that says recent quarter, not the full year. Also just capacity, and not overall attendance.

They could also have had a 20% reduction cap in place for the whole year, but there are many days where they didn’t hit that point.

 

[jade1]

Yes, that says recent quarter, not the full year. Also just capacity, and not overall attendance.

They could also have had a 20% reduction cap in place for the whole year, but there are many days where they didn’t hit that point.

I was simply responding to this.

That’s just what was known of what they controlled during peak times.

 

[wabbott]

This will affect DIS wage scales at WDW

https://***********************.com/2023/02/breaking-universal-orlando-resort-starting-wage-moving-to-17-per-hour-providing-raises-to-existing-team-members/

BREAKING: Universal Orlando Resort Starting Wage Moving to $17 Per Hour, Providing Raises to Existing Team Members
February 14, 2023 by Tom Corless

Universal Orlando Resort has just announced to Team Members that they are raising starting wages to $17 per hour effective June 4, 2023. In addition, many Team Members will receive an increase based on the new rates and their time with the company.

Here is the full letter with those details and more that was just provided to Team Members:
Dear Team Members,

We have so much to look forward to in 2023 as we celebrate the exciting Mardi Gras season and gear up for the summer opening of our new Minion Land at Universal Studios Florida. You all are the spark that brings our brand and stories to life, and I could not be prouder to work alongside you. I always walk away from my time visiting with you feeling energized and inspired to continue to build upon our strong Team Member first culture.

We deeply believe in our mission to provide an inclusive environment where our Team Members are proud to work and we remain committed to that focus. Therefore, we continually evaluate our compensation, perks, and benefits programs and why we are committed to engaging with and listening to you. We truly believe TSAT is more than just a survey; it is your voice that helps us build a better Universal experience.

Wage increases and more benefits

To that end, effective June 4, 2023, we are not only increasing our starting base rate to $17 per hour, but we are increasing many of our starting rates across the business. In addition, many Team Members will receive an increase based on the new rates and their time with the company. More details about how this individually impacts Team Members will be shared in the coming weeks.

Wages are just one part of Team Member satisfaction and because of your direct feedback, we have also elevated our 401K match and tuition reimbursement programs, added compassion leave, doubled our parental leave, enhanced family planning benefits, launched the new applause recognition program, and changed Team Member comp ticket availability from block-out calendar to capacity managed based on park attendance.

Enhancing our work environment

We are also focused on elevating the work environment and have begun upgrading break areas, back of house restrooms, and have exciting plans for Team Member dining that we will share shortly. But it doesn’t stop there, our culture seeks to create a path forward that supports our Team Members, gives them an opportunity to grow and fosters a real sense of purpose and belonging.

In just a few weeks, I will be bringing leaders together to kick off the year and talk about our priorities – one of which involves making every day EPIC in preparation for the opening of Epic Universe. I am excited to share this with you and I want to again thank you for everything you do to help us successfully deliver extraordinary Guest experiences.
I am excited about our bright future!

Karen Irwin
President & COO
Universal Orlando Resort

 

[HokieRaven5]

This will affect DIS wage scales at WDW

https://***********************.com/2023/02/breaking-universal-orlando-resort-starting-wage-moving-to-17-per-hour-providing-raises-to-existing-team-members/

Just FYI if you post stuff associated with WDWNT (Tom Corless) use their main site links and not their Disneyland or Universal focused sites. For some reason the links for those are blocked on the boards.