Happy Tuesday. In today’s update, we will go over Disney's earnings. The discussion will also cover the latest box office developments.

Disney FY4Q23 Earnings

Disney’s legacy business performance was fine in FY4Q23 (July through September). Bob Iger spent months talking down expectations for those businesses to the point of there not being too many negative surprises. At this point, the lack of implosions would lead to a sigh of relief on Wall Street.

While Disney’s linear TV business is shrinking (revenue down 9% last quarter), the assets are kicking off roughly the same amount of cash. Linear Networks generated $805M of operating income, unchanged from last year. Disney benefited from a one-time gain in FY4Q23 related to its A&E investment.
ESPN saw similar results to last year with flat revenue of $3.5B while operating income was up 16% to $987M due to the non-renewal of the Big Ten.

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