TheQuartering [11/10/2023]
Disney said it would continue to dramatically cut costs as it looks to rebuild its business in a rapidly changing media environment.
The company announced it would slash expenses by another $2 billion, adding to the $5.5 billion reduction it had previously announced, which included thousands of job cuts.
The company said there were no further plans for layoffs. CEO Bob Iger suggested on a call with investors that the cuts would come primarily from its struggling linear TV business.
Meanwhile, the company continues to lose money in its Disney+ streaming business, but it managed to significantly reduce its losses in that division. It has never turned a profit on Disney+. After raising prices, revenue at Disney+, Hulu and related streaming services that don’t include ESPN+ jumped 12% last quarter, and its loss narrowed to $420 million, down from $1.4 billion in the same quarter a year earlier.
“Our results this quarter reflect the significant progress we’ve made over the past year,” CEO Bob Iger said in a statement. “While we still have work to do, these efforts have allowed us to move beyond this period of fixing and begin building our business again.”
Disney’s stock was more than 3% higher in after-hours trading, bouncing off a nearly 10-year low.
The company reported revenue of $21.2 billion, coming in slightly below expectations of $21.3 billion, according to estimates from analysts surveyed by Refinitiv.
Disney’s report comes during a rocky period for the company as it grapples with a streaming business burning through cash, cord cutting, a recent string of box office flops, an ongoing actors strike and legal battles with Republican presidential candidate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
The company said it was “aggressively managing its cost base,” planning to slash $2 billion more in costs than previously reported. The ongoing actors’ strike also helped the company reduce some short-term production costs, Disney’s interim chief financial officer, Kevin Lansberry, said.