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Posted: 6/4/2023 11:35:09 PM EDT
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8-12 trimming the post a bit post earnings call.-------------------------------  Boycott Disney NOW...Wreck the Rat TL : DR Disney is hurting financially and pulling back resources to try and shore up their books - hulu deal related (they need resources to do it, badly). The guys are saying that disney is going to have to leverage themselves HARD to try and cover the put that comcast is going to be dropping on them. They need a really good quarter, or they are liable to take a pummeling. Their financial year ends in september, they do an investor call / report in november... Six months where them getting hit will hurt them measurably.-------------------------------
6-5Disney deserves to be suffering real material losses for grooming kids sexually (they have bluntly admitted they are trying to lard their content up with sexual anarchy stuff - aka lgbtqia+infinity see the video: https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1508912865293619202) and they have even been found to be giving their employees insurance that covers chemical and medical mutilations in service of the trans destruction of self stuff: https://nb.fidelity.com/public/consultingportal/disneyportal/file_view.php?file_name=QA_Gender%20Affirmation%20Coverage_Revised%205192021.pdf... and they have not backed off of any of this stuff. They have, in fact, put their stock holders in a corner with their stupid lawsuits and constantly saying stuff that indicates that reedy creek SD was not what it legally should have been. What "Comcast will drop a put on disney" means:https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/hulu-disney-comcast-deal-future-1235322106/?_escaped_fragment_=Disney is the majority owner of Hulu, holding a two-thirds stake, while Comcast owns a third. Starting in January 2024, Comcast can use a put option to require Disney to take over its stake, while Disney can tell Comcast to sell it its stake. A transaction would be a multibillion-dollar affair. As per an agreement between the two companies, Hulu would get a fair-market value assessment from independent experts. However, the guaranteed minimum Hulu valuation of $27.5 billion means that Disney would have to cough up at least around $9 billion. Seems like people think it's inevitable that comcast is going to drop the put option on them. Disney is in bad shape financially and they are cutting back on projects, their films are not making profit - those require roughly twice the production price in sales to make profit because ticket sales only return around 50% - and they are now hated (rightfully) by a significant number of former customers. Top that off with them possibly being stuck with having to pay back the RCSD bond (the sd was allowed to issue bonds) ... that could hit them for a billion or more, which could wind up with the state having a lien on disney world. Disney is VERY vulnerable right now. These are good conditions for them being foced to suffer deserved real material losses for their continual horrid actions and rehtoric. --------------------------------------------------------6-10Well, comcast isn't defraying the cost of hulu operations for disney anymore: https://thedesk.net/2023/05/comcast-stops-funding-hulu-disney-fight/Comcast stops funding Hulu as fight with Disney escalates
The two sides are likely to bring their issue before an arbitrator next year as Disney looks to buy Comcast's 33 percent stake in the streamer.
By: Matthew KeysThursday, May 25, 2023
Comcast's NBC Universal has stopped providing financial backing to general entertainment streamer Hulu as the company works with the Walt Disney Company on a potential acquisition of the cable giant's minority stake.
The two sides have until early 2024 to find common ground on the valuation of Hulu as part of a broader transaction that would see Disney acquiring full control of the service from Comcast.
Disney and NBC Universal were two of the three media brands who launched Hulu as a joint venture in 2007, years before streaming overtook cable to become the dominant platform for television. Both companies owned an equal 30 percent stake, with 21st Century Fox (now Fox Corporation) holding another 30 percent, and a rotating group of minority investors owning the last 10 percent.
In early 2019, Disney bought Fox's stake in Hulu as part of a broader asset purchase. The remaining 10 percent not owned by Disney or Comcast was split between the two companies after WarnerMedia exited the venture.
Both sides have been working for years to settle on a long-term plan for Hulu, which will almost certainly end with Disney acquiring Comcast's 33 percent stake in the venture next year. One area of contention is how much that 33 percent stake is worth as Hulu becomes more successful, Disney reaps most of the rewards, but the valuation increases accordingly for Comcast's stake, and that raises the potential acquisition price. (Some estimates put the potential valuation as high as $27.5 billion.)
Disney and Comcast compete in other areas both have standalone streaming services for some of their own content (Disney Plus and Peacock) and Hulu has been viewed as something of a stepchild for both companies, who have struggled for years with how to reap the financial benefits of the venture without giving the other side a leg up.
Last year, Comcast drew the first blow when it decided to pull its top-tier NBC content from Hulu and move shows like "The Office" and "Parks & Recreation" to Peacock exclusively. The move helped spur interest in Peacock, but it didn't necessarily come at a detriment to Hulu; Disney responded by incorporating more television shows from FX and Freeform into the service, and inking separate licensing agreements with competitors like Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) for classic sitcoms and dramas. The end result is that Hulu's subscriber growth, while stagnant compared to its peers, didn't move in the other direction.
On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal revealed for the first time that Disney and Comcast have brought their issue before an arbitrator, who may ultimately wind up deciding how much Hulu is worth if both sides can't settle on a number by early next year. The Journal's report also said that Comcast had stopped funding Hulu, citing unnamed people who were purportedly familiar with the company's finances; Disney has stepped in to cover the bills, the Journal said.
Earlier this month, Disney said it will introduce a new streaming option that marries the content libraries of Hulu with its family-friendly Disney Plus by the end of the year. The so-called "super app" will allow streamers to watch shows from ABC, FX, Freeform and Fox alongside classic and current Disney films in one place, without having to switch services. View Quote And the disney having only about 200M cash on hand claim:  Comcast WRECKS Disney in SECRET Hulu Move...This May BREAK Mickey And the specific time is 6:40 in ... link to directly that bit of the video: https://youtu.be/lm8qh_m4Czk?t=400This will be going against a ~9 billion dollar minimum bill they're gong to be stuck with shortly when comcast uses their option to force disney to buy their share of that service.
7-1
https://www.forbes.com/sites/carolinereid/2023/07/01/disney-reveals-doctor-strange-2-cost-100-million-more-than-its-estimated-budget/Disney Reveals Doctor Strange 2 Cost $100 Million More Than Its Estimated Budget
Caroline Reid
Contributor
I cover the entertainment industry focusing on movies and theme parks.
Jul 1, 2023,10:28am EDT
Disney has revealed that last year's blockbuster Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness cost $94.5 million more to make than the movie's $200 million estimated production budget. View Quote Disney World Turns Into Ghost Town, Waits Reach Historic Lows
Posted by: Brittni Ward July 2, 2023
In a viral TikTok, One Guest is surprised by the number of people not at Disney's Hollywood Studios. This Guest explains that the Fourth of July is two days away and a Saturday, but there were not terrible crowds. Most of the attractions at Disney's Hollywood Studios and Magic Kingdom had low wait times. As a matter of fact, the wait times were listed at 30% less compared to last year and 2019, which is historically low. Looks like they've been down on attendance since sometime around april or may: https://www.thrill-data.com/waits/chain/wdw/ (green is roughly 20-30 min) The Walt Disney Company's 2022 Domestic Box Office Grosses The Worst In Over Two Decades
John F. Trent July 10, 2023 Movies
The Walt Disney Company's 2022 box office grosses are the worst the company has posted in nearly two decades. Not only are the grosses the worst in nearly two decades but just since 2019 the company has seen their grosses decline nearly 70%.
YouTuber and scooper WDW Pro says, "The Walt Disney Company has seen something like a 70% drop in the box office totals it's receiving since 2019. Now, you might blame that on the pandemic, perhaps, and say, 'We're in a post-pandemic world.' But if that's the case then why is Disney on track to drop hundreds of millions of dollars versus their 2022 box office totals."
The YouTuber went on to make his point by citing Box Office Pro's report of The Walt Disney Company's 2019 box office grosses. The outlet reported the company grossed "$13.1 billion globally across its Disney and Fox film releases in 2019."
They added "that number includes $4.3283 billion in North America and $8.8234 billion overseas."
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Fast forward to 2022 and Box Office Pro reports The Walt Disney Company only earned $2 billion domestically and another $2.9 internationally for a global gross of $4.9 billion. That's a 62% decline from 2019.
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Not only are grosses down, but so are ticket sales. The-Numbers notes that The Walt Disney Company sold 408,569,611 tickets in domestic theaters in 2019. In 2022, the company only sold 129,776,098 tickets. That's the lowest number of tickets sold in The-Numbers' entire tracking history that goes back to 1995. In 1995 the company sold 232,649,211 tickets.
2008 previously held the record for least tickets sold with 139,286,843.
....
Given these numbers from Deadline, WDW Pro says, "That Disney despite having $3.4 billion in revenue Disney will struggle to top $4 billion total. In fact, I think the number they will probably arrive at is $4.2 billion. We'll see how that plays out. That's projecting a bit, but it's also reading the tea leaves and taking a look at where they have been this year and how their films have performed and playing that out with the very few releases they have left."
"Now, $4.2 billion, of course, is a decrease from where they were just last year, right? So $4.9 [billion] to $4.2 [billion] that means a $700 million drop is likely," he continued. "And when you consider that kind of a drop versus the more than $13 billion they were making in 2019, that's a 70% approximate because we don't know exactly where this will land, but about a 70% drop overall." More and context and content snipped out at the link. Disney pulling back on making Marvel, Star Wars content, Iger says
Published Thu, Jul 13 20239:17 AM EDTUpdated Thu, Jul 13 20231:00 PM EDT
Lillian Rizzo
@Lilliannnn
Key Points
Disney CEO Bob Iger said there will be a pullback in content spending and creation for the Star Wars and Marvel franchises.
Earlier this year Disney said it would slash $5.5 billion in costs, including $3 billion in nonsports content costs.
Iger said the explosion in Marvel TV shows in recent years "diluted focus and attention" for the brand.
Disney is slowing down when it comes to making movies and TV series for its Marvel Studios and Lucasfilm franchises, CEO Bob Iger said Thursday on CNBC.
The move comes as the company is looking to cut costs during a time when its recent films, from Marvel to animation, have underwhelmed at the box office.
"You pull back not just to focus, but also as part of our cost containment initiative. Spending less on what we make, and making less," Iger said Thursday.
Earlier this year, Disney rolled out a broad reorganization of the business that included $5.5 billion in cutting costs, of which $3 billion would be slashed from content excluding sports.
Iger said Thursday that a lot of decisions were made to prop up the company's flagship streaming service, Disney+, and beckon more customers.
While also noting that Disney had some Pixar animation misses in recent months, he called out Marvel as being a particular example of the company's "zeal" to pump up its original content on streaming.
"Marvel is a great example of that. It had not been in the television business at any significant level, and not only did they increase their movie output, but they ended up making a number of TV series," said Iger. "Frankly, it diluted focus and attention."
...
On Thursday, Iger said it was possible the company would license Disney content to other streaming platforms.
"It's a possibility. I won't rule it out," Iger said. He added that licensing had been part of a collection of models that formed the traditional TV business, and holding back content for their own platform in the early days of streaming was the right move. Iger selling stuff: Bob Iger shifts from building an empire to a Disney yard sale
Bob Iger built Disney into the world's most powerful entertainment company by acquiring Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilm. Now he's looking to downsize.
Iger put roughly a third of the company up for sale this week, declaring Disney's linear TV assets noncore. That includes TV networks ABC, FX and Freeform. He also said Disney is looking for a strategic partner for ESPN though he's not willing to sell the whole thing and the company is already looking to sell or restructure its TV and streaming business in India.
It's a stunning if inevitable turn of events for an executive who spent so much of his career working in TV, and for a company that relied on cable networks for the majority of its profit. Before the pandemic, Disney's media networks generated 35%, or $24.8 billion, of company revenue and more than 50%, or $7.5 billion, of its operating income. Desperate Disney Reached Out to 3 Major Companies to Dump Some of ESPN
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According to CNBC, Disney's sports division has been holding talks on "strategic partnerships" with Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association and the National Football League to see if any of the three major leagues might be willing to come on as minority investors.
The NBA seemed to confirm that discussions have taken place: "We have a longstanding relationship with Disney and look forward to continuing the discussions around the future of our partnership," the league said in a statement.
MLB and the NFL declined to comment.
...
ESPN
By C. Douglas Golden July 22, 2023 at 8:08am *Heavily* truncated for the tl : dr crew. Read the whole thing at the link if you want it all and coherently. - Iger may sell disney? https://www.thewrap.com/bob-iger-strike-disney-sale/No More Mr. Nice Guy: Bob Iger May Just Want to Sell Disney and Be Done
Pro Available to WrapPRO members
The CEO's uncharacteristic antagonism toward strikers may point to an M&A state of mind
Peter Csathy
July 27, 2023 @ 9:44 AM
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Why the sudden about-face by Mr. Nice to become the dual strikes' Dr. Evil? It all may be because he's got an industry upending deal a sale of Disney on his mind, and his primary audience is Wall Street, not Hollywood talent.
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Keep in mind, Iger was speaking to CNBC, as direct a megaphone to Wall Street trading floors as you can get. His comments may reflect a desire to present the best possible economic case to his Sun Valley audience other captains of industry and the financial community whom he needs on his side to cross the goal line. Big-ticket M&A covets stability, rather than transformed basic industry economics. Uncertainty and change don't translate well into higher price tags for assets. I've been on both sides of the table in media acquisition deals and have experienced this first-hand.
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Analysts strongly believe Iger is considering a sale of Mouse House assets he all but put a "for sale" sign on the ABC network in that same CNBC interview. Adding credibility to this M&A scenario are Iger's recent comments that linear television "may not be core" to Disney's business, comments he later tried to walk back. Even ESPN, once a sacred cow, is sacred no more, as Iger seeks outside investors to help fund the network's transition to streaming.
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Apple's Tim Cook, another Sun Valley regular, is most assuredly watching this movie. He is the obvious buyer, and an Apple-Disney pairing would be applauded by Wall Street.
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To be clear, Cook certainly wouldn't want to buy all of Disney's assets, like its theme parks, for example. Apple, in great need of franchise content and a deeper content pool for Apple TV+ to more effectively compete with Netflix and Max, would likely seek to acquire just Disney's prized entertainment assets, leaving the theme parks and TV networks for others to pick over.
... UBER tl : dr - There has been speculation that disney or large assets of disney may be sold off to apple making the rounds for a while now. --------------------------------------------------------7-30Disney losing regarding their trying dirty tricks with the SD just as they lost the old one: TL : DW - right as disney was losing it's old special district they rammed through an agreement trying to do a "takesiebacksie" to try and continue having control as they did in the old special district - uber sleazy HOA tricks (remember that stupid king charles / insanely long time stuff?). The new incoming special district board that disney doesn't like, cooperate with or control ... sued them over this abject nonsense. Disney tried to get the case thrown out. Well, the judge ruled that no, it's not being thrown out, if you got what you wanted this would change ALL hoa law in florida and bring up huge questions of state government sovereignty, etc. Lawyer in the video says that this should/will (we'll see) stop the federal case that disney has going because the state case has to be resolved first. Basically, disney got cup-checked with a baseball bat.  Disney LOSES in Florida Court. My Reasoning CONFIRMED No TL : DW. It's a summation of the situation disney is in so far. IMO, worth your time. It is "pepperidge farms remembers" with sober analysis.  Disney Is BROKEN. Thank Bob Iger. CEO of IMAX saying marvel movie "the marvels" is a backup, just in case dune 2 gets delayed. https://www.westernjournal.com/imax-ceo-relegates-disney-backup-wont-show-marvel-film-unless-dune-2-gets-delayed/IMAX CEO Relegates Disney to 'Backup,' Won't Show Marvel Film Unless 'Dune 2' Gets Delayed
By Bryan Chai July 30, 2023 at 10:50am
Gelfond was speaking about the upcoming Disney/Marvel movie "The Marvels" and how "we can't play it because we are committed to" the sequel to the blockbuster sci-fi epic, "Dune." "The Marvels" is slated to release Nov. 10, and "Dune: Part Two" comes out just a week earlier on the 3rd.
Instead of splitting the large IMAX theaters (and the extra revenue that comes from those more expensive tickets), it appears "Dune: Part Two" will get all the attention at IMAX.
The IMAX CEO called the female-led "Marvels" movie as "great," but added that "Dune 2" would have to be delayed or moved and only then would the IMAX theaters "go over to" the Disney film.
And Gelfond doesn't expect "Dune: Part Two" to be delayed.
"[M]y own opinion, is that [Dune 2 is] highly unlikely to move," Gelfond added, before calling his statement "an educated opinion."
"The Marvels," meanwhile, have been relegated to Plan B for IMAX.
"[H]aving a Marvel movie as a backup is not the worst position to be in the world," Gelfond said, in perhaps his most stinging of backhanded compliments. Iger has hired previous possible sucessors of his to try and staunch the bleeding. Video says that dis has lost a very large advert partner, but not which (yet, at least). (see related news on how disney has been mis-handling advertiser relations and worse here).  Disney Gets Tom Staggs and Kevin Mayer Back to the Company as Disney+ and ESPN+ Ads Reportedly Fall! It would seem iger is trying to find a way to sorth through their current contracts/deals and find a way to start cutting away fat and converting everything to streaming, and maybe sandbagging for the earnings call by doing hires that would make investors happy. Disney creates task force to explore AI and cut costs - sources
By Dawn Chmielewski and Krystal Hu
August 8, 20236:55 PM UTCUpdated an hour ago
Aug 8 (Reuters) - Walt Disney (DIS.N) has created a task force to study artificial intelligence and how it can be applied across the entertainment conglomerate, even as Hollywood writers and actors battle to limit the industry's exploitation of the technology.
Launched earlier this year, before the Hollywood writers' strike, the group is looking to develop AI applications in-house as well as form partnerships with startups, three sources told Reuters.
As evidence of its interest, Disney has 11 current job openings seeking candidates with expertise in artificial intelligence or machine learning.
The positions touch virtually every corner of the company - from Walt Disney Studios to the company's theme parks and engineering group, Walt Disney Imagineering, to Disney-branded television and the advertising team, which is looking to build a "next-generation" AI-powered ad system, according to the job ad descriptions.
A Disney spokesperson declined to comment.
One of the sources, an internal advocate who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, said legacy media companies like Disney must either figure out AI or risk obsolescence.
This supporter sees AI as one tool to help control the soaring costs of movie and television production, which can swell to $300 million for a major film release like "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny" or "The Little Mermaid." Such budgets require equally massive box office returns simply to break even. Cost savings would be realized over time, the person said. EARNINGS CALL on WED, Aug 9.  WALT DISNEY COMPANY EARNINGS CALL LIVE Q3 2023 | Bob Iger's RECKONING? While it's still up. It's going to be pulled and cut into clips later. ------------------------- https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/disney-streaming-subs-miss-company-surprises-huge-streaming-price-hike-slashes-capexDisney Streaming Subs Miss, As Company Surprises With Huge Price Hike, Slashes CapEx Outlook
Tyler Durden's Photo
by Tyler Durden
Wednesday, Aug 09, 2023 - 09:24 PM
It's going from bad to worse for Hollywood woke icon Disney, and embattled CEO Bob Iger, whose stock is unchanged over the past decade and today's earnings release won't help: while the company reported earnings which beat expectations (just barely) amid a massive cost-cutting effort, even as total revenue and streaming subs missed, despite continued - for now - strength at Disney parks where one can enter in exchange for at least one kidney).
Here are the Q3 highlights:
Adjusted EPS $1.03 vs. $1.09 y/y, beating estimates of 99c (the company recorded $2.44b charge in 3Q related to the removal of content from DTC services and termination of certain third party license agreements)
Revenue $22.33 billion, +3.8% y/y, missing estimates of $22.51 billion
Media and entertainment distribution revenue $14.00 billion, -0.8% y/y, missing estimates of $14.36 billion
Parks, experiences and products revenue $8.33 billion, +13% y/y, beating estimates of $8.25 billion
Total segment operating income $3.56 billion, -0.2% y/y, beating estimates of $3.4 billion
Media and entertainment distribution operating income $1.13 billion, -18% y/y, beating estimates of $1.05 billion
Parks, experiences and products operating income $2.43 billion, +11% y/y, beating estimates of $2.39 billion
Direct-to-consumer operating loss $512m, missing estimates of loss $777.7m
Disney+ subscribers 146.1 million, missing estimates of 154.8 million
ESPN+ subscribers 25.2 million, beating estimates of 25.8 million
Hulu & Live TV subscribers 4.30 million, missing estimates of 4.40 million
Total Hulu subscribers 48.3 million, missing estimates of 48.7 million
ESPN+ ARPU $5.45, missing estimates of $5.69
Hulu SVOD ARPU $12.39, beating estimates of $12.25
Hulu Live TV + SVOD ARPU $91.80, missing estimates of $92.52
Commenting on the results, Bob Iger said that "In the eight months since my return, these important changes are creating a more cost-effective, coordinated, and streamlined approach to our operations that has put us on track to exceed our initial goal of $5.5 billion in savings as well as improved our direct-to-consumer operating income by roughly $1 billion in just three quarters."
Despite the revenue miss, the company beat earnings after the world's largest entertainment company launched an extensive cost-cutting effort after CEO Bob Iger returned to run the company in November. That included 7,000 job cuts and other reductions in spending.
Looking at the key driver of DIS growth, streaming, there was good and bad news:
The good news is that Disney's online video operation cut its loss to $512 million from more than $1 billion a year ago, an improvement to the company's recent guidance that the direct-to-consumer business would lose more than $750 million in the quarter.
The bad news is that Disney+ streaming subs tumbled 7.4% to 146.1 million from the previous three months, missing the 154.8 million consensus analysts had expected. While nearly all of that shortfall was borne by the company's Disney+ Hotstar in Asia where it lost almost 25% of its customers after Disney failed to renew streaming rights for popular cricket games in the Indian Premier League, domestic Disney+ subs also dropped: subs in the U.S. and Canada dropped to 46 million subscribers, from 46.3 million in the previous quarter; marked the second time ever that the company saw Disney+ lose North American subscribers.
The company's parks business generated $8.33 billion in revenue, a 13% increase from a year earlier. The company said growth at its international parks offset lower results domestically.
Parks and streaming aside, Disney continues to be a melting ice cube and reported a 23% decline in profit, to $1.89 billion, in traditional TV, underscoring the troubles confronting that division; the number was $100 million less than what analysts had expected. The business, which includes channels such as ABC and ESPN, has been buffeted by falling cable subscribers, lower broadcast advertising sales and higher programming costs for sports.
Once a reliable engine of profit for Disney, linear TV has seen its operating income plunge in recent years as more consumers cut the cable cord and switch to streaming video as their primary source of home entertainment.
Adding insult to injury, management is also now dealing with strikes by the Writers Guild of America and Screen Actors Guild that have effectively shut down production of new TV shows and movies across the entire media industry.
So realizing that he has to wow the street with something, or else risk losing his job again, for the second time in about a year, Iger announced a round of staggering price increases to its various streaming products, raising the cost of the ad-free versions of Disney+ and Hulu by as much as 27% each.
The company also raised prices on its Hulu Live television packages and announced the launch of a new bundle known as the Duo Premium, which pairs Disney+ and Hulu without ads for $19.99 a month. Previously, the company had offered both services as stand-alone products, or bundled with ESPN+ for the same price.
Wednesday's price increases, which take effect in October, mean that the monthly cost of the ad-free stand-alone version of Disney+ has doubled to $13.99 from its 2019 introductory price of $6.99. The price of Disney's ad-free Hulu service will rise to $17.99 from $14.99, making it more expensive than the most popular ad-free version of rival Netflix.
The changes come as Disney struggles to pivot from its old model of distributing content in movie theaters, on network and cable television and through the sale of physical media to a streaming-first paradigm.
Since launching Disney+ in late 2019, the company has lost more than $10 billion in its direct-to-consumer segment, which also includes Hulu and ESPN+. And for much of the past year, Disney's shares have traded below $100 as investors have grown impatient with media companies such as Disney that have spent heavily to acquire subscribers without giving priority to profit.
In March, Iger said that in its "zeal to grow global subs," the company had underpriced its streaming services and hinted that higher prices were coming. In December, after the company launched its first-ever ad-supported tier for Disney+ and raised prices on the ad-free version by $3, the low level of cancellations indicated that there was room to raise prices further without reducing demand, Iger said.
Disney is also in the throes of major management upheaval: Iger signaled in a July interview with CNBC that TV networks including ABC, Freeform and FX, which contributed about half of Disney's operating income before the pandemic, "may not be core" to the company any longer. He's also seeking to sell a stake in the ESPN sports business to a partner that can help accelerate the network's transition to streaming. Iger recently hired former lieutenants Kevin Mayer and Tom Staggs as consultants to advise on that effort.
On Tuesday, ESPN announced a long-term agreement with casino operator Penn Entertainment Inc. to license its brand for sports betting. Penn will make cash payments totaling $1.5 billion over the 10-year term and grant ESPN $500 million of warrants to purchase Penn shares.
While the stock was sharply lower in after-hours trading on the revenue and subscriber miss, and not even news of the surging subscriber costs did anything to move the stock, what did send DIS stock sharply higher after hours was the flashing red Bloomberg headline from the conference call that Disney would slash its capex by $5 billion compared to prior forecast. The news of the company's admission that it sees far fewer growth opportunities was enough to push the stock as much as 6% higher...
... before it resumed selling once again. View Quote The good news is that Disney's online video operation cut its loss to $512 million from more than $1 billion a year ago, an improvement to the company's recent guidance that the direct-to-consumer business would lose more than $750 million in the quarter.
The bad news is that Disney+ streaming subs tumbled 7.4% to 146.1 million from the previous three months, missing the 154.8 million consensus analysts had expected. While nearly all of that shortfall was borne by the company's Disney+ Hotstar in Asia where it lost almost 25% of its customers after Disney failed to renew streaming rights for popular cricket games in the Indian Premier League, domestic Disney+ subs also dropped: subs in the U.S. and Canada dropped to 46 million subscribers, from 46.3 million in the previous quarter; marked the second time ever that the company saw Disney+ lose North American subscribers.
The company's parks business generated $8.33 billion in revenue, a 13% increase from a year earlier. The company said growth at its international parks offset lower results domestically.
Parks and streaming aside, Disney continues to be a melting ice cube and reported a 23% decline in profit, to $1.89 billion, in traditional TV, underscoring the troubles confronting that division; the number was $100 million less than what analysts had expected. The business, which includes channels such as ABC and ESPN, has been buffeted by falling cable subscribers, lower broadcast advertising sales and higher programming costs for sports.
...
Wednesday's price increases, which take effect in October, mean that the monthly cost of the ad-free stand-alone version of Disney+ has doubled to $13.99 from its 2019 introductory price of $6.99. The price of Disney's ad-free Hulu service will rise to $17.99 from $14.99, making it more expensive than the most popular ad-free version of rival Netflix.    
8-12No, the title of the video isn't clickbait, for once. Things are starting to get clearer now.  Disney facing Existential Threat: Between The Lines of the Earnings Call
TL : DW ... In the 8-9 earnings call, disney said they had 10+bn cash on hand (this is up from the calculated 200million they had earlier this year). This will be due to the sales and firings (I believe the have fired 7,000+ this year?) and closings / cost cutting, plus the parks will have chipped in a bit more over last year or so since they were all allowed to open again post kung-flu virus. Basically, disney corp is looking to cut everything they can.
So they have 10+bn on hand cash. They also said (don't miss this) they have about 10bn in credit available to them. Yes ... credit. They admitted what we knew - that the hulu put would cost 9.2-3bn (everyone expects that will be the minimum) I believe january of next year.
In personal terms, this is someone admitting they have sold everything they can, admitting their core assets aren't earning, and they've raised *just* enough to barely (but not really, if you consider living costs) cover a large scheduled bill.
The hulu put could leave them with a bill running up to 20 (or worse, 30) billion dollars. Effectively taking every bit of their cash, and every bit of credit they can muster right now.
At best, "only" flat cash broke. At worst, cash broke, credit bills out the nose, and still having to scramble to find a way to pay the bill.
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About the disney selling to apple and apple bailing out disney rumors ... iger simply mentioned that it would be really hard to do. He effectively punted on that one. IF ... and it's a HUGE if ... that were to happen, I can't see the regulators allowing apple to just gobble up the whole of disney, and it would take *years* to get done.
Disney needs to do really well before the hulu put. REALLY well. I don't think they have anything that can do that for them. They may legitimately be in trouble. I do not think that even AI generated writing and content could do well for them, even in a pie in the sky scenario, because the people prompting the AI will be the same people who have been choosing to direct the writers to write the recent content that has flopped, horribly.
If disney starts buying up foreign content en-masse, the sellers of that content are going to pick up on what's going on, and jack the prices ... and again, the people chosing what content to buy are going to be the ones that disney has right now.
----
Also, don't forget, this will be them giving one of, if not their biggest rivals 9 to 30 billion dollars, for a company that comcast basically stopped running day to day, that disney already 2/3 owns ... which money can be used to fund ... oh ... I dunno ...
ZELDA LAND FOR UNIVERSAL ORLANDO, COME ONE, COME ALL, BRING THE FAMILY!
Oh, the irony.
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8-13Nuke it from orbit. This is what disney's style tiktok allows on their channel https://www.tiktok.com/@disneystyle:  https://www.tiktok.com/@disneystyle/video/7258351363397061930ETA3: The tiktok video, but on YT:  Disney Features Gender-Fluid Man as Minnie Mouse Model This male goes by the name seann altman. Fakes being a female when he wants to. And makes online content quite often aimed at young females ... crap like this: And worse. Which I won't even link. More ...  ... here: http://sdvoyager.com/interview/daily-inspiration-meet-seann-altman/ and here: https://urlebird.com/user/seannaltman/  Disney partners with gender-fluid influencer | National Report  Disney Goes Full BUD LIGHT | Investors Should Be Furious | Disney Hires Trans Spokesman | Disney DEI  ETA:  Disney's Male Minnie Mouse FAIL...Bud Light Style Legal mindset is saying that disney is paying this dude / it's not just one video.  ETA2:
Looks like she's getting what she wanted. 
8-14https://themessenger.com/entertainment/cancel-disney-plus-search-sees-510-uptick-worldwide-after-price-hike-announcement-data'Cancel Disney Plus' Search Sees 510% Uptick Worldwide After Price Hike Announcement, Data Shows
It seems like many people are contemplating pulling the plug on the streamer after a 27% subscription cost increase
Published |Updated
Disney's decision to boost its streamer's monthly costs by 27% (from $10.99 to $13.99 in the U.S.) has not been popular, per Google Trends.
Data experts from NoDeposit.guide analyzed Google's search data since the price hike announcement was made on Aug. 9 and found that 'Cancel Disney Plus' increased worldwide by 510% on Aug. 14.
That's the most significant spike in that specific search term on Google Trends since January 2023, according to NoDeposit.guide, which isn't coincidental either. It was right around the time Disney+ Premium (no-ads) debuted in the US, a three-dollar bump from the now regular (and ad-supported) membership option.
And it isn't just Disney+ Premium's cost that was raised (or will be, given that these changes won't come into effect until Oct. 12). Other Disney streaming services will be hit with the spikes, too. Hulu without ads will up from $14.99 to $17.99/month (a 20% increase), the two Hulu+ Live TV packages will each go up by $7, and ESPN+'s monthly price will go up by a dollar.
8-16This is really weird, imo. Shuttering VFX producers? The kind of people who can make you money by working on out of house content?!?!? https://boundingintocomics.com/2023/08/15/disney-officially-shutters-lucasfilm-animation-singapore-claims-decision-was-made-in-response-to-economic-factors-affecting-the-industry/Disney Officially Shutters Lucasfilm Animation Singapore, Claims Decision Was Made In Response "To Economic Factors Affecting The Industry"
Spencer Baculi August 15, 2023 Television
...
Coming twenty-years after the branch was opened this decision was first confirmed on August 15th, courtesy of the House of Mouse themselves.
In a statement sent to Variety on August 15th, a Disney spokesperson explained that "over the next several months, ILM will be consolidating its global footprint and winding down its Singapore studio due to economic factors affecting the industry." ---------- https://boundingintocomics.com/2023/08/16/disney-lays-off-150-crew-members-from-upcoming-tron-ares-movie-amid-ongoing-sag-aftra-and-wga-strikes/Disney Lays Off 150+ Crew Members From Upcoming 'Tron: Ares' Movie Amid Ongoing SAG-AFTRA And WGA Strikes
John F. Trent August 16, 2023 Movies
Tron: Ares director Joachim R nning made the announcement on his Instagram account.
He began, "The absolute best moments of my career have been watching an actor perform in front of the camera taking the scene and the text to a higher place. I've been fortunate to collaborate with amazing talent. It's a huge part of why I'm a filmmaker. However, like myself, being an actor or a writer, means you're a freelancer. And I can tell you, the constant uncertainty is not for everyone. To that end I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for a better safety net."
From there, R nning shared his support for the strikes, "Many of my best friends are writers. Everything starts with the story. Everything starts with you. That must continue. And that means that AI needs to be regulated. There is no doubt about the threat the technology poses to all creatives."
Next, he detailed that The Walt Disney Company laid off 150 members of what would have been Tron: Ares' crew for principal photography, "Today was supposed to be our first day of principal photography on TRON: ARES (a movie subsequently about AI and what it means, and takes, to be human). Instead, we are shut down with over a hundred and fifty people laid off. It's indefinite, which makes it exponentially harder for everyone." ...
Disney has revealed that it spent $105.9 million ( 83.1 million) on making Willow, a sword and sorcery series which was dropped from its streaming platform after just six months. For those who dont' know or haven't heard, they straight up dropped the series. Cut it as a total loss. Valliant Rengade YT dude is saying he thinks it might run up to being more like a 150 million number. Basically: disney can't keep it's spending under control. ---------- And now, the sharks have gone from circling, to biting into the whale. https://deadline.com/2023/08/disney-lawsuit-film-finance-partner-tsg-hollywood-accounting-fox-streaming-1235520089/Disney Sued By Film Finance Partner TSG, Which Claims Media Giant Used "Every Trick In The Hollywood Accounting Book" To Hoard Slate ProfitsBy Dade Hayes August 15, 2023 1:18pm Disney has been hit with a lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court by film financier TSG, which claims that the media giant used "nearly every trick in the Hollywood accounting book" to hoard hundreds of millions in profit. Echoing the Scarlett Johansson suit over the release of Black Widow across both movie theaters and Disney+ in 2021, TSG contends that Disney made a number of moves aimed at feathering its own streaming nest. (Read the lawsuit here.) ... Distribution is the crux of the case, as it was with Johansson's complaint, which was brought by Bird Marella partner John Berlinski, the same lawyer repping TSG). After issuing a barbed statement attacking Johansson, Disney wound up settling with the star. Since Covid, studios have overhauled long-established business practices in terms of film distribution. Specifically, the theatrical window has come under pressure as consumers have become accustomed to streaming and media companies pour billions into their services. In TSG's view, the changes have come at the expense of finance partners. "This windowing of film distribution is designed to maximize profits for the studios (and for stakeholders like TSG) by preventing one distribution revenue stream from cannibalizing another," the lawsuit says. "When windows are collapsed on one another, however, the studio (and its investors) miss out on significant potential sources of revenue." The complaint calls out a major shift in the 20th slate's pay-1 release window, which for many years was with HBO. After acquiring the studio, Disney "ordered" 20th to renegotiate the output deal and surrender "a significant portion of its guaranteed HBO license fees," in return for HBO letting the films stream on Disney+ and Hulu. While that move benefited Disney, its shareholders and senior executives, TSG says, it cost the financing entity "many millions" to which it is entitled. TSG, which is run by Chip and Robert Seelig, formed ties with Fox in 2012 and has also had a relationship with Warner Bros. and Sony. In addition to the allegedly lost proceeds due to Disney's distribution decisions, TSG contends that a resulting lack of cash flow impaired its ability to invest in films like Avatar: The Way of Water, which became a massive hit. ETA: If disney starts losing these suits and has to start incurring the expenses of handling these suits, because of their "hollywood accounting" and screwing people over (I have heard VFX artists hate disney's guts with the passion of a thousand burning suns) ... that's very NG for them. They HAVE to be able to cover the hulu bill. They're already painted into a corner. If they start to crack up because they can't cover it as they should, investors could start losing their investments in disney and IMO the first ones to get their resources out ...  I am not an expert in anything. If you take investment legal or busness advice from anything I post, you are a moron. --------------------------------------------------------
8-22Hat tip Everrest in the thread:  Disney Risks JAIL & LOSING Million Dollar Contracts (Summary) Subject to criminal investigation regarding: misappropriation/misuse of public funds. This is tied to / related to the behavior of disney and the now defunct/gone RCID special district. --------------------------------------------------------
8-22Ahsoka first two eps numbers not good at all...  Indiana Jones 5 Is a HISTORIC Flop! Dial of Destiny Lost WAY More Money than Media Is Reporting! Disney getting it's butt covered on the amount lost by the latest indiana jones flick. Uber conservative lowball numbers on the cost (from the vid) 400m cost, total. That means they need at LEAST 800 million to *break even.* Remember, again, american box office returns ~50% back on ticket sales. International is *lower.* https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Indiana-Jones-and-the-Dial-of-Destiny-(2023)#tab=summaryDomestic Box Office $173,611,344Details
International Box Office $197,601,623Details
Worldwide Box Office $371,212,967 Uh ... well, oh my .. those numbers don't add up. This is why it's considered "butt covering" to say disney "only" lost 100 million on indiana. Video is guessing 250 million loss, if you try and estimate something more realistic out of the hollywood accounting. Actual reality could run to 300m or more lost. Stop and think about this: *hollywood accounting* only gets it down to 100 million *lost.* ... and disney is putting it on their streaming service - which they are losing their butts on. Physical media release will not come close to making up the gap. ---- If asoka doesn't work out monetarily, disney could take it in the teeth financially hard enough to force even more consequences on them. One could almost have some hope. Help us profit loss, you're our only hope!
Guys, if you can hold off on ashoka or just not give them any money for it ...
I mean, there were rumors at high levels going around that disney might be serious about selling off lucasfilm.I simply cannot see disney changing. Only being broken... maybe rebuilt after. It's not my place to tell yall what to watch. I can only ask.
8-24As of inital time of this post: Walt Disney Co (The)
As of August 24, 2023 8:02 PM UTC
NYSE: DIS
82.47USD
-3.36(3.91%) They haven't closed this low since at least 2014. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/disneys-stock-flirting-with-lowest-close-in-nearly-9-years-f8036350Shares of Walt Disney Co. closed at their lowest level in nearly nine years Thursday, and even there they may not be cheap.
The media conglomerate's stock remains under pressure amid a host of challenges, and KeyBanc Capital Markets analyst Brandon Nispel still views it as expensive relative to peers, despite a selloff that has taken the share price down 59% from Disney's DIS, -3.91% all-time closing high established in early 2021.
"From our point of view, Disney has problems across just about every one of its businesses," Nispel told MarketWatch. These include a declining linear-TV business, a complicated shift toward streaming, an underperforming studios unit and a comedown for the parks business as the initial period of postpandemic exuberance wanes.
Disney's troubles in linear television and streaming go hand in hand. Pay-TV subscribers are declining at a 6% to 7% rate, weighing on advertising and affiliate revenue. Meanwhile, media companies bled dry their linear offerings in pursuit of streaming success, but the streaming business has been unprofitable, something companies are trying to reverse.
That effort isn't so straightforward, however. "People aren't going to value the profits that start coming in on that business unless it's paired with some sort of subscriber growth," Nispel said, highlighting multiple compression for a peer like Netflix NFLX, -4.82%, which is profitable but growing subscribers much more slowly than it once did.
More from MarketWatch: Disney is raising prices on Hulu and Disney+ again. Here's how much you'll soon pay.
Meanwhile, Disney's studio business "looks to forever be a loss leader," something that wasn't always the case, according to Nispel, who has a sector-weight rating on the stock. Disney has spent heavily on films like "Elemental" and "Indiana Jones" only to watch them fall flat. OH... also: ---------- https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/amazon-talks-with-disney-about-espn-streaming-partnership-information-2023-08-24/Amazon in talks with Disney about ESPN streaming partnership - The InformationReuters August 24, 202310:37 PM UTCUpdated 4 hours ago Aug 24 (Reuters) - https://www.amazon.com/?tag=arfcom00-20 (AMZN.O) is in early talks with Walt Disney Co (DIS.N) about working on the streaming version of ESPN it is developing, while possibly also taking a minority stake in the sports network, the Information reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. Disney and ESPN are still in the midst of determining an appropriate price for the new service, the report said. ESPN is considering charging between $20 and $35 a month for the new streaming service, which could make it the most expensive streaming service in the U.S, the report added.
8-30TL : DW = Ahsoka episode 1 50% less viewers than kenobi, and half of the season 2 premier of mando season 2. This is off of samba numbers for release day and five more. Context: D+ had ~30m subs back than. It now has ~45m subscribers, and reportedly more promo was done for ashoka than for andor.  Star Wars Ahsoka TANKS | HALF Obi Wan Kenobi | Desperate Disney SPINS Not going good for them. That hulu bill is really starting to loom large, imo. Disney, Bob Iger, Bob Chapek Hit With Another Investors Suit Over "Fraudulent" Streaming Costs
By Dominic PattenAugust 29, 2023 1:39pm
"Plaintiff brings this action derivatively for the benefit of Nominal Defendant Disney against certain of the Company's current executive officers and directors aiming to rectify the Defendants' violations of the Exchange Act and breaches of fiduciary duties for issuing false and misleading statements and/or omitting material information in the Company's public filings and proxy statements from approximately December 10, 2020 to the present," says Stourbridge Investments in the August 23 filing over what it calls "materially misleading statements and/or omissions" the company and top executives made over the true financial state of affairs of Disney+ (read the Disney investors lawsuit here).
....
"To conceal these adverse facts, defendants engaged in a fraudulent scheme designed to hide the extent of Disney+ losses and to make the growth trajectory of Disney+ subscribers appear sustainable and 2024 Disney+ targets appear achievable when they were not," the New Jersey-based Mouse House shareholder claims, as others have in previous lawsuit. "Specifically, defendants used the newly created DMED to inappropriately shift costs out of the Disney+ platform and onto legacy platforms," Stourbridge states in the jury seeking complaint via its Wilmington, DE and Hewlett, NY lawyers.
In many ways, none of this is new news, and there have already been at least two previous suits in the same vein. And accusations of insider trading to boot.
9-4TL : DW = UK makes hollywood productions file actual full costs of production, so the productions over there are "creatively" misnamed to hide the numbers. Forbes found the one for avengers infinity war and avengers endgame (they were done, at least paperwork wise, as one?).  How Much Marvel's AVENGERS REALLY COST Disney | INSANE Truth Revealed | Infinity War & Endgame On profits of ~2.1bn (for both, adj. to real box take): Official hollywood accounting production costs for the two films were 300m and 400m. Real numbers filed with the uk comes up to 1.3 billion. That's a ... "small" disparity of "only" 600m. The uk gave them 43.6 million to shoot it there (Dear brits, dontcha just love being tax slaves of the mouse?) Bringing the mouse's costs down to 1.25 billion(ish). Forbes borked up the numbers. VR sets it straight. Disney's numbers say they made 4.1 billion on the two combined. ( 4.8 b prof, 700m cost) The real numbers, adjusted for actual take from tickets ( 2.1bn prof, 1.25b cost) they only made 850m to (let's be nice to the mouse) 1bn. But wait, there's more! We haven't accounted for other costs - promotions. Hollywood trades sources (deadline, hollywood reporter, etc.) peg the promo costs at 500 million. Remember, usa box office only returns 50%. CCP land only about .25% (if that). International other than china about 40-43%. So disney moved 1,800,000,000 to make two movies. And only made 2,100,000,000. So thats ~300,000,000 cleared on both movies (combined). And those were the better days for them - people still at least liked those marvel movies. VR goes out of his way to be nice and estimates ~200m in tax writeoffs and incentives given to the mouse for making those movies, but that's still only 500m in on 1,800m out. This is not counting physical media sales, and the fact that D+ didn't exist so other places *paid* the mouse to show the movies ... and of course toy and other sales. Back when marvel flicks were still more popular. This is how the house of mouse ran itself aground.
9-4TL : DW = Disney and comcast have moved the forced hulu sale from 2024 to sept 30. Which happens to be end of fiscal year for disney.  DISNEY Comcast RADICALLY Accelerate HULU Deal ... Disney Plus, HULU to Merge SOON? Disney will be forced to pay at least 1/3 of the estimated value of hulu. Min is 9~ish billion (on 27 bn). Disney and hulu are in a slapfest over what the value is. https://archive.ph/bKZtMBoth sides came away from the talks convinced there is no deal to be had, according to people familiar with the matter. They haven't spoken in some time. Barring some last-minute surprise, they are headed for arbitration. It may be contentious. While Disney will push for the lowest valuation possible just shy of $30 billion Comcast thinks Hulu could be worth as much as twice that. (Both Comcast and Disney declined to comment on the matter.) If comcast's valuation held, that would saddle disney with an 18bn bill (remember, disney said they have about 10bn on hand cash now and 10-11bn in credit available). Others are saying: https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/comcast-moves-up-date-for-hulu-deal-with-disney-to-sept-30-2023-0Roberts said the companies will go through an appraisal process to determine the value of Hulu, and that process appraises "a lot more than Hulu," in his opinion. Beyond valuing Hulu as a standalone business, Roberts said, he believes the benefit for a buyer in terms of reducing churn, as well as providing possible synergy with other services, could be worth $30 billion. https://archive.ph/iU3qRTim Nollen, a Macquarie analyst with a neutral rating on Disney shares, currently estimates that Hulu is worth between $35.5 billion and $37.5 billion, which means Disney should be prepared to cough up roughly $12 billion for Comcast's stake.
...
Matthew Thornton, a Truist analyst who's bullish on Disney, agrees with that reasoning. His model pegs Hulu's worth at $34.3 billion, based on $12.6 billion in revenue for 2024 and a 2.7x EV-to-revenue ratio, which he prefers to the less common EV-to-subscriber valuation method. Disney should be ready to pay at least $11 billion for Comcast's stake Hulu, in his view.
...
Others who spoke with Insider were more skeptical. Barton Crockett, a Rosenblatt Securities analyst with a buy rating for Disney, said earlier this summer that he puts Hulu at the low end of its valuation range. ... "On the open market, I think they'd get something close to the floor," Crockett said of Hulu.
...
Brandon Nispel, a KeyBanc Capital analyst who's neutral on Disney shares, also values Hulu at $27.5 billion in his model. ... "When it goes to an independent arbitrator, my guess is that they're going to come to something in the middle but probably err on the side of conservatism," Nispel said. It seems disney is going to have to cough up every cent of cash-on-hand it said ... (remember, this is the company that said they only had 700m production costs on infinity war and endgame combined, when it was actually 1.2 bn  ) ... that it has, and some credit too. They no longer have a choice, they HAVE to start turning a profit on their product.
9-8Disney moving the hulu deal forward. Disney is getting desperate.  Disney Scrambles to Stop Dropping Subscribers on Disney+ -- Hulu Deal Rushed Due to Slumping Stock? Disney's stock is headed downwards. They are losing subs on D+ (which they are chasing, hard - they're trying to trick people into getting it cheap rn to save their butts). From the comments on the video: 2 hours ago
It would be a real shame if Florida parents like me and anyone else who feels similarly signed up for Hulu immediately and then cancelled the day after the purchase.
16This guy is evil. Also, why drop the day after? Analysts look for that kinda thing. If he was really evil, he'd say sign up and stay signed up till after the deadline and deal. Thank goodness he wasn't THAT evil. Blow hulu's sub numbers up just before the valuation of it thus driving up the price disney would have to pay. Manical, who could think to DO such a thing, ahead of the sept 30 deadline.
9-21They are feeling the body blows hard enough that they are starting to let out gasps of pain. In a fight, that's when you lay in with everything. https://nypost.com/2023/09/20/bob-iger-says-disney-will-quiet-the-noise-in-culture-wars-analyst/Walt Disney CEO Bob Iger told investors the company will "quiet the noise" in a culture war that has pitted social conservatives against the global media and entertainment conglomerate, according to an analyst note on Wednesday.
Iger's brief statement, included in an analyst report from Needham media analyst Laura Martin, was part of an investors' presentation on Tuesday at Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida, in which the CEO also announced Disney will double its investment in theme parks and cruise ships over the next decade. As for the investment in the parks? Their announcement of that caused the stocks to DROP: https://thatparkplace.com/disney-parks-investment-announcement-leads-to-stock-drop/If disney DOES try and back off one iota from the stuff they've been doing the left will punish them brutally. The only way they can get everyone that's NOT a revolutionary leftist to come back is fess up to the whole mess and fumigate the c-suites and creatives who pushed that stuff and *give up* on having Disney corp being socially and politically captured. They got into the game, now they HAVE to choose a side. We (the people who just want clean fun entertainment and everyone that's not a radical leftist) brought you to this dance, disney. The crazy psycho chick (the left) WILL eventually kill you. She's insane. She's not even fun and shes NOT creative, she is intentionally barren. They admitted they're hurting. Buck up rocky, get in there and keep pounding those short ribs and the liver!
9-23https://archive.ph/crmwKWhen a Congressman Challenged Disney on China, It Laid Off Beijing Staff
Disney's China layoffs led to technical malfunctions, delayed efforts to troubleshoot
By
Jessica Toonkel
and
Robbie Whelan
Sept. 21, 2023 11:00 pm ET
When Disney DIS 0.21%increase; green up pointing triangle
abruptly laid off more than 300 people in Beijing in late March, it said the move was meant to save money as part of ongoing layoffs. Privately, Disney executives had additional reasons for the staff cuts.
Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger was scheduled to meet the following week with Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher, who chairs a congressional committee focused on U.S. competition with China. Executives were braced for pointed questions about data security.
The Beijing team, which specialized in technology that allows Disney's streaming services to offer viewers personalized recommendations, had access to some U.S. customer data, according to people familiar with the matter.
Disney's lawyers voiced concerns that the Beijing team's access to such data would be seen as a potential red flag by the committee, even though the data had been accessible by staff there for years, some of these people said.
...
While Disney says it stores all U.S. streaming customer data domestically, the Beijing staff worked on features such as personalization and search that require access to some subscriber information, people familiar with the matter said. How far into the data manipulation were they? Far enough that parts of the system for reccomends and etc. started breaking (when they were fired).
9-25OUCH! Wait times in Walt disney world: --------------------------------------------------------
10-3https://pjmedia.com/culture/matt-margolis/2023/10/03/you-wont-believe-how-much-lgbtq-content-disney-produced-last-year-n1731942You Won't Believe How Much LGBTQ Content Disney Produced Last Year
By Matt Margolis 4:34 PM on October 03, 2023
On Tuesday, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) released its annual "Studio Responsibility Index" which tracks how much LGBTQ content various movie studios are pumping out each year. Of all the studios, in 2022, Disney topped them all.
By GLAAD's count, Disney released 59 films last year, 24 of which they designated as "LGBTQ inclusive."
What exactly makes a film "LGBTQ inclusive?" Here are the criteria that GLAAD uses:
The film contains a character that is identifiably lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and/or queer.
That character must not be solely or predominantly defined by their sexual orientation or gender identity (i.e. they are comprised of the same sort of unique character traits commonly used to differentiate straight/cisgender characters from one another).
The LGBTQ character must be tied to the plot in such a way that the character's removal would have a significant effect, meaning the character is not there to simply provide colorful commentary, paint urban authenticity, or set up a punchline. The character must matter.
The LGBTQ character's story must not be outwardly offensive (avoids defaulting to well-known tropes or stereotypes with no further development). In films with multiple LGBTQ characters, at least one character must pass this point for the film to pass the test. Little mermaid remake losing a LOT of money:  The Little Mermaid 2023 - How Much Disney REALLY SPENT & LOST The "remake" of the little mermaid... Spent 300m + 100-125m for promotion/adverts (around 475-500m cost). Made about 280m at box office, and got ~57-70m out of UK taxpayer's pockets. Therefore it lost an estimated 120-150m dollars. Still don't have the final cost numbers for *real* production costs. I can't see it getting better.
10-11ETA: Peltz fights boards for control to try and do what he and his group think will bring them back to being profitable. He also once donated to trump, so he's the devil incarnate to the disney board. Nelson peltz is back to fight the disney board again. Last time around he almost got a seat on the board. Apparently he has 2-3x the amount of shares he had the last time and is somewhere around the ~6th(iirc) largest shareholder. If the board does not cooperate with him and give him what he wants they could release the whitepaper of reccomendations of what's broken with disney and what needs fixing, which could tank the stocks even harder than they already are.  Nelson Peltz STRIKES Disney in NEW Proxy FIGHT | Bob Iger & Disney Board SCRAMBLE -------- If you want to dig in deeper on the topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPAnGUBV_Tk-------- Park price hikes: One of the things that apparently peltz and crew pointed out that's wrong with disney: they are overpricing the parks. So of course...  Disney Bleeds Its Theme Park Customers Again... Disney hikes the rates in the parks. Again. The next earnings call is on 11/8/2023. Disney and comcast are in arbitration rn over the price of hulu.
10-15Oh man, this is hilarious. Look how badly disney has fallen apart! https://www.wdwmagic.com/attractions/tianas-bayou-adventure/news/12oct2023-disney-shares-more-details-on-the-new-malaika-favorite-artwork-coming-to-tianas-bayou-adventure.htmLook at the ... "quality" of the artwork they are putting up on the replacement for splash mountain!   
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10-30https://www.axios.com/pro/media-deals/2023/10/30/nelson-peltz-disney-issac-perlmutterFormer Marvel chairman Isaac Perlmutter has given Trian Partners full voting power over his outsized Disney shares as the latter's co-founder Nelson Peltz pushes for board seats, Axios has confirmed.Why it matters: Trian now has four times the number of shares to vote compared to its most recent Disney proxy battle. Details: Perlmutter, who was laid off earlier this year amid Disney cost-cutting, told the Wall Street Journal last night that he had entrusted his stake to Trian.
- With Perlmutter's shares, Trian increased its stake in Disney to 33 million shares, worth roughly $2.5 billion. Most of that stake is Perlmutter's shares.
- Perlmutter, who sold Marvel to Disney in 2009 for $4 billion, is one of Disney's largest independent shareholders.
- Perlmutter helped Trian's previous proxy campaign by calling directors and helping to set up meetings between Peltz and former Disney CEO Bob Chapek.
The big picture: Trian's forthcoming proxy battle the nominating window for directors opens in December will have more teeth this time around.
- The firm will seek board seats for Peltz and at least one more representative, sources familiar with the plan say.
Context: The last time it engaged in a proxy battle, Trian said Disney's streaming strategy lacked cost discipline, and it criticized the firm for over-relying on profits from its parks division to subsidize its streaming costs.
- It also blamed Disney's board and leadership for consistently failing on succession planning.
- Since then, Disney CEO Bob Iger's contract was renewed through 2026 with no successor identified.
- At the same time, Disney is trying to find a strategic partner for ESPN while considering selling some of its assets, including broadcast network ABC.
Catch up quick: There is no love lost between Perlmutter and Iger. When Perlmutter was let go in March, he claimed he was fired.
- "I have no doubt that my termination was based on fundamental differences in business between my thinking and Disney leadership, because I care about return on investment," he told the WSJ then.
- Disney said the move was because Perlmutter's department, in which he ran Marvel's publishing and licensing businesses, had become redundant.
So apparently Perlmutter was going to fire feigie for the marvel movie series falling apart and got fired at least in part for being friendly with a certain evil orangeman. Oh man, the upcoming earnings call has the potential to have some serious fireworks.
10-31  SEC Filing: Disney Made Almost NOTHING on last year's film slate | Financial News | Disney Stock No wonder they are having things like the jungle cruise ride (literally) falling apart just a year or two after it was redone (for 'sensitivity') ... No TLDR. The losses and dinky profits are just ... sad. ----------11-8---------- Earnings Call today at ~4pm USA est.
Disney and Comcast are still arbitrating (afaik) over the price for hulu. Disney will have to pay roughly 1/3 of the total estimated value for hulu that comes out of the arbitration. The minimum is effectively 9 billion, on the last earnings call disney said they had roughly ~10 bn on hand and more credit available. They are doing poorly in almost all sectors with (as far as I know from what I have read) the sole exception of maybe their cruise line. They have been shown to have either broken even or lost money on the starwars movies; they have effectively *lost money* on ALL their movies this cycle. They are continuing to lose money on disney +.
They have been breaking out various numbers on the spreadsheets and moving them around and their rehotoric seems to be changing based on moving those things around. They have several lawsuits against them right now in process, for misuse/appropriation of public funds with their special district, suits against them for not paying out as they should to funders who funded movies under their umbrella, etc. They got punched in the teeth by southpark.
WDW is starting to have rides and structure problems (netting on jungle creek tunnel to keep parts of it from falling on riders, boat swamped to borderline sank earlier this year, cobbles popping up near the haunted mansion, and rise of the resistance has been in degraded "b" mode for a long time now - needing fixing and not getting it. And they are funnelling profits from WDW to the out of country parks / DW shanghai (even though any sane person can see as soon as the CCP jumps for taiwan, dis will lose the park).
They are also looking to have the worst performace for a MCU flick ever with the marvels in the very near future. They very recently jacked prices in the parks again and I have seen reports that people are taking huge losses to cut themselves out of the Disney Vacation Club timeshares.
It's very close to make or break time for them.
The previous disney earning calls have had some pretty spectacular fireworks. This one may have that going on. As soon as the livestream for it goes up, I'll post in the OP.
--------------------------
 Walt DISNEY Company EARNINGS CALL Q4 2023 | LIVE Coverage & Reactions Stock, pre call:  Livestream up.
VR will be covering the CNBC pre-earnings call iger stuff.The call was muted, monotone, boring, the Q&A was controlled, NO questions about peltz got meaningfully answered or anything else controversial. Oh, and ... NO info of any note about a dividend. Stock after the call:  People are saying wait till the open tomorrow or 24 hours to see any results from the call.
11-22Hat-tip thatparkplace website: https://thatparkplace.com/the-disney-10k-annual-report-reveals-disney-may-be-very-worried-about-their-place-in-the-culture-war/Some dense corpo-speak, I've broken it up into paragraphs and added some emphasis. https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/0001744489/000174448923000216/dis-20230930.htmWe face risks relating to misalignment with public and consumer tastes and preferences for entertainment, travel and consumer products, which impact demand for our entertainment offerings and products and the profitability of any of our businesses.
Our businesses create entertainment, travel and consumer products whose success depends substantially on consumer tastes and preferences that change in often unpredictable ways.
The success of our businesses depends on our ability to consistently create compelling content, which may be distributed, among other ways, through broadcast, cable, theaters, internet or mobile technology, and used in theme park attractions, hotels and other resort facilities and travel experiences and consumer products. Such distribution must meet the changing preferences of the broad consumer market and respond to competition from an expanding array of choices facilitated by technological developments in the delivery of content.
The success of our theme parks, resorts, cruise ships and experiences, as well as our theatrical releases, depends on demand for public or out-of-home entertainment experiences. Demand for certain out-of-home entertainment experiences, such as theater-going to watch movies, has not returned to pre-pandemic levels.
In addition, many of our businesses increasingly depend on acceptance of our offerings and products by consumers outside the U.S. The success of our businesses therefore depends on our ability to successfully predict and adapt to changing consumer tastes and preferences outside as well as inside the U.S.
Moreover, we must often invest substantial amounts in content production and acquisition, acquisition of sports rights, launch of new sports-related studio programming, theme park attractions, cruise ships or hotels and other facilities or customer facing platforms before we know the extent to which these products will earn consumer acceptance, and these products may be introduced into a significantly different market or economic or social climate from the one we anticipated at the time of the investment decisions.
Generally, our revenues and profitability are adversely impacted when our entertainment offerings and products, as well as our methods to make our offerings and products available to consumers, do not achieve sufficient consumer acceptance.
Further, consumers' perceptions of our position on matters of public interest, including our efforts to achieve certain of our environmental and social goals, often differ widely and present risks to our reputation and brands.
Consumer tastes and preferences impact, among other items, revenue from advertising sales (which are based in part on ratings for the programs in which advertisements air), affiliate fees, subscription fees, theatrical film receipts, the license of rights to other distributors, theme park admissions, hotel room charges and merchandise, food and beverage sales, sales of licensed consumer products or sales of our other consumer products and services. So, they appear to be covering their backsides by trying to outline what they see as risks so they won't have investors and etc. telling them "you didn't warn us this could happen." In short, they have just admitted: They know we don't like or even hate their content. They know their political activism and support of things that degrade and destroy people is ... to eumpehmise it ... "unpopular." They've admitted that they can't predict how fans will react (translation: they are dumber than a box of rocks and so self-isolated that they can't see the obvious warnings). They've admitted that they're losing america and have to rely on the rest of the world to float them, but they can't afford to entirely dump us. They basically admitted that mergers and aquisitions are a substantial risk. Note they don't talk about the risks of creating original content (creatively bankrupt). The tone here reads as if they intend to keep being destructive customer hating jerks. Hopefully their stock values continue to reflect that. Contingencies and Litigation
We are currently involved in certain legal proceedings and, as required, have accrued estimates of the probable and estimable losses for the resolution of these proceedings. These estimates are based upon an analysis of potential results, assuming a combination of litigation and settlement strategies and have been developed in consultation with outside counsel as appropriate. From time to time, we are also involved in other contingent matters for which we accrue estimates for a probable and estimable loss. It is possible, however, that future results of operations for any particular quarterly or annual period could be materially affected by changes in our assumptions or the effectiveness of our strategies related to legal proceedings or our assumptions regarding other contingent matters. See Note 14 to the Consolidated Financial Statements for more detailed information on litigation exposure. Gee mikey, you mean those lawsuits you have going over the misappropriation of public funds and the possible risks involved with that billion+ dollar bond issue might result in the state taking a massive chunk out of your hide?
11-29Disney lost 500m in november '23  Disney Lost $500 Million in November | The Marvels & Wish Box Office Flop Nov 29, 2023 #disney #themarvels #wish
Breaking News : Disney Lost $500 Million in November | The Marvels (MCU - Marvel Studios) & Wish movie (Walt Disney Animation Studios) Box Office Flop | Disney set to just DUMP these on Disney Plus / Disney+ and hope people forget. Disney News | Business News | Entertainment news | Hollywood News | Box Office Update News | Stock Market News Today
The Walt DISNEY Company LOST a HALF BILLION DOLLARS in November 2023 on TWO BAD Capital Investments called THE MARVELS and WISH, proving yet again that DISNEY and NOT AUDIENCES are detached from the market.
With so many huge box office hits in the past 2 years like Spiderman No Way Home, Top Gun Maverick, Minions Rise of Gru, Avatar The Way of Water, Super Mario Brothers, Barbie, Oppenheimer, etc... it seems pretty disingenuous that Disney claims in its most recent Annual Report to Stockholders that audiences simply haven't returned to theaters in pre-pandemic levels.
Audiences certainly love going to see the movies on a the big screen provided a studio does its job and creates something they love. Disney simply isn't capable right now, so it seems, of creating anything of quality or value.
12-4https://thatparkplace.com/disney-throws-in-the-towel-for-the-marvels-says-we-will-stop-weekend-reporting-of-international-global-grosses-on-this-title/The Walt Disney Company and Marvel Studios have officially given up on the Brie Larson-led The Marvels film at the box office.
Variety reports that the company sent out a memo to certain press outlets announcing, "With 'The Marvels' box office now winding down, we will stop weekend reporting of international/global grosses on this title."
The announcement comes after the film only grossed $2.5 million in its fourth weekend at the domestic box office.
According to The-Numbers, the film only grossed $80.7 million domestically and $116.3 million internationally for a global gross of $197 million globally. It's so bad they don't even want to report on it. ----------------  Dividend DECLARED! Bob Iger's Disney Board DELIGHTS -- But Nelson Peltz STILL Wants Board Seats! Disney to pay 0.30c per shareholders of record as of dec. 11th. They speculate that this, along with the fact that iger is adding more seats to the board (irony one of the new seats is going to a guy from the business that's evaluating the value of hulu for disney corp! SLEAAAZZYY) , and that a second activist investor was brought in to try and help them. Mexican ironman who apparently does financials for a living is saying that this is being funded by the cuts and etc and will (likely) be a one time thing and the commentators are saying they can't see this being sustained. --------------------------------------------------------
12-15The people over at that park place put up a summary article. Yes, it's not short. And it IS a summary, and a pretty good one. I am going to post the whole thing in chunks with a bit of commentary explaining things between the quote blocks. https://thatparkplace.com/a-glossary-and-guide-to-the-flurry-of-disney-news-involving-bob-iger-nelson-peltz-the-reedy-creek-improvement-district-and-more/A Glossary And Guide To The Flurry Of Disney News Involving Bob Iger, Nelson Peltz, The Reedy Creek Improvement District, And More
By LW GhostPublished On: December 11, 2023
You're a real person. You have a real life and family and job that all takes up most of your time and attention (and rightly so!) But recently, the headlines and deep dives into all of the sometimes overwhelming things going on within the less-than-magical-lately Walt Disney Company kingdom must, just to avoid being endless, presume a certain level of knowledge you might not have had the time or reason to acquire before now.
Well, That Park Place is here to help with this simple, basic, non-politicized (honest!) guide to the people, the places, the organizations, and the historical minutiae that will come up again and again in our comprehensive coverage both in writing here and in our various video streams. So if anything ever seems a little bit jumbled and jivey to your "ear" as we try to keep up with what seems like several headline-making stories a day these days, just refer back to this handy guide and you'll understand a whole lot better we promise! We work hard to earn your trust AND promote your understanding, so let's get to the basic bones of this amazing series of situations, shall we? (NOTE: We will update this list as needed as things progress.)
1. RCID: Reedy Creek Improvement District. Most all states and even counties and cities set up special districts and tax deals to promote investment and development by giving reduced costs or better services for companies that bring jobs and goodies to their region and to compete with neighbors who do the same. These often include tax breaks, diminished "impact fees" (see below) and other perks, and they vary depending on whether the development, and thus the district, is purely residential, purely industrial, or business-oriented, or a mix of both.
HOWEVER when the State of Florida Legislature set up the special Reedy Creek Improvement District for the Walt Disney Company in 1967 to encourage them to build their vacation kingdom in the sunshine state, they gave it powers far beyond those of ANY special district in Florida or America before or since. They created a quasi-county government that had its own police, fire, utilities, zoning rules, and other governmental enforcement authority well in excess of any heard of elsewhere even actually permitting the creation of an airport or a nuclear power plant if RCID wanted to!
But the point is, as a GOVERNMENT they were a PUBLIC trust, dedicated to furthering the welfare of ALL the people and businesses within their borders, not just ONE company, Disney, who was the majority land-owner among a bit over 50 others. Furthermore, such districts, as governments, are bound to stay totally SEPARATE from any company in their area of jurisdiction, to not accept gifts (aka bribes) or undue influence from those private entities, and to do things, such as issuing municipal bonds (which offer investors interest that, unlike private bonds, are TAX FREE) that only governments can do.
The controversy about RCID that led to it being dissolved recently by the Florida Legislature was a problem about that separation of Mouse and State, so to speak, and how the private Disney folks had "captured" the power of the government for their own benefit and to the detriment of others both within the RCID and outside it in Orlando, Orange and Oseola Counties which the RCID territory lies within, and the entire state and, re. federal laws, the whole USA. View Quote RCID / Reedy creek is the old now gone and replaced special district that disney corp lost. Furthermore, apparently disney corp wrote the original special district agreement and turned it over to the FL legislature to approve or not. The state did NOT write it. I believe a good way to explain RCID is to say: Company town, coal mine style, but with a smile and lawyers and bureaucrats instead of bullets. 2. CFTOD: Central Florida Tourism Oversight District. THIS is the NEW district created by the Florida Legislature to replace the RCID. This district was created so there wouldn't be a vacuum of NO district and thus NO government services, but part of their mandate in taking over was to investigate and "audit" the prior entity to find out what, if anything, was done wrong so that proper authorities such as the state and federal financial and even criminal investigators could right any wrongs in that "supposed-to-be-separate-but-wasn't" relationship between Disney and RCID.
The CFTOD Audit, conducted by a group of government, finance, and legal professionals brought in to give a clear and candid look at things, revealed many irregularities and brought lots of evidence and exhibits well over 80 pages long back to the CFTOD for forwarding to these various authorities from the local ones to the state and to those in D.C. Because the activities of RCID involved everything from police and fire to power, water, and other utilities, to traffic, building permits, and construction, taxes and bonds, to even seemingly small but equally "iffy" gifts of things like theme park passes and discounts to RCID employees, this was a very complicated investigation and it turned up a lot of very shocking things we've covered in various articles and videos.
There were also construction projects paid for by RCID taxes and bonds that were not for the benefit of the other resident businesses but only for Disney for example, if you've ever visited the Disney Springs shopping and entertainment complex built where the old "Pleasure Island" area used to be, you most certainly parked in one of three huge citrus-named parking structures which cost some $700 million to build not paid by Disney but by RCID, yet benefitting only Disney and their tenants. More will probably come of this as those facts are examined by the authorities and while everyone is always innocent until proven guilty in court, the "receipts" presented in documents, emails, and other data the audit collected certainly suggest that something was rotten in the state of RCID and needs addressing. View Quote Here is the audit: https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/12/CFTOD.pdf It is absolutely damning. You can watch the meetings of the CFTOD district here: https://www.youtube.com/@CentralFloridaTourismOversight/streams If the things the audit found are not pursued, that will indicate a very high level of government evil - refusing to pursue reasonable justice. In short: special districts are to function as strictly limited and curtailed PUBLIC governments for the good of everyone in their district and have to interact with the governments around their district correctly. They are absolutely NOT supposed to be cronies of anyone inside or outside of their districts. The audit shows a shocking level of cronyism going on and abuse of people in the district. 3. "Impact Fees": When a company or individual wants to develop either raw land or improve or expand an existing thing, clearly that creates the potential for increased traffic, utility needs, perhaps schools, parks, police and fire coverage, and all of the services a community provides to the people and businesses in their area of jurisdiction. Because of this, such improvements have "impact fees" charged to the developer as part of their cost of doing such work a cost that, along with the wood, paint, labor, concrete, and all the other parts of development activity, adds to the total expense of such development.
Also remember that if you are in one government jurisdiction but next door to another, the traffic and other needs your project creates makes an "impact" on the neighbors as well. Among the many things discovered in the audit mentioned above was that RCID gave Disney a pass on paying, among others, the standard per-hotel-room impact fees that all the rest of the Orlando tourism areas and competing theme parks pay of well over $30k per room. Imagine a 100 room hotel, let alone owning thousands as the big players do in the Orlando area, and you can see how much money can be involved. But there's more impact than that as you'll see in the next item. View Quote Disney got out of paying for the negative impacts it has on the local community. Ask people who live in the orlando area about this. You will get an earful. 4. EPCOT the Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow: As much as early entertainers in what we now know as the theme park EPCOT used to joke saying it stood for "Every Person Comes Out Tired," this is the REAL meaning of the name and was, in fact, Walt Disney's vision a real city with homes, businesses, industry, and much more than just themed attractions and hotels. He saw it as a place where new ideas and technologies could be shared with the world and proven in daily use, and based on the promise to actually build a real city, the granting of those expansive government powers to the RCID made some sense.
BUT as Walt passed away before the final creation of RCID and was not around to actually do what he dreamed, the managers of the Disney company after him decided very quickly that the problem with real cities vs. company-controlled areas was democracy. What if the residents voted against things the company wanted to do? What if they voted IN people the Company didn't want in charge? In short, by giving life to Walt's vision of a REAL city government, the Disney company would give up control.
SO they quickly decided to never actually build the original EPCOT idea or anything like it. They established a pair of towns on paper, Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista (originally named Reedy Creek) but these consisted of only a few double-wide trailers that trusted RCID folks were put in to insure they "voted" the "right" way. In fact, when Disney built some apartments to house employees on the fringes of their acres (now 39 square MILES of land, formerly nearer to 44) they (a) built the properties under the RCID rules of less inspections and quicker building codes with no impact fees paid, but then (b) de-annexed them from the district putting the burden of serving them with police, fire, schools, etc. etc. on the neighboring communities.
That means, for one small portion of the "impact" never envisioned when the State passed the RCID legislation, that the now over 100,000 employees who work at Walt Disney World do not LIVE on the property or near it and must commute, adding all that traffic to the famous parking-lot-resembling I-4 and other local roadways in Orlando, so you can see how this affects those outside the District itself.
Furthermore, cities and counties compete for federal grants for things like utilities, sewage treatment, wetlands preservation and a host of other things the federal government wants to encourage and help pay for. In the past RCID has won some that they competed with Orlando and other Florida entities for, which means those entities lost. If this was a fair competition between governnments, so be it, but when it turns out the benefits only go to one PRIVATE company because of RCID's preference, that's another story and part of why the Federal folks are getting involved, too. So there has never been a genuine "community" in the past, the present or "tomorrow" at EPCOT/RCID, and the failure to keep that promise by Disney is part of why RCID was dissolved in favor of CFTOD. View Quote The original special district was given with the agreement that disney corp would setup a real city where people lived and worked with everything a city entailed. Walt disney died and the promises were never kept. The "cities" of bay lake and lake buena vista: Attached File More info on them here: https://thatparkplace.com/expose-the-tangled-disney-pseudo-cities-of-bay-lake-and-lake-buena-vista/IN other words ... the open secret that everyone who has eyes and looks can know: the 1967 special agreement requirements were ... Oh I can't say, the wonderful mouse will send the assassins over.  5. SEC and MSRB: The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board are two Federal agencies of the U.S. Government that regulate the creation and sale of municipal bonds and securities. Companies which are "public" (i.e. that sell shares of ownership to people and companies outside of their own managers) and traded on the various stock exchanges such as the New York Stock Exchange do so under rules set up by these agencies to make sure they deal fairly and give proper and full information to potential and actual investors. This includes mandating quarterly and annual reports, holding fair elections for company board members who then choose officers such as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO,) Chief Financial Officer (CFO,) and others and the board is supposed to represent the investors and look out for their interests under the rules the SEC sets down to make the marketplace free of corruption.
The MSRB specifically designates how and under what conditions municipal bonds are issued and sold by governments and special districts, again to make sure buyers are treated fairly. Both of these agencies are currently or will soon be exploring the facts regarding how and when and with what honesty and completeness both Disney and the RCID kept people informed. IF the audit's findings are any indication, both failed that test of accuracy and honesty and potentially are subject to punishments and fines for those failures. View Quote To make it very short and sweet: you can't use public govt bonds for the benefit of private interests, esp not just one to the exclusion of others, and double esp not in a cronyistic way. Guess who was involved with fiddling around with the special district's ... what, billion dollar plus, iirc? bond? Hint. The contact info included an email that was explicitly at a disney address.  6. Robert "Bob" Iger: The "once and future" CEO of the Walt Disney Company began his career as a weatherman for ABC and moved up through executive ranks as ABC was incorporated into the Capital Cities company of media holdings which eventually was bought by the Walt Disney Company and thus Iger moved up to CEO of Disney. (It is interesting to note that when Walt Disney was trying to build the original Disneyland in California he actually got then separate ABC to invest the money needed in return for doing the "Mickey Mouse Club" and "Disneyland" later "Wonderful World of Color" and then of Disney shows for their then-distant-third-place TV network and now, full circle, they are all one company.)
Iger's tenure as CEO from 2005 and Chairman in 2012 through 2020 saw vast expansion of Disney as his fame as a "deal-maker" saw him acquire the Lucasfilm, Pixar, and Marvel Entertainment empires and add them as Disney brands. He formally stepped down in 2020 in favor of his hand-picked replacement Bob Chapek (see below) but ousted him and returned to run the company again in 2022.
Iger never really departed fully as he was on a "consultant" contract and even famously refused to leave his special office at Disney HQ in Burbank, California which is noted for having a special shower some joke about. Recent press coverage suggests that he actively undermined Chapek to engineer his own return, and the failure of his many acquisitions, which later included the Fox movie and TV properties, to make profitable and popular entertainment has been blamed by some on his personal political stances on various issues included but not limited to personal behavior.
The Disney reputation, once the highest in the world for creating wholesome family entertainment, has changed during his tenure and under his leadership and many suggest that isn't for the better. He maintains it is part of the company's "corporate responsibility" to be good "global citizens" that such political expressions in their products and services be made. While there can be opinions on both sides of those issues, there is no doubt that audience acceptance of such moves under Iger, as even they admit in their most recent SEC reports, are a big risk financially if audiences disapprove and reject their products as a result. View Quote A hyper politicized (he apparently once considered runing for potus) incompetent uncreative mergers and quisitions dolt and petty immature manchild. See here, if you want the info to back this all up. Pulled strings to get chapek in just before the kungflu mess and when he couldn't control "little bob" (yeah, that's how chapek was referred to), he started throwing chapek under the bus. Which is not to say chapek is a gem. 7. Robert "Bob" Chapek: He ran Disney's parks and experiences division when he was chosen by Iger as explained above to take over the top slot at the company. His tenure was marked with (a) much higher stock prices indeed the highest ever in the company's history and (b) the impositions of economies in spending and attempts to limit the political expressions put in by Iger, but also by (c) what some would describe as a less-smooth, more heavy-handed expression style that gave the company PR problems.
Iger wanted to push his agenda and pressured Chapek, who originally opposed this, into formally putting the company on the record as visibly and loudly opposing a law in Florida that prohibited the teaching or discussion of sexual behaviors and alternative lifestyles by teachers in public schools for very young children. The controversy that erupted over this led to exposure of programs within Disney that were put in by Iger to put more messaging on these topics into their formerly "family friendly" movies and shows, and their brand suffered the "risks" mentioned above because of it.
Chapek was unceremoniously fired and now has been blamed by Iger for just about everything wrong with Disney as Iger claims he has spent his time since coming "back" (he was never "away" as we've seen) working on "fixing" problems he says Chapek created. In fact, the very first movie Chapek actually gave the "green light" on won't come to the screen until the middle of 2024 and thus all of the famous boxoffice and streaming failures were projects guided by Iger and his acolytes in the company.
Meanwhile, Chapek is under a "Non-Disclosure Agreement" aka an "NDA" and cannot respond to these attacks on him by Iger. It is worth noting, however that NDA's do NOT compel silence in potential criminal law cases that might come from the aforementioned audit's revelations, so we probably have not heard the last of Chapek yet. View Quote A more middle of the road profits first squeeze money out of that rock type, apparently notorious for that. I gather he's at least in part responsible for the parks murderous pricing and predatory practices. He's " better" if you're a stockholder, I guess. He also tried to keep disney out of the political fight in florida with the fl govt and desantis, and was notoriously mentally and emotionally tortured into putting the company into that fight, and complying with the hideous corporate culture in disney that exists now (and I suspect has for many decades).  Leaked Disney CEO Video Feels Like a Hostage Video as He Begs for Mercy | DM CLIPS | Rubin Report You can safely ignore the commentary and skip forward to 1:57 in the video to see chapeks hostage vide, post-maoist style struggle session. 8. Nelson Peltz: Mr. Peltz is a famous "activist investor" who has made a net worth for himself of 2.7 billion dollars and millions more for the investors in his "Trian Group" company by buying into, taking control of, and often then selling at a profit many companies because he felt their former managers were not doing the right thing to improve their value and thus the value of their stock. He has had holdings in companies such as Heinz, Cadbury, Kraft, Mondelez, DuPont, Pepsi, Proctor & Gamble, Family Dollar, State Street, Wendy's, and more though he began life as a delivery truck driver for his family's small business.
During Iger's prior run as CEO of Disney Peltz became interested in the company and pushed for power on the board due to his large stock holding but backed off when Iger made promises of reforms. Now he has returned with a more direct "proxy fight" (a proxy is the voting power of a shareholder and when groups like Peltz's "Trian" get other stockholders to sign their voting rights to him, they wind up with the power to elect new managers/board members at annual meetings far beyond their own stock alone) and announced his intentions of putting a chosen representative on the current all-Iger-picked Disney board to bring the views of investors to the management of the company which he says has not listened to them.
Peltz's way of gaining support has been to issue a "white paper" report of what he sees as the current management's mistakes and people are expecting such a report to happen sometime between this writing (early December 2023) and the next Disney annual meeting in 2024. View Quote Peltz is an activist investor. However, his activisim is that he tries to make companies successful again. By cooperation, if he can. By fighting and board takeover, if necessary. Iger is fighting back, has expanded his board, and nobody on the board is in a position to know enough to push back against iger in any meaningful way. I don't think it'll do iger any good. Peltz already had an expanded and large amount of disney shares ... but now has the backing of ... 9. Ike Permutter: Mr. Perlmutter came to the US with $250 in his pocket as an immigrant in 1967 and sold toys on the streets of Brooklyn, NY where he discovered Marvel comic books and their characters. He managed to acquire the company in its bankruptcy in 1998, built it into a huge and highly successful comic and movie company by using strategic partnerships with various movie production companies and eventually created the successful "MCU" or "Marvel Creative Universe" motion pictures starting with the first Iron Man starring Robert Downey Jr. in 2008.
He sold the Marvel company for $4 billion in cash and stock to Disney and Iger in 2009 but still served as Chairman of the Marvel division until Iger fired him in March of 2023 after a contentious relationship. He has now added his own remaining stock voting power in Disney to Peltz's and joined Peltz's quest to bring new board members to the Disney company. View Quote I gather manchild iger was told to not fire perlmutter, as that might cause peltz to come to the gate with a battering ram ... but petty iger had perlmutter put out. And peltz/trian not only have perlmutter's shares (giving them HUGE leverage), another group have come on boad with peltz, adding more. I don't think peltz will really clean house at disney corp, get rid of all the DEI and other crap they absolutely must be doing that we don't know about (yet) but it is a more good than bad thing if peltz pummels iger. Well, that's enough to get you started and to bring you up to date so that when, in the course of things with our various articles and videos, you hear about these companies, personalities, and agencies, you'll have a kind of ballpark program to refer to and better understand. We will, as stated, update this in future if and when other items are needed. Hope this helps, and thanks for your continued support and giving our videos "likes" and "subscribes" helps us with the YouTube algo's and spreads our visibility too, so please feel free to share this and all our content with your social media community thanks!
(P.S. IF you are a journalist who has just been given this "beat" and are not familiar with it and would like to credit us we'd be happy to help you do so and provide more details you might need. Just get in touch, and subscribe to our YouTube channels for all the latest news, too!)
About the Author: LW Ghost
Writing under pseudonym, LW Ghost is a writer, director, producer, designer, and former officer and contract negotiator within the entertainment guilds and a contributor on many of the shows you recall with vivid detail. Mr. Ghost now enjoys retirement and writes, when so inclined, about all things modern and past Hollywood on back, front, and even sidelots he once roamed. Having grown up literally with Disneyland, he has now decamped the SoCal madness and resides in the not-quite-so-mysterious Southeast. He shares the philosophy about attention and fame of his namesake seen in the photo who famously advised "Stay out of the spotlight--it'll fade your suit." View Quote The rest of the TPP article. -----------------------Also, disney is bleeding and losing money to the tune of billions, is at criminal risk that's unthinkably huge because of the RCID bad behavior (there is a REAL possible "timeline" where the state of FL could wind up with a lien on disney world! This is not a joke), ETA and they just had to give comcast 8 billion dollars for hulu, and are likely going to have to pay more due to the oncoming valuation for hulu... and disney has been pushing all the stuff you see up in the spoiler fold and worse, and they have intentionally ... well. I'll let disney employees say it:  Disney Reimagine Tomorrow That's their corporate culture. We now know they were (and I'd be shocked if they stopped it at all) enforcing on their employees (they even had employees keep diaries to prove they were "dei" enough and tied benefits to those things). --------------------------------------------------------
12-1So the obscenely overpriced parking garages that appear to have been wrongfully funded at disney springs? Disney corp hit the other taxpayers in the district for 91 million dollars for them, and those taxpayers got NO beneft from the, and than other associated costs are apparently passed through to them?!?!?! And MORE. Watch, it will just start to give you an idea of what has been going on:  Is Disney STRONG-ARMING Tenants Into Paying Disney Taxes? ETA: this is one of the lawyers responsible for part of the state audit of the old now gone special district. --------------------------------------------------------
1-3-24Disney Year to date: 3.93% They didn't even beat the fake inflation numbers the government puts out. They did worse than the DJI index, the S&P500, and the nasdaq. Great job, bob.  How BAD was DISNEY Stock Under Bob Iger in 2023? | Disney Didn't Even Beat Inflation  --------------------------------------------------------
1-16https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/disney-tsg-settlement-1235789656/Disney Settles Breach of Contract Suit From Film Financier TSG Over Accusations of "Hollywood Accounting"
The lawsuit also dealt with changes in distribution windows and the allegedly murky role that studios play as producers and distributors of content.
January 16, 2024 10:45am
...
While disputes over "Hollywood Accounting," as TSG called it, are common, they're typically handled behind closed doors and don't make it to court. According to the complaint, the terms of the deal between the financier and studio spelled out that conflicts can be filed in court to preserve the ability to appeal any ruling.
TSG said it sued after noticing that money from its investment "decreased dramatically." According to the complaint, an audit showed that 20th Century failed to credit TSG with revenue, charged tens of millions in distribution fees not permitted under their deal, deducted expenses not related to the pictures in their slate and "uncovered rampant 'self-dealing,' the practice by which a studio enters into 'sweetheart' deals with its licensee affiliates to artificially minimize the profit payments to stakeholders like TSG."
... I'm not seeing any reports of the amount of the settlement. If I find that I'll post it.
1-18https://variety.com/2024/biz/news/nelson-peltz-trian-disney-proxy-fight-votes-to-win-1235876463/ Jan 18, 2024 8:42am PT
Nelson Peltz Officially Launches Disney Proxy Fight, Aiming to Push Company to Hit 'Netflix-Like' Streaming Margins. But Can He Get the Votes to Win?
As promised, Trian Partners, the hedge fund led by activist investor Nelson Peltz, officially submitted its preliminary proxy statement for the election of Peltz and former Disney CFO Jay Rasulo to Disney's board at the Mouse House's 2024 annual shareholders meeting.
In its filing Thursday, Trian also outlined its goals and initial perspectives for Disney regarding corporate governance, streaming profitability to "target and achieve Netflix-like margins" of 15%-20% by fiscal year 2027 as well as ESPN, studio creativity, and growth in Disney's Parks and Experiences unit. It's all intended, according to the company, to "#RestoreTheMagic" at the media conglomerate.
But the key question is: Can Nelson Peltz get the backing of enough Disney shareholders to succeed in shaking up the board and challenging CEO Bob Iger for the future direction of the company?
Trian's proposals, including its two board nominees, would require an affirmative vote of the holders of a majority of shares of the Walt Disney Co. To date, Trian has not disclosed whether it has the support of any of Disney's other shareholders.
Looking at the results of Disney's 2023 shareholder vote, there was overwhelming support for the Disney-recommended slate of 11 directors and other board-backed proposals. Per the vote tally from the meeting held April 3, 2023, all of the candidates received at least 93% of shares voted (excluding abstentions and broker non-votes). The board candidacy of Iger, for one, got 96.7% of shares cast. So as of last year, there was no significant shareholder agitation for change.
Peltz, of course, still has several months to try to win over votes before the 2024 Disney shareholders meeting sometime this spring (the date is TBA).
In a statement, Peltz said, "It is unfortunate that a company as iconic as Disney and with so many challenges and opportunities has refused to seriously engage with us, its largest active shareowner, about board representation. Instead of having a boardroom that would include directors with an 'ownership mentality' that can bring fresh perspectives to the company's challenges, Disney is resisting change and asking shareholders to endorse a board comprised mainly of legacy directors (and their hand-picked successors) who have repeatedly failed to properly plan for CEO succession, misaligned the incentives of management, and failed to oversee or drive a strategy to get the streaming business to profitability or the studios to produce good content."
Peltz asked rhetorically: "Are Disney shareholders really to believe the current board is able to heal these self-inflicted wounds?" Trian also announced the launch of its website, RestoreTheMagic.com, where it has laid out its case for shaking up the Disney board.
Disney, in its own proxy filing Jan. 16, formally rejected Trian's nominations of Peltz and Rasulo). In addition the board recommended that shareholders not vote for three candidates (Craig Hatkoff, Jessica Schell and Leah Solivan) floated by Blackwells Capital. Instead, Disney urged shareholders to vote for its own 12-memeber slate of board candidates, including recent additions Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman and former Sky chief Jeremy Darroch.
Earlier this month, Disney announced it had lined up the backing of activist investor ValueAct Capital, which has a "significant" ownership position in the media conglomerate, Bloomberg has reported, but the actual size is not known. Trian controls about $3 billion worth of Disney's shares, 78% of which are owned by former Marvel Entertainment chairman Ike Perlmutter (whom Disney alleges has a "longstanding personal agenda" against Iger).
Trian, in waging its proxy fight, argues that Disney has underperformed the larger market and its media and tech industry peers as the result "of a board that has failed to adequately perform its primary responsibilities as stewards of shareholder capital."
"A major problem at Disney, in Trian's view, is that the goals have been amorphous and the execution poor," the hedge fund said in its SEC filing. Trian outlined five areas of concern at Disney and its proposals to address them:
Corporate Governance: Adopt best-in-class governance; finally complete a successful CEO succession; and align management pay with performance
Streaming Profitability: Target and achieve Netflix-like EBITDA margins of 15-20% by FY 2027
Future of ESPN: Commit to a reasonable, defined payback period and return profile on ESPN flagship direct-to-consumer and communicate it in detail prior to launch
Studio Creativity: Board-led review of creative processes and structure to restore leadership accountability and reclaim No. 1 box office position with leading economics
Parks and Experiences Growth: Execute on a clear vision for Parks targeting at least high-single digit operating income growth to ensure adequate returns on ~$60 billion of capex View Quote In its filing Thursday, Trian also outlined its goals and initial perspectives for Disney regarding corporate governance, streaming profitability to "target and achieve Netflix-like margins" of 15%-20% by fiscal year 2027 as well as ESPN, studio creativity, and growth in Disney's Parks and Experiences unit. It's all intended, according to the company, to "#RestoreTheMagic" at the media conglomerate.
Disney, in its own proxy filing Jan. 16, formally rejected Trian's nominations of Peltz and Rasulo). In addition the board recommended that shareholders not vote for three candidates (Craig Hatkoff, Jessica Schell and Leah Solivan) floated by Blackwells Capital. Instead, Disney urged shareholders to vote for its own 12-memeber slate of board candidates, including recent additions Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman and former Sky chief Jeremy Darroch. A major problem at Disney, in Trian's view, is that the goals have been amorphous and the execution poor," the hedge fund said in its SEC filing. Trian outlined five areas of concern at Disney and its proposals to address them:
Corporate Governance: Adopt best-in-class governance; finally complete a successful CEO succession; and align management pay with performance
Streaming Profitability: Target and achieve Netflix-like EBITDA margins of 15-20% by FY 2027
Future of ESPN: Commit to a reasonable, defined payback period and return profile on ESPN flagship direct-to-consumer and communicate it in detail prior to launch
Studio Creativity: Board-led review of creative processes and structure to restore leadership accountability and reclaim No. 1 box office position with leading economics
Parks and Experiences Growth: Execute on a clear vision for Parks targeting at least high-single digit operating income growth to ensure adequate returns on ~$60 billion of capex If disney refuses to play ball, Peltz/trian can release their research on exactly what's wrong with the way disney is being run, which would put downwards pressure on disney's stocks.Peltz/trian's website regarding this effort: https://restorethemagic.com/ --------------------------------------------------------
1-31https://thatparkplace.com/judge-dismisses-the-walt-disney-companys-lawsuit-against-the-state-of-florida-and-governor-ron-desantis/Judge Dismisses The Walt Disney Company's Lawsuit Against The State Of Florida And Governor Ron DeSantis, Says "Disney Lacks Standing"
By John F. TrentPublished On: January 31, 2024
...
In a 17-page document granting the motion to dismiss, Judge Allen Winsor wrote, "The clerk will enter a judgment that says, 'This case was resolved on motions to dismiss. Plaintiff's claims against the Governor and the Department Secretary are dismissed without prejudice for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Plaintiff's claims against the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District board members are dismissed on the merits for failure to state a claim."
Judge Winsor specifically addressed the First Amendment claim writing, "'As a general matter, the First Amendment prohibits government officials from subjecting individuals to retaliatory actions after the fact for having engaged in protected speech.' But it is settled law that 'when a statute is facially constitutional, a plaintiff cannot bring a free-speech challenge by claiming that the lawmakers who passed it acted with a constitutionally permissible purpose.' The Eleventh Circuit has 'held that many times.' And this settled law forecloses Disney's claim."
He also noted, "In short, Disney lacks standing to sue the Governor or the Secretary, and its claims against the CFTOD Defendants fail on the merits because 'when a statute is facially constitutional, a plaintiff cannot bring a free-speech challenge by claiming that the lawmakers who passed it acted with a constitutionally impermissible purpose." My dime store understanding: Reedy creek was a governmental entity who's job was to be some limited level of "government" for everyone in their special district, NOT just for disney. Disney was NOT supposed to have legally controlled or captured reedy creek. A move against reedy creek could not have been against disney unless disney was breaking the law. Thus: No standing. Unless you want to prove disney had captured reedy creek. Hey wait, there was this audit not long ago talking about these sorts of things ...
2-3  Disney Announced to Have Lost TEN BILLION Dollars in Last Four Years... and the News Won't Cover It! Reliance-backed Viacom18 has reached an agreement to buy 60% of Disney's India unit, WSJ reported Thursday citing unnamed sources, creating a pathway for the Indian conglomerate to form a $10 billion media giant in the South Asian market.
The deal, which WSJ says will close this month, values Disney's India unit at $3.9 billion, the report said, less than half of what Disney had originally hoped. Earlier this week, Reliance declined to comment on its engagement with Disney.
Viacom18 is a joint venture among Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries, Paramount Global and James Murdoch's Bodhi Tree Systems. According to the agreement, Disney will retain 40% ownership in its India unit, whereas Reliance will acquire a 51% stake and Bodhi Tree will hold 9%, the report said.
In 2019, Disney acquired 21st Century Fox's entertainment assets for $71.3 billion, a move significantly bolstered by the inclusion of Star India.
2-6  WALT DISNEY COMPANY EARNINGS CALL Q1 FY24 | LIVE Coverage & Analysis Placeholder video is already up. So, disney, in a bid to get their shareholders to vote the way they want them to are ... treating them all like toddlers.  Disney Treats Shareholders Like CHILDREN in CRINGE Voting Video! Their cartoon on "how to vote" starts at 4:36. It's hilariously bad. ------------------------Hat tip Chokey in the thread:
https://farside.link/nitter/elonmusk/status/1754999578619707658 Hey look, actual racism / sexism / religious discrimination / etc. But because it's against groups we like to hate, and we don't say it out loud, it's ok! The way these things are normally gotten around - not asking about what group you're from - is to only recruit from favored groups OR only recruit for jobs that those in your favored supremacy group would go for. Aka in the real world as "only recruit people useful for pushing the leftist conflict theory and politics." Instead of "who do you vote for" they ask "do you drive an f150 and wear steel toed work boots and have a 100+lb dog" or "do you drive a subaru with stickers all over it and have a wine box subscription and 20 cats." Meaning they ask for things that correlate closely to their favored or disfavored groups. -----------------------------------------------Just did first skim of the earnings call video. Timestamps: 33 minutes earnings call start Q&A starts at 1:00 1:27 earnings call ends No major meltdowns, they kept it tightly controlled. Tim sweeney of epic seems to have reeled in Iger by showing Iger the screentime millenials and younger have on video games and iger wants a slice of that pie very badly (you could hear his voice tone shift and he got animated talking about it). He talked about a 1.5 billion investment, they may be connecting their IP with fortnite in a virtual connection that will suck in your kids and get them to spend screen time and drain your bank accounts on disney content. RE: their tv and movie studio output, iger is still clinging to fox's content as disney's content by pointing at the recent avatar movie as a disney win. Otherwise, I read his talk about their tv and movie content as being pure coping and "this is fine, everything is fine, I don't care that everything is burning down." They all but admitted that their Q2 content sucked horribly and made no profits. They are still talking about shuffling around ESPN and streaming content. They've lost ~2 million usa ("core market") subs on D+ and they have started going after people who password share. "You can still access your account away from home ... for a fee." Distinctly not present in this one is any disney original content mentioned, and their flagship segments - movies and tv - are taking it in the pants. RE: Investments in the parks, the commentators on the video said bob was lying when bob said dis would be investing in all of their theme parks. That may be due to looking at public financials and where the funds are going or something like that? I don't recall exactly, but there is some sourcing for that. My impression - and it's just an impression - is that disney is desperately cost cutting and has NO meaningful content to put out that will do well. This is also with them staring down the barrel of a state lawsuit against them re: the VERY ugly stuff that happened wtih them and the now defunct special district. Treading water at best. Sinking more realistically. I am a dirty poor with zero investing experience, you are dumb if you listen to me for investing advice. 
2-13
https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1757494954895815142Video @ tweet. It is from a few days after the rowdy trespass on J6 at the capitol. The parental rights bill in florida came after this, introduced on 1/11/2022. The bob he's referring to is, I think, chapek. Iger is giving an explanation/apology for why disney should be getting involved in political topics and discussions ... by saying that things that are obviously political somehow magically aren't, so therefore they should talk about it, they won't get in trouble for doing it. He makes his chosen politics and what he thinks the company should be involved in very very obvious. Yes, we all nod our heads and say "we knew it." We don't often get these people explicitly saying it. "... we've tended to shy away from politics, and in doing so, we've shied away from talking about things that aren't political at all like what we're talking about today. ..." ----------------------- Context for those with a life: Iger by hook or crook had chapek in the ceo suite as his sockpuppet - iger never even left his ceo office, and chapek was being referred to as as "little bob." See here for confirmation. Long story short, chapek wasn't a pushover but iger was still doing "the power behind the throne." ----------------------------------------------
2-17  Disney SUED for Race Quotas. New Lawsuit Summary They're getting sued for pulling the usual tricks to go around regulation and law to implement quotas based on race/sex/gender identity ... or in common terms, only hire leftists. ------------------------------------https://dailycaller.com/2024/02/16/walt-disney-company-annual-shareholder-meeting-vote-transgender-coverage-payment-political-donations/Disney Board Wants To Hide Political Donations, Spending On Sex Changes From Shareholders, Docs Reveal
...
The 2024 proxy vote ballot for Disney's annual shareholder meeting, scheduled for April 2, reveals the board doesn't want the public, or even their own shareholders, to know how much Disney spends on "gender transition compensation and benefits" for its staff. Despite the board's suggested vote to shareholders, the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) and National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR) are urging the company to release the data.
...
In Disney's 2024 "Notice of Annual Meeting of Shareholders and Proxy Statement," Disney details how the NLPC and NCPPR notified the company that they intend to present proposals focused on these issues. Within the same document, Disney "affirms" that people who suffer from gender dysphoria can "transition to a different sex."
...
Similarly, Disney doesn't want shareholders to approve the publication of the company's charitable and political donations. The board recommends a vote against "requesting a report on political expenditures" and "publication of recipients of charitable contributions."
In their recommendation, NCPPR argued that there are "issues" with donating to certain groups who support sex-change surgeries, not just for the potential legal and medical issues listed above, but because is it "time Disney stop injecting itself into controversial and significant social policy issues," the proposal stated. This is not without reason or precedent. From up in the spoiler folds, from 6-5 : https://nb.fidelity.com/public/consultingportal/disneyportal/file_view.php?file_name=QA_Gender%20Affirmation%20Coverage_Revised%205192021.pdf Disney's Gender Affirmation Coverage Q&A
Gender Affirmation Coverage under Cigna Medical Plan Options Do the Cigna Medical Plan options cover Gender Affirmation procedures and services (transgender, gender transition)?
Yes. Coverage for Gender Affirmation/Transition procedures and services based on medical necessity (as defined by your doctor and medical team) is covered under the Cigna medical plan options.
What procedures and services are covered under Disney's Gender Affirmation Coverage?
The Gender Affirmation Coverage applies to two populations. For adults (age 18 and over), covered procedures and services include breast augmentation/reduction, chest contouring, hair removal/transplantation, facial feminization surgery, genital implant or prosthesis, rhinoplasty, trachea shave/reduction, and vocal surgery/speech therapy. For adolescents (younger than age 18), coverage may include puberty-suppressing hormones, for those who have reached a certain stage of sexual development, under direction of an experienced pediatric endocrinologist.
Gender Affirmation Coverage under Kaiser
The Kaiser Plan in CA follows California's state mandates. Therefore, Gender Affirmation coverage is based on what is required under California law. The coverage is different from what is covered under the Cigna plans.
Does the Kaiser HMO Plan cover Gender Affirmation procedures (transgender, gender transition)?
Yes. Kaiser offers Gender Affirmation coverage as mandated by the State of California. What procedures are covered under the Kaiser HMO Gender Affirmation Program? The Gender Affirmation benefit includes sexual reassignment surgery and mastectomy with chest reconstruction services, in addition to behavioral health and hormone therapy services.
Gender Affirmation Coverage under HMSA Plans Hawaii
Effective January 2017, Gender Dysphoria Services to treat gender dysphoria will be covered in accord with HMSA's medical policy and Hawaii and Federal law. Benefits vary depending on the type of service or supply received. Services will be covered at the same benefit level as other similar covered services.
Gender Dysphoria Services covered, but only when deemed medically necessary to treat gender dysphoria. The copayment may vary depending on type of service or supply you receive.
Gender reassignment surgery
Hospital room and board
Hormone injection therapy
Laboratory monitoring
Other gender reassignment surgery related services and supplies which are medically necessary and not excluded. These include but are not limited to sexual identification counseling, pre-surgery consultations and post-surgery follow up visits. Please note: Certain services must be pre-certified.
...
Reversal of Gender Reassignment Surgery You are not covered for reversal of gender reassignment surgery, except in the case of a serious medical barrier to completing gender reassignment or the development of a serious medical condition requiring a reversal. View Quote
2-26  Disney World Has Gotten Too Expensive Meant to be an average not super cost cutting but not expensive trip. Two adults. Bus ride from OIA. One night at port orleans riverside. Two magic kingdom tickets. Genie + Lightninglane Hotel breakfast Park lunch at columbia harbor house. Park dinner at skiper canteen. Park snacks, popcorn and coffee. 886$ for one day at disney for two adults. Not counting full costs. He figures his cost in 2017 for the equivalent would be 567$ Family of 3, two parents and one child, six days in resort, four days in park, eating, genie + costs. He figures 4,375$. The worst part is ... he says he didn't enjoy the day in the park. ----------------------------------------------
2-29Hat tip Mal means bad in the thread on page 9:  Bob Iger DROPS 94% of His Disney Shares BEFORE Proxy Vote?! The Peltz Plot Thickens! Iger has dumped more than 90% of his stock in disney. ----------------------------------------------
3-4https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/trian-peltz-disney-whitepaper-released-1235842501/Disney Activist Investor Trian Unveils 130-Page Memo Taking Aim at Bob Iger's Strategy
Among the suggestions from the Nelson Peltz-led firm are to "right-size" expenses in both Disney's studio business and its linear TV networks.
By Alex Weprin arch 4, 2024 1:10pm
Trian Partners is revealing more detail on its plans to shake up Disney, should founder Nelson Peltz and fellow nominee Jay Rasulo be elected to Disney's corporate board next month.
As part of its ongoing proxy fight with Disney, Trian published a 130-page whitepaper, accusing Disney's current board of directors of being "the root cause of Disney's underperformance" in recent years.
But while much of the paper assigns blame to the board and reiterates many of the claims made by Trian previously, it also offers suggestions for what the company should do, and what Peltz and Rasulo would push for, should they win board seats at Disney's April 3 annual meeting.
Among the suggestions are to "right-size" both Disney's studio business and its linear TV networks.
"We believe that it is unlikely that Disney can realize its full potential if it refuses to sufficiently right-size expenses in legacy businesses that are growth challenged," Trian writes. That includes spinning out or finding strategic partners for Disney's legacy linear TV networks, arguing that it would improve the corporate balance sheet and would "improve morale" at the linear networks "by giving management and employees more control over their destiny."
Trian also argued that Disney+ and Hulu should be fully consolidated (and that Hulu should not be relegated into a tile within Disney+), that the company should explore expanded opportunities to bundle alongside other media companies, and that it should evaluate the viability of Hulu With Live TV.
Trian says that it is "skeptical" of ESPN's viability as a stand-alone streaming service and that he company should "scale back ESPN's DTC plans and focus on maximizing the value of ESPN+ and the existing linear business."
Disney's other activist, Jason Aintabi's Blackwells, has offered suggestions of its own, including spinning out Disney's real estate holdings into a Real Estate Investment Trust (a REIT), and using AI to create characters and expand the company's parks business.
Disney has responded by leaning on Professor Ludwig Von Drake (he's Donald Duck's uncle) to try and educate shareholders about the vote, with CEO Bob Iger also using the February earnings call to announce a slew of new projects, including an animated Moana sequel, and a $1.5 billion deal with Epic Games. The grandchildren of Walt Disney and Roy O. Disney also wrote letters in support of Iger in his board seat battle. View Quote Here's the whitepaper: https://restorethemagic.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Disney-Trian-White-Paper-2024.pdfWe believe the root cause of Disney's underperformance is a Board that suffers from a culture that impedes oversight and lacks accountability. The Directors, despite having seemingly impressive resumes and individual accolades, in our view, lack focus, alignment and accountability causing the Board to fail at fulfilling its primary responsibilities.   And they whack them for having a conformist corporate culture and are saying they'd look into the studio culture and look into who's leading studios. KK just felt someone walk across her grave. ----------------------------------------------
3-11Unfortunately, it's a vimeo video, so I can't make it play on this site. https://player.vimeo.com/video/920309359Total video time is about 32 minutes. Here's the link to where they have it on their site: https://restorethemagic.com/virtual-town-hall-disney-shareholders-ask/They are answering questions that seem to be from investors and outsiders about what they would do to fix the situation. There is a transcript, but the player will *not* let me copy it (which is stark raving insane). All in all, pretty mild in tone, hits on the bigger problems, and it makes iger and his lackeys look like insane fools for fighting them. -----------------------I STILL have not seen the final costs for the hulu buyout yet. Not so much as a peep.
3-16Disney is using accounting tricks in their sec filing and if you read the fine print they may well have LOST money on the entire star wars franchise. Disney bought SW for 4.05 bn. They say they've made 12 Bn (before taxes and costs). When you add up the costs on the movies, live action shows, galaxy's edge (1.1b x 2), the galactic starcruiser (reputedly 700m - but that's only their tax writeoff) and etc, they appear to have actually lost money.  Footnote 1:
Reflects the ratio between revenue and investment on titles released following disney's acquisition of the IP. Revenue reflects aggregate 10-year revenue streams, both generated and expected directly associated theatrical releases, including theatrical, home entertainment, TV (pay and free) and consumer products. Does not include derivative revenue streams, such as park attractions, nor does it include DTC originals associated with those franchises or pre-established franchise consumer products revenue. Investment reflects film production costs and print & advertising associated with the theatrical release of the tiles and in the case of animated titles it also includes production Overhead. Investment does not include any additional distribution costs or overhead.
...
Footnote 5:
The force awakens, rogue one, the last jedi, solo, the rise of skywalker. They are having to anticipate income 10+ years past release AND eliminate the costs associated with the parks. We also are pretty darn sure their toy lines are falling down through the floorboards on profitability. But note, in the graph on the slide, they are counting the income from things they say they are not counting the costs on. Insult to injury, even if you just take their estimation, it's made less ROI than toy story and frozen.  Disney Accidentally Reveals Star Wars Lost Money: Kathleen Kennedy's Total Revenue's Revealed!
3-27https://flvoicenews.com/desantis-defeats-disney-in-court-again-as-legal-battles-draw-to-a-close-agreements-null-void/#:~:text=Under%20the%20agreement%2C%20Disney%20is,part%20of%20the%20legal%20battle.LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. Gov. Ron DeSantis' office is celebrating another legal victory over Disney after a new settlement was reached between the state-appointed Central Florida board and the company on Wednesday.
Under the agreement, Disney is set to drop its lawsuit against the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District, and the district will drop its own lawsuit against Disney. Claims and counterclaims from both parties would be dismissed as well. Disney is also set to drop a public records effort part of the legal battle.
The legal battles were over last-minute, far-reaching restrictive covenants and agreements, which gave Disney broad power and developmental rights over its former self-governing improvement district of Reedy Creek, which was dissolved and replaced last year.
...
"[Disney] conceded that their last-minute development agreements are null, void, and unenforceable," Griffin said. "No corporation should be its own government. Moving forward, we stand ready to work with Disney and the District to help promote economic growth, family-friendly tourism, and accountable government in Central Florida."
"As usual, the media were wrong," Griffin said.
The battles sparked in 2023 when the state-appointed board found out that Disney formulated agreements with the former Reedy Creek Improvement District as a last-minute insurance policy aiming to ward off influence of the new board.
The agreements were approved just before Florida lawmakers officially voted in favor of creating the new district.
3-29  Nelson PELTZ TAKES LEAD In DISNEY Proxy Vote - BREAKING | Wall Street Journal LEAK Casting votes
Many of the company’s largest institutional shareholders such as BlackRock
and Vanguard have yet to cast their votes and often wait until closer to the deadline. Individual investors are expected to have outsize sway, given that they hold more than one-third of shares.
So far, a minority of shareholders have voted. As of Tuesday, just over 22% of shares had been cast, according to people familiar with the matter, the bulk of them held by individual and other smaller investors.
Among those who have already cast their votes, Peltz leads Disney director Maria Elena Lagomasino, while Rasulo, the other name on the Trian slate, has so far failed to gain much of a foothold with shareholders, these people said.
A spokesman for Disney said leaking an early vote count was “a highly inappropriate attempt to sway votes.”
Most shareholders are able to vote or alter a previous vote until the polls are officially closed, which happens the day of the annual meeting. OH... and disney just got firebombed by america first legal:  Disney Faces ANOTHER DEI Legal Bombshell: America First Legal Claims TWDC Is Acting Illegally! The PDF America first released: https://t.co/ogD9fUE63AOne small sampling, and not the worst of it: C. Disney maintains illegal diversity, equity, and inclusion quotas Disney’s “Reimagine Tomorrow” website is the Company’s digital destination for “Disney’s DE&I commitments and actions.”16 The website showcases the Company’s unlawful quotas, rebranded, in Orwellian disinformation fashion, as “diversity and inclusion policies” that amplify “underrepresented voices and untold stories as well as championing the importance of accurate representation in media and entertainment.”17
The stated pretext for the Company’s unlawful conduct is “to broaden access and diversity in our industry.”18 Disney has done so “by adopting inclusion standards across Disney General Entertainment and live-action Studio productions by the end of 2022, with the goal of advancing representation in front of and behind the camera, in marketing and more.”19 Disney General Entertainment encompasses essentially all content produced across Disney, so the unlawful requirements listed below in Disney’s Inclusion Standards apply companywide and have been in place for Disney’s ABC Entertainment productions since 2020.20 As discussed below, the “Inclusion Standards” mandate that each production comply with discriminatory employment requirements. Multiple “Inclusion Standards” establish discriminatory quotas to ensure members of underrepresented groups fill a certain percentage of Disney jobs. Disney has accordingly unlawfully excluded qualified job candidates on the basis of race, national origin, and sex who could provide enhanced value to the Company and its shareholders. The fight to see who gets to be on the disney board and who doesn't comes very soon. IIRC next week or so? Live stream video place holder is up for tomorrow's Official proceedings  The Walt DISNEY Company Annual ShareHolder Meeting 2024 | LIVE Coverage, Analysis, Reaction It's set for around ~4:30 ish tomorrow. No, I don't know which time zone. -------------------------------------------------They got RAKED over the coals on comments before the voting. Disney won the vote for board members, got their full slate. Peltz and rasulo and none of the others got on. and "all the good stuff" failed on vote. So...  They choose to continue to fail miserably. I cannot see peltz giving up this easily. Grab your popcorn. We get to watch them burn. The "question and answer" section was NOT people asking them questions. They had AI read out questions, effectively utterly neutering the Q&A session. I don't even see them saying who the questions are from.  -1.6 the instant they announced he won the vote and the market went up .3 during the same time. ------------------------------------------------------- Ok so ... their stock is headed downwards since it was announced iger won the board votes. They STILL have not worked out he final cost for them being forced to buy hulu, they have already had to pay out 8-9 billion for it, and the total cost could run nearly double that. And now we have confirmed: https://www.forbes.com/sites/carolinereid/2024/03/31/indiana-jones-whips-up-130-million-loss-for-disney/Indiana Jones Whips Up $130 Million Loss For Disney
Caroline Reid
Senior Contributor
I cover the entertainment industry focusing on movies and theme parks.
Mar 31, 2024,09:50am EDT
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The financial statements released yesterday reflect the bulk of these costs as they are for the year to April 1 2023 which was three months before the movie was released. During that period, PLT was reimbursed a further $2.7 million (£2.1 million) which brought its net spending down to $326.2 million when combined with the $58.3 million it had already received. Deducting this from Disney's $192 million share of the box office gives the loss of $134.2 million but that isn't the end of the story.
The financial statements do not show the marketing costs for the movie and, on the other hand, the box office share isn't the studio's only return as it also receives revenue from merchandise and DVD or Blu Ray sales. This also does not count the advertising and promo costs. I have seen people who track this stuff and who should know repeatedly saying those efforts cost anywhere from 100 to 200+ million. Dial of depends could very well have lost disney 200-400 million. Toy sales are and have been so abysmal that hasbro is in dire straits (they are the ones that do the toys for disney, as far as I know).
4-4https://deadline.com/2024/04/fantastic-four-julia-garner-silver-surfer-1235873034/ EXCLUSIVE: With the four actors set to play the iconic members of the super team, Marvel Studios‘ The Fantastic Four now has its sights set on who will play Silver Surfer, and it looks like they are going with one of the towns biggest rising stars.
Sources tell Deadline that Emmy winner Julia Garner is set to play the iconic comic book character in Marvel Studios’ The Fantastic Four. Take a character and a story built for boys and young men made to think them think and possibly aspire to greater things and ... make it not for them. Hi, we're disney. We can never learn a lesson. Ever. ----------------------------------------------
4-12  Exclusive: Disney Plus Is 30 BILLION DOLLARS in the HOLE! Bob Iger's Plan Puts Mickey on the Brink! When they add up the losses and the total costs vs revenues and etc, D+ comes out billions in the hole - AND they still have NOT had to pay out the full price yet to get hulu. The final valuation for hulu is not out yet, and that could run up to a total bill (for the last 1/3 or so of hulu) of 16 billion. Oh, and the most watched segment/show on D+? Bluey. At 29% of - I beleive it was total watch time?. Disney had the chance to buy the rights to make bluey rides and such at the parks, they wouldn't touch it. Disney doesn't even make bluey, and the whacked part of that is ... reportedly bluey is for more traditional values. It seems now that the only thing floating disney (pun intended) is people going to walt disney world, followed by people going on disney cruises.And of course, this report / news only comes out AFTER the board seats vote. Oh what a coincidence. ----------------------------------------------
4-16 https://www.forbes.com/sites/carolinereid/2024/04/14/disneys-star-wars-box-office-profits-fail-to-cover-cost-of-lucasfilm/Box office profits generated by Disney's Star Wars movies have fallen $2.8 billion short of covering the media giant's purchase of the sci-fi saga’s creator, Lucasfilm, according to analysis of recently-filed financial statements.
Disney bought Lucasfilm for $4 billion in 2012 and soon gave the green light to a new trilogy of Star Wars movies which teamed up rising stars Daisy Ridley and John Boyega with Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford and the late Carrie Fisher who headlined the original movies more than 30 years earlier.
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However, buried in the fine print is the revelation that the purchase price of Lucasfilm isn't even included in the ROI calculation. Instead, it is purely based on the box office performance of Disney's Star Wars trilogy, its two spinoff movies, merchandise, DVD and Blu Ray sales.
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Analysis of more than 800 pages of company filings has revealed that the cost of making Disney's five Star Wars movies hit a total of $2.1 billion, peaking at $567.3 million (£449.1 million) on The Force Awakens. However, that's just the start. And she doesn't cover the cost of advertising and promo for the films -----------------------------------------  Disney's SHOCKING Admission In Gina Carano Lawsuit TL:DW Disney openly admits the obvious in the case against gina carano. They are saying that they as a company have a right of association (only the protected victim classes get that, but I digress) and that they (disney corp) are in the business of making speech. They cite cases backing up this right to make speech. They say the company does not have to have people who make speech they think goes against the message they as a company want to push/put out, and that carano's speech is stuff they don't want associated with them. I suspect the main thing was carano's tweet about how demonizing people and dehumanizing them pre-cedes the stuff the nazis did. They say this undermined the message disney wants to put out. So, they're saying that carano's speech is against what they represented and they don't want to be associated with that because disney corp is a company all about artistic speech making. Yeah, Yeah, we know this and have. But they are saying it openly. But what do they feel comfortable with? You know, besides hiring harvey weinstein's secretary who any reasonable person would heavily suspect of ...   That would be from the star of the mandalorian show, pedro pascal. So they fired carano for saying don't be like a nazi. And not pedro pascal, for saying republicans and southerners are like nazis, and being pro socialism, etc. ----------------------------------------------
4-20https://www.the-numbers.com/market/distributor/Walt-DisneyThis doesn't need much explanation.  0.37% right now. Remember, they are billions in the hole on streaming services and their movies cannot make licensing fees on D+, so any "D+ paid x amount to play these movies" numbers are not profits.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzAWYEUyg18
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