Disney FY1Q24 Earnings, Disney Buys Minority Stake in Epic Games, Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Fox Announce New Sports App

Today's update will have a Disney focus with the company announcing earnings and two new business initiatives.

Heading into earnings earlier this week, Disney CEO Bob Iger and the board were facing some of the strongest pressure to date from activist shareholders looking to get Disney board seats – and eventually kick Iger out. The pressure served as the backdrop for what was a news-packed earnings release from Disney.

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Disney FY4Q23 Earnings, Another Disney Bomb at the Box Office

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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Disney Earnings, Disney to Combine Disney+ and Hulu, Hulu’s Future

Hello everyone. Happy Tuesday. Today's discussion will take us into paid video streaming land. Last week, Disney reported CY1Q23 earnings. We go over Neil’s thoughts on the earnings release. The update then turns to Bob Iger’s plan to combine Disney+ with Hulu in a new streaming app. We conclude with a look at Hulu’s future as it pertains to Disney and Comcast.

Let's jump right in.

Disney Earnings

Disney’s FY2Q23 earnings were good. Overall revenue was up 13% while free cash flow was just shy of $2B. Over the past year, there hasn’t been a shortage of mediocre to poor quarters in the tech and media space. However, Disney’s CY1Q23 results reflect the benefits found with a truly diversified business model in the media space (IP that can be monetized in various ways). Disney Parks and Experiences remains on a tear with ~20% revenue growth and strong operating income. Excluding timing issues with higher sports programming costs, even Disney’s Linear Networks results were OK, helping to offset continued financial losses found with Disney+. Management claims streaming losses peaked last year.

Here are Disney’s DTC subscription totals (as of April 1st, 2023):

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Disney Earnings, Disney’s Anti-Netflix Strategy, Apple Got It Right With TV+ (Daily Update)

Hello everyone. We will kick things off with Disney earnings. The discussion includes Iger’s strategy for Disney+ and how Disney is following an anti-Netflix strategy. We conclude with the ways Apple got paid video streaming right with Apple TV+. Let's jump right in.

Disney Earnings

It’s been nearly three months since Disney board’s brought Bob Iger back to replace Bob Chapek. Last week’s earnings release represented Iger’s first one back as CEO.

In what has been a recurring earnings theme with Disney, the Parks segment results were stellar (21% revenue growth and $3B of operating income) while Direct-to-Consumer experienced a $1.1B operating loss. Linear networks (U.S.) saw flat revenue and $0.9B of operating income, testaments to how legacy TV continues to hang on.

Here are Disney’s DTC subscription totals (as of December 31st, 2022):

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