DIS Shareholders and Stock Info ONLY

[wabbott]

An interesting article that shows how difficult it will be in the future to "own" live events.

https://deadline.com/2024/05/wnba-f...e-so-fan-steps-in-huge-livestream-1235904852/

WNBA Fails To Show Promised Key Preseason Game, So Fan Steps In And Has Huge Livestream Results

By Bruce Haring
May 5, 2024 - 11:09am PDT

Women’s basketball interest is growing so fast, even the WNBA can’t keep up.

On Friday night, the Chicago Sky faced the Minnesota Lynx in their preseason opener. The game was of major interest to followers of women’s basketball, as it featured the league debuts of prominent rookies Angel Reese and Kamilla Cardoso.

The WNBA’s streaming app did not air the game, despite listing that all preseason tilts would be watchable from the app.

That’s when a fan, @heyheyitsalli, stepped in and began livestreaming the game on their cell phone while attending the game in Minneapolis. The livestream quickly exploded past the 400,000 views mark.

The game ended in a 92-81 win for the Minnesota Lynx.

The WNBA later clarified that only Caitlin Clark’s debut with the Indiana Fever was being broadcast on the app.

@heyheyitsalli jumped into the fray with a quick question.

“Would y’all want me to try and stream the game on here??” the X user asked, “no promises on the quality but i can try.”

Viewership numbers on the livestream showed about 434,000 total views as of Saturday. The X user previously posted a screenshot showing that the stream peaked at 173,381 live viewers.

“Y’all these are some of THE WILDEST numbers WOW,” the user tweeted.

Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve said after the game that @heyheyitsalli deserves “three bucks” per viewer.

“Anybody that watched it should send three bucks to the person, I don’t even know who it is,” Reeve said. “I think that what I would say is that the growth is happening so fast. It’s so accelerated. And I’ve been saying this in our own organization — that business as usual isn’t going to work anymore.

“You’re gonna get left behind and this is an example.”

Reeve said she understands that Clark’s game would be broadcast, and is “all for that.”

“People want to see that, but they also want to see, you know, it’s not just about Caitlin,” Reeve said. “This isn’t Caitlin’s fault in any way. It’s more, you know, the recognition that there’s general excitement about the WNBA in ways that we haven’t seen before. And so we have to capitalize to really ensure that this is a movement.”

Reese finished the game with 13 points and nine rebounds in 24 minutes. Cardoso had six points and four rebounds in 13 minutes.

 

[wabbott]

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/05/business/media/sony-apollo-paramount.html

Sony and Apollo in Talks to Acquire Paramount
After letting exclusive talks with the movie studio Skydance lapse, Paramount’s directors met over the weekend and decided to negotiate with all the suitors.

By Benjamin Mullin and Lauren Hirsch
May 5, 2024 Updated 4:22 p.m. EDT

Paramount has decided to formally open negotiations with a bidding group led by Sony Pictures Entertainment and the private equity giant Apollo, according to three people familiar with the matter. The move comes after a period of exclusive talks with the Hollywood studio Skydance lapsed on Friday night.

A special committee of Paramount’s board of directors met Saturday and signed off on beginning deal talks with Sony and Apollo, which last week submitted a nonbinding letter of interest offering to buy the company for around $26 billion in cash, the people said. The committee also decided to push for further negotiations with Skydance, a studio founded by the technology scion David Ellison.
Paramount, the owner of Nickelodeon, MTV, CBS and Paramount Pictures, has been exploring a deal as it faces industrywide headwinds, including the decline of cable TV and the unprofitability of its streaming business.

Any deal between the Sony group and Paramount faces hurdles. Government regulations restrict foreign ownership of broadcast networks and could prevent Sony’s parent company, based in Japan, from owning CBS outright. The bidding group would probably push for Apollo, which is based in the United States, to hold the rights to the CBS broadcast license, according to two people familiar with their strategy.

Government regulators have also aggressively evaluated acquisitions under President Biden, with the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission moving to block a number of proposed deals. Not all of those moves by regulators have been successful.

It also remains to be seen whether National Amusements, Paramount’s parent company, will support the Sony-Apollo bid. National Amusements has the power to veto any deal, giving the new bidders an extra incentive to secure its approval, though National Amusements has committed to supporting the special committee’s decision.


Sony and Apollo’s all-cash offer has been supported by many shareholders as an alternate to a merger with Skydance. Late last year, Shari Redstone, who controls National Amusements, signed off on a potential deal to sell her stake to Skydance, but that deal hinges on a related transaction for Skydance to merge with Paramount. The deal stalled last week after the two sides were unable to reach an agreement after a month of exclusive negotiations. Shareholders were bearish on that deal, saying it would enrich Ms. Redstone at their expense.

Under the terms currently being contemplated in the Sony-Apollo tie-up, Sony would be a controlling shareholder, with Apollo owning a minority stake, according to the two people familiar with the bidders’ strategy. Sony executives have discussed operating the Paramount studio as a division of their larger empire, uniting the studios behind the “Spider Man” and “Mission: Impossible” franchises and combining their theatrical marketing and distribution operations.

Though the finer points of the deal have yet to be detailed, Sony and Apollo have discussed putting Paramount — which includes the Paramount+ streaming service and the CBS broadcast network — into a joint venture, the two people said. One scenario under discussion is allowing Apollo to sell its minority stake back to Sony in a few years, allowing Sony to consolidate ownership of the company.

It is unclear what Skydance will do next. It sweetened its offer to Paramount last week, offering a $3 billion investment to buy back stock and pay down debt, but that extra incentive wasn’t enough to get the deal across the finish line. Skydance could still improve its bid, but one person familiar with the company’s strategy said it was unwilling to continue negotiating only to drive up the price for another suitor.

Paramount is still interested in a potential deal with Skydance and even offered to cover the company’s legal fees, one person familiar with the matter said.

It’s unclear how Sony and Paramount’s approaches to the entertainment business would mesh. Paramount has opted to follow Netflix into the business of selling directly to subscribers, signing up more than 71 million paying customers globally. Sony has eschewed its own streaming business and instead sells TV shows to entertainment conglomerates like Netflix and Disney.

Paramount, meanwhile, is preparing for the possibility that both deals could fall apart. The company just replaced Bob Bakish, its chief executive, with an “office of the C.E.O.” run by three division chiefs: Brian Robbins, chief executive of Paramount Pictures; Chris McCarthy, chief executive of Showtime and MTV Studios; and George Cheeks, the chief executive of CBS. They’re preparing to unveil a new long-term plan for the company.

The company is also considering a streaming joint venture with an array of potential partners including Comcast, which operates the Peacock streaming service, one of the people said.

 

[bryaalre]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1787531061787856981

 

[HokieRaven5]

Unsurprising news on the Hulu Acquisition

Disney and Comcast seek advisor to resolve Hulu valuation, sources say

JPMorgan has valued Hulu for Disney at close to $27.5 billion, which is the floor valuation for Hulu that the companies had set as part of their 2019 "put-call" agreement, one of the sources said.

Morgan Stanley valued Hulu for Comcast at more than $40 billion, another source said.
Disney and Comcast are now in talks to hire an investment bank that will independently value Hulu, the sources said, requesting anonymity because the matter is confidential.

As per the terms of the agreement, if the third appraisal is closest to the valuation of that produced by Disney's bank, the average of those two valuations will be the value at which the deal gets done.

Similarly, if the third appraisal is closest to the valuation of that produced by Comcast's bank, the average of those two valuations is the value at which the deal gets done.

If the average of the third appraisal is below $27.5 billion, the final valuation will be $27.5 billion.

 

[bryaalre]

Unsurprising news on the Hulu Acquisition

Disney and Comcast seek advisor to resolve Hulu valuation, sources say

JPMorgan has valued Hulu for Disney at close to $27.5 billion, which is the floor valuation for Hulu that the companies had set as part of their 2019 "put-call" agreement, one of the sources said.

Morgan Stanley valued Hulu for Comcast at more than $40 billion, another source said.
Disney and Comcast are now in talks to hire an investment bank that will independently value Hulu, the sources said, requesting anonymity because the matter is confidential.

Obviously, both firms are going to value Hulu based on how they were hired to but I feel like this looks like both firms are incompetent being this far a part from one another.

 

[wabbott]

Wonder if they'll stick to the terms, or will one (or both) of them litigate?

 

[Elijah Abrams]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1787531061787856981

Unsurprising news on the Hulu Acquisition

Disney and Comcast seek advisor to resolve Hulu valuation, sources say

JPMorgan has valued Hulu for Disney at close to $27.5 billion, which is the floor valuation for Hulu that the companies had set as part of their 2019 "put-call" agreement, one of the sources said.

Morgan Stanley valued Hulu for Comcast at more than $40 billion, another source said.
Disney and Comcast are now in talks to hire an investment bank that will independently value Hulu, the sources said, requesting anonymity because the matter is confidential.

As per the terms of the agreement, if the third appraisal is closest to the valuation of that produced by Disney's bank, the average of those two valuations will be the value at which the deal gets done.

Similarly, if the third appraisal is closest to the valuation of that produced by Comcast's bank, the average of those two valuations is the value at which the deal gets done.

If the average of the third appraisal is below $27.5 billion, the final valuation will be $27.5 billion.

How will this affect Disney’s ownership of Hulu?

 

[HokieRaven5]

How will this affect Disney’s ownership of Hulu?

It doesn’t. Just could add on to what Disney owes for Hulu pending the 3rd firm’s valuation.

If Hulu’s final value is determined to be $40B Disney owes $3.9B

If it’s $30B Disney owes $787M to Comcast

As of Q1 Disney had $7B in cash on hand and the cash balance as of Q2 will be shared tomorrow.

 

[wabbott]

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/b...llison-paramount-skydance-buy-bid-1235891151/

As Paramount Steers Into Unknown, David Ellison Woos A-Listers to Boost Flagging Bid

While Shari Redstone mulls bids for her empire, the Skydance mogul has labored — mostly in vain — to enlist A-listers to remind Hollywood that no one in town wants to lose another major studio.

May 6, 2024 - 12:35pm PDT

Whatever fate befalls Paramount Global after the smoke clears, one of the Hollywood Trivial Pursuit questions someday will be which heavy hitters have issued statements of support for Skydance’s proposed acquisition of Paramount’s holding company, National Amusements Inc. — and which didn’t.

Even as the Paramount special committee passed on the offer from David Ellison’s company May 4, sources say the Skydance-Redbird alliance has not given up. The premise, a source with knowledge of the situation tells The Hollywood Reporter, is that the rival Apollo/Sony Pictures offer now up for Paramount’s consideration will fail for multiple reasons, with Skydance still waiting in the wings.

So despite much Wall Street skepticism over a proposed deal that favors controlling shareholder Shari Redstone over other investors, “Skydance has been on an extremely aggressive PR campaign in the last month to convince everyone how legitimate they are,” says a prominent media mogul.

The company seems to have found success with Jim Cameron, who told the Financial Times on May 5 that he was a fan of the deal. Others — including Taylor Sheridan of the Yellowstone universe — have proved harder to get. You can bet that Tom Cruise’s support was also solicited given his deep and long relationship with Paramount, but he, too, has kept silent. A rep for Cruise declined comment; A rep for Sheridan denies the incident.

Also quoted in that FT piece was Endeavor and TKO’s Ari Emanuel, who said Ellison is “a natural acquirer” of the company. “David has a real movie business [with] big franchises,” he said. (Ellison is an investor in Paramount franchises including Mission: Impossible, Star Trek, Transformers and Top Gun but doesn’t own any of them.) “Everybody is in business with him — Amazon, Netflix, Apple, Paramount and Disney all have a good relationship with David.” Previously, on April 23, Emanuel told Reuters: “One of the things that people are underestimating … is [Ellison’s] sense of tech, compared to some of the other guys … maybe with his father’s help or just his upbringing. What they do with Paramount+ and all that other stuff I think will be refreshing.”

Neither the FT nor Reuters noted a detail that seems relevant: Emanuel represents Ellison. Given that Emanuel has multiple reasons to want the Skydance deal to make, his support doesn’t provide much of a fig leaf for Redstone if she were to circle back to it. (Also, remember, this is the same Ari who told a Bloomberg panel just months ago, in October 2023, that while he thought Warner Bros. Discovery and Disney would figure out the challenges of the moment, “I would not put my money on Paramount.”)

Though not many Hollywood players have spoken up in favor of Skydance, no one in town wants to lose another major studio — and another buyer of content — after Fox disappeared into Disney. And it’s assumed that if Apollo and Sony Pictures prevail with their rival $26 billion offer, Paramount will essentially vanish. That helps explain why CAA’s Bryan Lourd also went public, telling Reuters on April 23 that if Ellison could pull off the Paramount deal, he would be “an owner-operator that actually loves film and television and stories, and that is needed now more than ever.” Not quite an argument from a business point of view, but who doesn’t love love? (Lourd has declined further comment.)

Cameron is also feeling the love, telling the FT that he loves “the Ellison idea,” though there is scant information on what, exactly, Skydance would do with Paramount’s fading cable channels and money-hemorrhaging streamer. Another voice that entered the fray: Jeffrey Katzenberg, who on May 6 told the audience at the Axios BFD Talks: Los Angeles that a Skydance deal would be “a great win for Paramount and for people in the industry.” Whether that persuades Paramount investors — well, probably not.

The other messaging coming from the Ellison alliance is that the members of the three-man leadership team of CBS chief George Cheeks, Paramount Pictures’ Brian Robbins, and head of Showtime/MTV Entertainment Studios and Paramount Media Networks Chris McCarthy — who are running Paramount as co-CEOs either temporarily or not — are already at each other’s throats. Sources close to that team deny that claim vehemently.

As for Emanuel’s May 5 comment that Ellison has great relationships with everyone in town, that seems to be an exaggeration. He has often irked Paramount’s film studio leadership over a variety of matters, including claiming credit for Paramount hits that Skydance helped finance.

Meanwhile, on May 4, Oracle of Omaha Warren Buffett said at his company’s annual meeting that he had dumped his entire stake in Paramount. Buffett had started out with a $2.6 billion investment in May 2022, and then bought even more, making him the biggest shareholder in the company (with non-voting shares, as Redstone and NAI have voting control). “We sold it all, and we lost quite a bit of money,” Buffett said. Such a vote of no confidence could hardly have landed pleasantly with the remaining Paramount shareholders.

Making matters worse, Buffett — who has previously expressed skepticism about the streaming wars that have cost Paramount and other studios so much — added chilling words for everyone struggling to keep a legacy media business afloat. “I certainly looked harder about the whole question of what people do with their leisure time and what the governing principles are of running an entertainment business of any sort, whether it’s sports or movies or whatever it might be,” he said. “I think I’m smarter now than I was a couple years ago, but I also think I’m poorer because I acquired the knowledge in the manner I did.”


Alex Weprin contributed to this report.

 

[irlandaise]

If Hulu’s final value is determined to be $40B Disney owes $3.9B

If it’s $30B Disney owes $787M to Comcast

33% of $27.5B is $9,075,000,000. 33% of $40B is $13,200,000,000. Is there some other factor at play that would cause that huge jump in money owed if the value is $40B?

 

[HokieRaven5]

33% of $27.5B is $9,075,000,000. 33% of $40B is $13,200,000,000. Is there some other factor at play that would cause that huge jump in money owed if the value is $40B?

Disney already paid $8.61B at a valuation of $27.5B. Based on that Comcast’s share was actually 31.3%

So whatever the final valuation Disney pays 31.3% of the final value minus that $8.61B they already paid.

If the 3rd firm happens to come in under $27.5B (which I don’t expect), Disney would owe nothing in addition to what they’ve already paid.

 

[wabbott]

 

[wabbott]

https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/david-zaslav-warner-bros-discovery-paramount-nba-1235993187/

May 6, 2024 - 1:37pm PDT
by Cynthia Littleton

David Zaslav Sidesteps Paramount Global M&A Question, Talks NBA Rights Deal and High CEO Paychecks at Milken Conference

Warner Bros. Discovery is staying on the sidelines of the Paramount Global acquisition drama — at least for now. That was the signal sent Monday by WB Discovery CEO David Zaslav during his appearance at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills.

Zaslav was pressed during the hourlong panel about the status of WB Discovery’s bid to extend its TV rights agreement with the NBA, and he was pointedly asked to defend the high levels of compensation for media CEOs, including himself. Zaslav came in for criticism last week when his 2023 comp package of about $49 million was disclosed after a year in which WBD’s stock price sank by double digits.

“I think all CEOs need to be paid with alignment with shareholders,” Zaslav said. “And the majority of compensation should be aligned with the performance of the stock. And if the stock does well, then the CEO should do really should do much better. And if the stock doesn’t do well, the CEOs shouldn’t should not. And so I think alignment is critically important. That has been the focus for me over the years and I think it’s been the focus of investors — to get real alignment, not just between CEOs but senior leadership to be driven and be aligned with shareholder growth.”

Zaslav acknowledged that the disconnect between rising executive compensation and the erosion of earnings by rank-and-file creative community workers was a factor that fueled last year’s Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA strikes. He spoke on a panel designed to examine “The Corporate Compass: Charting the Role of the CEO” that also featured Carmine Di Sibio, CEO of EY, Time magazine CEO Jessica Sibley and FedEx chief Raj Subramaniam.

“Part of that was driven by the fact that the industry was changing so quickly. We didn’t quite know exactly how to fairly compensate and we were arguing about how do you fairly compensate on a streaming service versus a cable channel,” Zaslav said. “Ultimately, the goal has to be pay your people and have them feel that they’re paid fairly and seen and valued.”

The first question out of the gate for Zaslav from moderator Andy Serwer, editor at large for Barron’s and Dow Jones, was about the state of play around Paramount Global. In December, Zaslav had a meeting with Bob Bakish, who was ousted last week as Paramount CEO, and Zaslav is known to be close to Paramount controlling shareholder Shari Redstone. But there were never any indications of meaningful merger discussions between the companies. Zaslav didn’t give a flat-out “no” to the question of whether he’s still interested in Paramount, but his tone said it all.

“I know Shari well and they have a lot of great people there. It’s in our interest for them to be successful. So however it turns out, I hope that they’re successful,” he said. “Our focus is to create more content and be on more platforms so that people spend more time and are willing to spend more money for what we create. That’s really our focus.”

On the question of the NBA, Zaslav gave a pat answer but then underscored the importance of having pro hoops to core of WB Discovery’s television business.

“We we continue to be in constructive negotiations with the NBA,” Zaslav said. “It’s a great league. The TNT team does a terrific job. And we love the NBA.”

Zaslav emphasized that WB Discovery greatly prizes its mega events and live sports pacts that can reliably generate large audiences. The company is “one of the only real pure storytelling companies in the world,” meaning that it leans on recurring franchises like the NBA games that have aired on TNT for decades. Sports, like storytelling, has the ability to bring people together at a time from fragmentation and political polarization, he asserted.

“Sports is a big deal because for the same reasons [as storytelling] because it’s a shared experience,” he said. “It’s a positive experience. We’re all watching the [NBA playoff game between the] Knicks and the Pacers tonight. We’re all we’re all watching the Super Bowl together. [Sports] reminds us that we have so much more in common than what differentiates us.”

 

[wabbott]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/com...-losses-takes-hit-from-india-deal/ar-BB1lXBwS

Disney Pares Streaming Losses, Takes Hit From India Deal
Entertainment giant adds streaming customers as it swings to a loss as a result of charge from India media venture

By Robbie Whelan
May 7, 2024 - 6:30 am EDT

Disney is getting closer to its goal of breaking even in streaming this year, paring direct-to-consumer losses in its first quarterly earnings since Chief Executive Bob Iger fended off dueling proxy campaigns.

The media giant’s streaming unit lost $18 million in the March quarter, an improvement from a $659 million loss in the year-earlier quarter. Iger said the company is on track to achieve streaming profitability in the final quarter of the fiscal year that ends in September.

The company’s flagship Disney+ streaming service—home to movies such as “Wish” and TV shows including “Bluey”—added more than six million customers in the March quarter, meeting a rare subscriber forecast it provided investors in February.

Iger is in the throes of building a streaming-centric future for the entertainment giant as cable viewership declines. He has spent the past year aggressively cutting costs, modernizing ESPN and reinvigorating Disney’s studios after box-office stumbles.

As part of that right sizing, Disney merged its Star India operations—which includes its TV networks and the Hotstar streaming service—into a new joint venture with Reliance Industries and Viacom18. The company took a roughly $2 billion charge in the March quarter related to the India deal and to its linear television networks and swung to a loss of $20 million, from net income of $1.27 billion a year earlier.

Companywide revenue rose about 1% to $22.08 billion in the March quarter.

Disney bought the India business in 2019 as part of its $71.3 billion acquisition of most of 21st Century Fox’s global entertainment assets. It was considered a crown jewel of the deal, largely because of several key packages of cricket rights that Star held. When the company lost some of those rights, customers canceled.

The impairment indicates that the India business is today worth about $2 billion less than when Disney first purchased it, Disney Chief Financial Officer Hugh Johnston said.

Disney last month triumphed over activist investors Nelson Peltz, who unsuccessfully sought a board seat and pushed for budget cuts and other measures, and Blackwells Capital.

Corporate expenses jumped $112 million for the quarter to $391 million, as a result of costs related to its proxy battle—one of the most expensive shareholder fights ever—and annual meeting, as well as higher compensation and other cost inflation. Iger’s total compensation doubled in fiscal 2023 from the previous year to $31.6 million.

Shares are up 29% so far this year through Monday’s close.

The number of domestic Disney+ subscribers rose to 54 million in the March quarter from 46.1 million at the end of December. Overall global subscribers to Disney+, including its Hotstar service in India, increased to 153.6 million in the March quarter, from 149.6 million at the end of December.

As the company pushed toward streaming profitability over the past year, it cut content, marketing and administrative spending, including writing off the cost of shows it removed from its streaming services. Today, the company’s entertainment division is no longer as focused on write-downs, said Johnston.

The focus is as much as anything on how to produce great content at less cost,” Johnston said. “That’s more where the energy is than writing off old content.”

The company’s streaming business includes Disney+, ESPN+ and a majority stake in Hulu, home to fare such as “Shōgun” and “The Bear.” It is also working to create a stand-alone direct-to-consumer offering of its flagship ESPN TV channel and is joining with Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery on a new sports-streaming service that offers all of their live-sports programming.

Disney’s sports segment was hit during the quarter by increased programming and production costs related to the timing of College Football playoffs as well as lower affiliate revenue from cord-cutting. Sports revenue rose 2% to $4.31 billion, while operating income in the business fell 2% to $778 million.

Excluding sports, Disney’s streaming business earned a profit of $47 million for the quarter.

Sports are coveted assets for streaming services and cable companies alike vying for customers. Disney, a major TV partner to the National Basketball Association, is in the midst of a high-stakes battle for a new rights package.

Disney’s traditional TV business continues to suffer from declining viewership and was hurt in the quarter by a decline in advertising revenue. It also brought in lower affiliate revenue as a result of its new deal with Charter Communications, which includes the cable giant dropping eight of Disney’s cable networks. In return, Disney will get paid for its Disney+ service, which Charter offers to a majority of its customer.

The experiences division, which includes theme parks, cruises, videogames and consumer products, was a bright spot for the quarter.

Revenue increased 10% from a year earlier to $8.39 billion, while operating income rose 12% to $2.29 billion, partly the result of higher average ticket prices. Income rose at Florida’s Walt Disney World and the cruise segment, but fell at Disneyland Resort in California, where costs rose because of inflation, Disney said.

Write to Robbie Whelan at robbie.whelan@wsj.com

 

[wabbott]

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/DIS

The Walt Disney Company (DIS)

116.47 +2.81 (+2.47%) At close: May 6 at 4:00 PM EDT
110.83 -5.64 (-4.84%) Pre-Market: 7:13 AM EDT

 

[HokieRaven5]

THE WALT DISNEY COMPANY REPORTS SECOND QUARTER AND SIX MONTHS EARNINGS FOR FISCAL 2024

Financial Results for the Quarter:
• Revenues for the quarter increased to $22.1 billion from $21.8 billion in the prior-year quarter.
• Diluted earnings per share (EPS) was a loss of $0.01 for the current quarter compared to income of $0.69 in the prior-year quarter. Diluted EPS decreased to a nominal loss due to goodwill impairments in the quarter, partially offset by higher operating income at Entertainment and Experiences.
• Excluding certain items(1), diluted EPS for the quarter increased to $1.21 from $0.93 in the prior-year quarter.
Key Points:
• In the second fiscal quarter of 2024, we achieved strong double digit percentage growth in adjusted EPS(1), and met or exceeded our financial guidance for the quarter.
• As a result of outperformance in the second quarter, our new full year adjusted EPS(1) growth target is now 25%.
• We remain on track to generate approximately $14 billion of cash provided by operations and over $8 billion of free cash flow(1) this fiscal year.
• We repurchased $1 billion worth of shares in the second quarter and look forward to continuing to return capital to shareholders.
• The Entertainment Direct-to-Consumer business was profitable in the second quarter. While we are expecting softer Entertainment DTC results in Q3 to be driven by Disney+ Hotstar, we continue to expect our combined streaming businesses to be profitable in the fourth quarter, and to be a meaningful future growth driver for the company, with further improvements in profitability in fiscal 2025.
• Disney+ Core subscribers increased by more than 6 million in the second quarter, and Disney+ Core ARPU increased sequentially by 44 cents.
• Sports operating income declined slightly versus the prior year, reflecting the timing impact of College Football Playoff games at ESPN, offset by improved results at Star India.
• The Experiences business was also a growth driver in the second quarter, with revenue growth of 10%, segment operating income growth of 12%, and margin expansion of 60 basis points versus the prior year. Although the third quarter’s segment operating income is expected to come in roughly comparable to the prior year, we continue to expect robust operating income growth at Experiences for the full year.


Message From Our CEO:
“Our strong performance in Q2, with adjusted EPS(1) up 30% compared to the prior year, demonstrates we are delivering on our strategic priorities and building for the future,” said Robert A. Iger, Chief Executive Officer, The Walt Disney Company. “Our results were driven in large part by our Experiences segment as well as our streaming business. Importantly, entertainment streaming was profitable for the quarter, and we remain on track to achieve profitability in our combined streaming businesses in Q4.
“Looking at our company as a whole, it’s clear that the turnaround and growth initiatives we set in motion last year have continued to yield positive results. We have a number of highly anticipated theatrical releases arriving over the next few months; our television shows are resonating with audiences and critics alike; ESPN continues to break ratings records as we further its evolution into the preeminent digital sports platform; and we are turbocharging growth in our Experiences business with a number of near- and long-term strategic investments.”

 

[bryaalre]

The gain in domestic subscribers is super impressive but unsure why the loss in international (not India, but India still lost subscribers as well). I am assuming the price hikes overseas is the factor but I will be curious if it is questioned during the call.

 

[HokieRaven5]

The gain in domestic subscribers is super impressive but unsure why the loss in international (not India, but India still lost subscribers as well). I am assuming the price hikes overseas is the factor but I will be curious if it is questioned during the call.

Probably a decent churn with price hikes with ARPU going up $0.75 from the previous quarter.

 

[bryaalre]

Probably a decent churn with price hikes with ARPU going up $0.75 from the previous quarter.

Still super cheap compared to here, especially since we have to pay for Disney+ and Hulu separately. lol

 

[HokieRaven5]

Disney’s 10-Q Filing to the SEC

https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/0001744489/000174448924000152/dis-20240330.htm