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Huh. I’m not terribly surprised - Bob Chapek’s leadership has been “less than ideal” from many different angles (political skirmishes, scattershot Marvel Phase
by gjsman-1000 4y ago
Huh. I’m not terribly surprised - Bob Chapek’s leadership has been “less than ideal” from many different angles (political skirmishes, scattershot Marvel Phase 4, Disney+ still being unprofitable, theme park cost increases). Still surprising that something happened about it.
However, maybe it isn’t. The stock is down 40% YTD, 10% over the last 5 years. Pretty mediocre. Not that it’s been a great year for any stock, but losing 2/5ths value is still an outlier.
It’s not hard to see why. A $1.5 billion operating loss in the streaming division last quarter, despite 164M subscribers, is a major black eye. With $5.96/mo. being the average worth of a user, that means approximately $977 million monthly in streaming revenue, or $2.93 Billion per quarter - yet Disney is somehow spending $4.43 Billion per quarter to keep the streaming subscription ship afloat. If I’m an investor, I’m skeptical that Disney+ will ever obtain profitability. Raise prices, lose subscriptions. Make original content to keep people subscribed - but it costs money to make, eats profitability, and so far hasn’t been a huge subscription-saver. Thus the ad-based tier upcoming to try to fix the hole…
- make3 4y agoaren't literally every stock down?
- Denvercoder9 4y agoMost defense stocks are up YTD.
- gjsman-1000 4y agoIBM is up 8% YTD, for one example. Kind of a shocker but good for them.
- acomjean 4y agoI wonder how much bandwidth they could save by caching the movies... Disney movies tend to be repeat watched by youngsters. Of course a lot of the streaming hardware doesn't support this.
- gjsman-1000 4y agoBy the time we are caching movies on clients, it’s almost like we’ve reinvented the Blu-ray disc and the original Netflix mailers in my opinion… without physical media or ownership, but otherwise, not far off… Because what is a physical disc? It’s basically a cache, physically delivered, but you purchase it once and it’s yours. Don’t want to purchase? Netflix will rotate discs back and forth by mail. Such a system would be the same thing - just more expensive, less private, no ownership option, and without the physical disc or mailing time… I don’t know. I get that it’s more convenient than the old system but seems like a downgrade in almost every other respect. Less ownership, less privacy, worse selection (how many streaming services needed?), quite possibly worse for the environment (discs break even with streaming after ~4 plays and last an average of 16 rentals, and far more than that when frequently watched in a home)…
- achow 4y agoYou do realize that all mobile apps for OTT (Netflix, Prime, Spotify etc.) have download option for no network situation, airplane mode? These downloads are DRM'ed, they cannot be shared or moved outside of their storage (cache).
- tim-- 4y agoDisney reports that Domestic (US) subscriptions bring in an average of $6.10 /month. https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/app/uploads/2022/11/q4-fy22-earnings.pdf https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/app/uploads/2022/11/q4-fy22... (page 6).
- gjsman-1000 4y agoRight - domestic is better, but the overall (which matters most) is the number I stated, because Disney+ Hotstar subscriptions in India are a money pit ($0.58 per month!!)
- tim-- 4y agoThere are a few good reasons for this that doesn't make this as bad as it looks at first glance. Firstly, the median salary of workers in India is much lower than salaries you will find in the west. $8,000 AUD is more than the median salary. Second, cricket is big. Disney+ had IPL rights for a long time, but lost them to another streamer. (Disney still owns the Pay TV rights). Thirdly, many plans from mobile phone providers include Disney+ A retail Disney+ Hotstar subscription goes for the same price as a monthly phone subscription that includes 4GB of data a day. Competitors in India have plans that are at similar prices to Disney+. It's hard for Disney to charge more for the product there.
- gjsman-1000 4y agoNo, I don't doubt that. The pricing makes sense within India. It's just bad news for Disney+ profitability even if there's nothing Disney can do about that.
- mradek 4y agoMaybe they can lower the production costs of these shows. Most media these days is basically all CGI and kind of crappy. Add some Disney cooking shows, talk shows, and stuff like that to bring in grandmas and busy moms. Add some nerd Star Wars podcasts and bring in people like me who want to nerd out on Mandalorian. Don’t always need to spend 50-200m on cgi heavy shows.
- dmak 4y agoDisney content is already suffering in quality and is noticeable already. Boba Fett was terrible.
- anshumankmr 4y agoDisney+'s marquee show is The Mandalorian which has been quite great so far but even that can't be stretched for too long. I don't see it going beyond a few more seasons. At least with its competitors like Netflix, it has a fantastic library of so many show like House of Cards, Stranger Things, Dark, Squid Game and a bunch of stuff for almost every demographic possible. HBO probably has an unparalleled library of shows and movies. Disney+ shows don't have the same kind of rewatchability.
- anshumankmr 4y agoDisney+'s marquee show is The Mandalorian which has been quite great so far but even that can't be stretched for too long. I don't see it going beyond a few more seasons. At least with its competitors like Netflix, it has a fantastic library of so many show like House of Cards, Stranger Things, Dark, Squid Game and a bunch of stuff for almost every demographic possible. HBO probably has an unparalleled library of shows and movies. Disney+ shows don't have the same kind of rewatchability. For example, they fumbled extremely hard with the Obi Wan show, which could have been another potential cultural zeitgeist like the Star Wars movies if they probably cut down the filler and did some more rewrites to improve the script and released it as a movie (either in theater or as a Disney+ exclusive)