☀️ DISNEY Q1: Streaming Boom, TV Crumble, Stock Drop
NETFLIX Films makes big faith-based deal / PAR+ orders comedy / More NBA terms emerging
Mornin! This is Sean McNulty (connect with me on LinkedIn here if ya like), and here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know on TUESDAY, May 7, 2024.
Where my apologies for the newsletter coming out a little late today, but things got a little crazy at Jeff & Lauren’s afterparty for the Met Gala last night. Who knew charades could get so out of hand? 😳
Okay fine 🙄 . . . no brands invited me to sit at their $350k table, and I was in bed by 10:30 p.m. so I could spend my morning knee-deep in DISNEY earnings report charts and listening to Bob Iger in my slippers.
For the record, I also did not win a Pulitzer Prize yesterday — like these folks — but in my defense, they still have not added a gif category.
ALTHOUGH: There was no strike protest last night at the Met Gala from the CONDE Union employees as once feared . . . because the company reached a tentative agreement with the union representing around 550 CONDE employees in the wee hours Monday morning. The union had been threatening a 48-hour strike yesterday and today. #goodtiming
One would think this will put an end to the “rubber room” situation many employees who are likely to be laid off have been put in for months now, while these negotiations dragged on.
Anyone affected by layoffs secured 8 weeks severance, but there was no mention of a reduction in the size of the layoffs proposed by CONDE back in November (and augmented in March).
AND: Just a note for the movie business, in case “We’ll just raise ticket prices to make up the 💰 gap in 2024” is a conversation happening right now — both STARBUCKS and major fast-food chains like MCDONALD’S have cited inflated prices as lowering the number of visits Americans are making to their businesses in 2024.
STARBUCKS leadership cited that U.S. Q1 consumer spending headwinds were “sharper and more accelerated than we expected.”
One former weekly MCDONALD’S patron added this in a recent WSJ piece: “It’s not that I can’t afford it now, it’s the frustration that the same meal now costs nearly double what it did.” Pay attention, theater chains.
OH: Anyone wondering why NETFLIX and MAX are making new network-style medical procedurals? See the latest NIELSEN overall TV chart 👇 (The Resident went off the air on FOX well over a year ago).
THEN: Gotta love what a photo finish can do 🐎 — NBC got the biggest Kentucky Derby audience since 1989, with 16.7 Million viewers in fast NIELSENS (15.9M linear, and 740k PEACOCK according to ADOBE ANALYTICS). The streaming audience nearly 2x’d from last year, which put the combined total over the top here.
This was the largest TV audience so far this year outside of the NFL 🏈 and women’s college hoops 🏀 championship.
BTW: The KNICKS vs. SIXERS 🏀 game 6 last week was the biggest NBA first-round playoff game since 2018, with 5.1M viewers on TNT and TruTV (4.75M and 375k).
With the LAKERS and WARRIORS out of the picture . . . gotta think Iger & David Zaslav are pulling hard for the KNICKS this year.
Although as a longtime fan, Zaslav has been rooting for a long time — here with David Geffen by his side last week at MSG.
PLUS: This was a #goodread from NYT on the increasing “Americanization” effects that PREMIER LEAGUE fans are seeing from the increasing U.S. ownership of their teams. Currently about half of the teams have American owners, and it could be 13 of 20 by next year (imagine if half of NFL or NBA teams were owned by foreign entities?)
AND: As these American investors look to, uh, make money on their investments (only 7 of the 20 PREMIER LEAGUE teams turned a profit last year), their ideas — adding luxury boxes, putting up fancy hotels around the stadiums, salary caps, etc — are chafing with long-held English football culture, which is really centered on showing up to cheer for your club, shoulder to shoulder with the rest of the fanbase, and going home.
IN TODAY’S EDITION:
DISNEY arguably has it’s best streaming quarter ever . . . and yet the stock is -9%. Take a look at the DISNEY Q1 numbers to know from linear TV 🫤, to sports/ESPN (including an overall growth opportunity for DISNEY streaming when it goes D2C), upcoming password crackdown impact timing, and much more. Oh yes, and the kinda curious response to the succession question.
PLUS: Yes, this is a new poll of just 1,250 college students (from Generation Lab), but just something to keep in mind here this graduation season.
DISNEY Finds Q1 Streaming Profit in Entertainment . . . but Linear TV — Oof
So, in terms of streaming’s importance at DISNEY in Wall Street’s eyes here in 2024 — it finally reached profitability (if you exclude ESPN+), and added 8 Million DIS+ U.S. subs alone — the biggest quarterly growth ever for the service . . . but the stock is -9% this morning.
The streaming 2021 business is definitely doing a 🤯. But, here’s what’s afoot.