Disney’s New Worst-Case Scenario
Today the threat map looks very different from when I first explored the Mouse House’s biggest risks
I offer analysis for paid subscribers every other Thursday. I wrote about 7 sleeper hits of the Streaming Wars; the 60M cable subscribers still to be won in streaming; how to bring $50M-$100M movies back; and the audience chart every exec should obsess over.
If I had to define the major media narrative of 2025, it would be the rise of YouTube. Seriously, I feel like every other newsletter I read has a headline that YouTube has “won” the Streaming Wars. (Though, of course, I disagree, since I don’t think we should ever declare victory in an ongoing competition!) The company’s CEO Neal Mohan has been all over the news, including in a conversation with Janice Min at Cannes Lions.
Of course, if someone’s rising, others need to fall. And the other favorite topic of 2025 is worrying about Disney, which has meant lots of commentary on Disney’s theatrical misses like Snow White, Captain America: Brave New World, and most recently, Elio. If any company looks to be headed to the kind of “worst-case scenario” I outlined a few years ago for entertainment’s top players — from Apple to Warner Bros. Discovery — it’s Disney.
Indeed, Disney’s stock doesn’t reflect a company riding a rocket ship at the moment (and yes, I know the market is filled with ridiculous price-to-earnings ratios and bubbles, and you can slap AI into a name and take off):
But you might say — live experiences and theme parks are the future of growth and Disney is doing great! Well, we’re not even back to pre-Covid attendance yet (I’ll get into the revenue significance of raised prices below though):
“Worst-case scenario” thinking is a useful exercise to crystallize threats facing any company and illuminate potential weaknesses. More than three years on from my last Disney analysis, it felt time to check in on the Mouse House under Bob Iger’s second reign as CEO, and whether it has steered further away from or closer to the “doom” scenario I hypothesized.
Let me get my usual throat clearing out of the way before I dive in. As I wrote when I started this series in 2022, I am not making predictions. Instead, I am looking at the, say, 1-in-20 scenario where everything goes wrong. What does that look like?
Today, I’ll update the 1-in-20 scenario I outlined for Disney in January 2022, assess how the company is faring and look at new risks ahead.
And there’s plenty of good and bad news for the Happiest Place on Earth…
Disney’s Worst-Case Scenario: Content
In a sign of how fast things can change…