Iger's return getting extended?

[ChipnDale79]

They plan on turbo charging growth in Parks and Resorts.

wonder how they plan on doing that.

 

[Jwaire]

wonder how they plan on doing that.

I'm guessing he was referring to Disneyland forward, the Magic Kingdom expansion and what's going on in Disney Studios in Paris and Hong Kong Disneyland.

There's also no pricing concerns at Walt Disney World. They've already addressed them as soon as he got back.

 

[wabbott]

wonder how they plan on doing that.

The only way to do that is to add more attractions and get the quality back up where it used to be. Make guests think they are getting their money's worth.

I don't know how everyone else feels, but the nickel and dime stuff over the past few years really bothers me. I quit TurboTax several years ago for that very reason. It was but like 5 bucks a year over 2 or 3 years, but it was the principal.

 

[PsylockeSmythe]

As many are already seeing with bundled services like MAX, and now probably D+, for streaming to be profitable it's going to morph right back into that same thing as cable (which already had on-demand) complete with tons of advertising and bundled app services that you don't want.

I have always felt that streaming was always going to morph back into Cable TV in a lot of ways. At some point you were going to see ad supported tiers due to the ad free price was never going to be where it can sustain itself for most services. Netflix is the exception to this currently, but they have been doing this since 2007, and they had lots of growing pains also during the early years.

I also felt that by the time everything was all said and done, most households would be subscribing to multiple streaming services to be able to watch what they watched when they had cable and it would start to push combined streaming service pricing to not quite cable tv levels, but within 75% or so of cable pricing. So people will still save, but not as much as originally thought.

The big advantage that streaming services have and also one of their weaknesses is that people can subscribe for 30 days and then drop. It makes it to where people can subscribe for a month, binge watch and then drop the service. This is also a weakness, since it makes keeping subscribers numbers growing harder and people join and drop as content that they want to watch shows up.

Psy

 

[Brocktoon]

Well, that's their goal right? To make the same or even more on streaming than on traditional cable. However, they already offer "Star" content in some regions on Disney+ and it's basically the same content as Hulu, minus Comcast's content.

Operating two separate streaming services seems like a waste to me. They had to do it because Hulu started out as a partnership between Disney, Fox and NBC Universal.

They were basically giving away Disney+. I swear the first three years I was paying something like $3.99 a month for it with the D23 discount.

The goal of the streamers is profit, so I understand why they're doing it. But most consumers dropped cable and moved to streaming as they got tired of ever increasing prices while subsidizing content they didn't care about. Why did they have to get all the linear channels and pay the sports and broadcast fees if they didn't watch sports and only a few of the 100+ channels.

Streaming supposedly promised the ala carte choice of only paying for and streaming the content you're interested in. Just pay for and stream Disney+ and Discovery+ if that's what you like, and don't worry about HBO or Hulu if you're not interested in the content.

But the streamer needs to make profit, so now Warner Bros Discover creates MAX, changes the pricing model, and have more perceived selection ... but many are paying more once again for shows they will never watch or want. Disney may do the same thing as they will say you now have more choice with all the Hulu content, but in the end, the Hulu folks may not care about Disney and the same for D+ folks not wanting Hulu. If they keep D+ stand alone for a lower price ... but I doubt that's going to happen. And then you've got MAX, D+, Paramount+ continuing to raise prices while dropping content from existence.

In the end, my frustration along with many others is that the great a la carte dream of cord cutting and streaming only the content you want looks to be just that ... only a dream. And really, we probably knew it was headed this way as the studios just wanted to cut out the middle-man providers.

 

[Jwaire]

The only way to do that is to add more attractions and get the quality back up where it used to be. Make guests think they are getting their money's worth.

They've made some steps regarding value—dining plan and promotions (like the 4-day, 4-park magic ticket for $99 per day) are back. Florida resident tickets are back. Annual Passes seem to be here to stay.

However, my concern is how slow their construction and development processes are. The only thing they are good at building quickly are hotels that look like Marriott's. Everything else takes forever.

EPCOT & Moana Journey of Water - Announced in 2016, competition date still TBD
Tron - 6 Years
Guardian's of the Galaxy - 6 Years
Ratatouille - 5 Years

 

[Brocktoon]

The big advantage that streaming services have and also one of their weaknesses is that people can subscribe for 30 days and then drop. It makes it to where people can subscribe for a month, binge watch and then drop the service. This is also a weakness, since it makes keeping subscribers numbers growing harder and people join and drop as content that they want to watch shows up.

Psy

That's what I've been doing, and as you mentioned, the streamers may need a way to counteract this by offering even larger discounts for yearly subscriptions. Otherwise they are going to constantly be chasing subscribers with new expensive production.

The studios are desperate to force people to streaming by any means. I was still getting Blu-rays via Netlfix, and then Netflix dropped it's disc business saying that although it was still very profitable, it was slowing streaming adoptions. After Netflix' announcement, RedBox kiosk transactions saw a sharp jump and the disc fans started moving towards RedBox as $2 rentals were much cheaper than $6 online. But over the past couple months the studios have gotten worried, and have now slowed disc releases to Redbox, so you don't see as many new movies at the physical kiosk at $2 ... still available online though.

 

[HokieRaven5]

However, my concern is how slow their construction and development processes are. The only thing they are good at building quickly are hotels that look like Marriott's. Everything else takes forever.

EPCOT & Moana Journey of Water - Announced in 2016, competition date still TBD
Tron - 6 Years
Guardian's of the Galaxy - 6 Years
Ratatouille - 5 Years

In no way defending the construction times of things but some clarification:

-Journey of Water was announced in 2019
-Tron was 5 years from construction commencement (Feb 2018 - March 2023)
-Guardians was less than 5 years (Fall of 2017 to Spring of 2022)
-Ratatouille 4 years (Nov 2017- Oct 2021)

Goes back to Disney still doing things the way Walt did by announcing them early and just constantly selling them. Worked well back then, today it gets more critique.

 

[BrianL]

In no way defending the construction times of things but some clarification:

-Journey of Water was announced in 2019
-Tron was 5 years from construction commencement (Feb 2018 - March 2023)
-Guardians was less than 5 years (Fall of 2017 to Spring of 2022)
-Ratatouille 4 years (Nov 2017- Oct 2021)

Goes back to Disney still doing things the way Walt did by announcing them early and just constantly selling them. Worked well back then, today it gets more critique.

Not to mention that COVID did impact those construction times as well. That said, they really are a bit slow with stuff.

 

[HokieRaven5]

Not to mention that COVID did impact those construction times as well. That said, they really are a bit slow with stuff.

Oh absolutely.

Still think the Disney record holder for longest construction timeline is Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion.

Could you imagine Disney telling guests today an attraction will open 2 years from now, only to have it actually open 8 years later?

 

[wabbott]

In no way defending the construction times of things but some clarification:

-Journey of Water was announced in 2019
-Tron was 5 years from construction commencement (Feb 2018 - March 2023)
-Guardians was less than 5 years (Fall of 2017 to Spring of 2022)
-Ratatouille 4 years (Nov 2017- Oct 2021)

Goes back to Disney still doing things the way Walt did by announcing them early and just constantly selling them. Worked well back then, today it gets more critique.

The original Disneyland was built in one (1) year. And this was way back in the mid 50s, when "modern" construction methods were unavailable.

 

[BrianL]

Oh absolutely.

Still think the Disney record holder for longest construction timeline is Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion.

Could you imagine Disney telling guests today an attraction will open 2 years from now, only to have it actually open 8 years later?

Yeah, but, when you're talking about The Haunted Mansion, it was worth the wait! In my book, it's still never been surpassed!

 

[HokieRaven5]

The original Disneyland was built in one (1) year. Look it up.

Don’t have to I know it was. Construction standards and requirements have also changed drastically from those days.

 

[ChipnDale79]

Oh absolutely.

Still think the Disney record holder for longest construction timeline is Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion.

Could you imagine Disney telling guests today an attraction will open 2 years from now, only to have it actually open 8 years later?

they were close to that with pandora lol

 

[HokieRaven5]

they were close to that with pandora lol

From announcement to completion yeah. Again goes back to Disney announcing things way too early. Lol

Construction for Pandora took 3 years once it started.

 

[ChipnDale79]

From announcement to completion yeah. Again goes back to Disney announcing things way too early. Lol

Construction for Pandora took 3 years once it started.

didnt HM sit basically completed on the outside with a "coming soon" sign for years in DL? lol coming soon meant years, that's gotta be a record.

 

[HokieRaven5]

didnt HM sit basically completed on the outside with a "coming soon" sign for years in DL? lol coming soon meant years, that's gotta be a record.

Exterior Facade was done by 1963, the attraction opened in 1969. Walt moved his priorities to the Worlds Fair and then his death led to a complete redesign.

 

[namelessoracle]

Not to mention that COVID did impact those construction times as well. That said, they really are a bit slow with stuff.

The re occuring rumour is that when Disney stopped due to Covid, Universal stepped in and offered contracts to construction talent. They are also paying more than Disney for cast members. Some of this may be Universal playing a very strategic method of strangling Disneys talent supply to get anything done..

 

[Disney Bobby]

The goal of the streamers is profit, so I understand why they're doing it. But most consumers dropped cable and moved to streaming as they got tired of ever increasing prices while subsidizing content they didn't care about. Why did they have to get all the linear channels and pay the sports and broadcast fees if they didn't watch sports and only a few of the 100+ channels.

Streaming supposedly promised the ala carte choice of only paying for and streaming the content you're interested in. Just pay for and stream Disney+ and Discovery+ if that's what you like, and don't worry about HBO or Hulu if you're not interested in the content.

But the streamer needs to make profit, so now Warner Bros Discover creates MAX, changes the pricing model, and have more perceived selection ... but many are paying more once again for shows they will never watch or want. Disney may do the same thing as they will say you now have more choice with all the Hulu content, but in the end, the Hulu folks may not care about Disney and the same for D+ folks not wanting Hulu. If they keep D+ stand alone for a lower price ... but I doubt that's going to happen. And then you've got MAX, D+, Paramount+ continuing to raise prices while dropping content from existence.

In the end, my frustration along with many others is that the great a la carte dream of cord cutting and streaming only the content you want looks to be just that ... only a dream. And really, we probably knew it was headed this way as the studios just wanted to cut out the middle-man providers.

 

[wabbott]

And with advertising, too!!