☀️Iger increasing Chapek's DIS+ price hike, adds $1.5 Bil+ to The Great Studio Content Write-off
NETFLIX punts IRL Upfronts / CBS Fall schedule set / NBA continues big Audience boom
Mornin! This is Sean McNulty (connect with me on LinkedIn here if ya like), and here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know on THURSDAY May 11, 2023.
Where the NY JETS just got a lot more fans in Seattle - the JETS will play the DOLPHINS in the first Black Friday NFL game this year, the day after THANKSGIVING on AMAZON PRIME (it’ll be free for all to stream).
AND: NETFLIX’s first Upfronts is now going “virtual” on Wednesday (May 17), so you’ll have to BYOB (Booze, not Bob - this isn’t a DISNEY event). Anyone know how to picket a Zoom call? A friend was curious. YOUTUBE is still scheduled to go on as planned on the same evening in NYC.
PLUS: Nearly 50% of WBD shareholders voted against the 2022 Top Exec pay packages at their Annual Meeting this week: 770 Million against, 793 Million for.
Doesn’t really matter as the votes are non-binding (i.e. execs are basically free to pay themselves what they like as long as they can get the Board of Directors members to sign off).
WAKEUP BOX OFFICE POLL: The weekend’s main new entrant from FOCUS, Book Club: The Next Chapter is tracking at $7 Mil to $10 Mil for Mothers Day weekend.
The original opened to $13 Mil, on it’s way to $68 Million US. 80 For Brady did $12.7 Mil in Feb (with reduced ticket pricing).
IN TODAY’S EDITION:
DISNEY stock is -8% this morning on their Q1 Earnings numbers - they’re the next to join the Great Streaming Content Write-Off movement, and the total Streaming subscriber count took a hit (as expected).
Plus $1 Billion of profits evaporating from a major business line in one year’s time is never great.
But as DISNEY combines price hikes that Chapek started with the Iger spending cuts acumen… they’re still on their path to Streaming profitability. And Theme Parks are back in a big way. Take a #medianerd🤓 dive into all the numbers to know, Iger’s to do list, and things to keep in mind on the horizon.
PLUS: CBS releases their Fall lineup, Q2 Sports continues to draw the big audiences on TV, and more.
AND: Usually I close the newsletter when Howard Stern posts videos with new guests, but this Ed Sheeran video yesterday of Ed showing with his guitar how ludicrous his recent lawsuit was is fantatstic (other new great clips with Ed are on Howard’s YT page too).
🪧 STRIKE NOTES
Ava DuVernay’s STARZ half-hour romantic drama series with Joshua Jackson and Lauren Ridloff is suspending production due to the WGA Strike. It began shooting in NC in March and has a 3-season order. /Deadline
Iger / DISNEY was the only company to at least really acknowledge the strike in their Q1 Earnings Call prepared remarks… but mostly in that it could affect their content spend projections for the rest of the year downward. Not in any material damage to their businesses.
AND REMEMBER: For extensive daily Strike coverage, photos and videos from the frontlines - Elaine Low is doing a daily evening roundup of Strike news over at The Ankler’s Strikegeist newsletter here (it’s free!).
📽 THE SILVER SCREEN
