Linus Tech Tips RESPONDS To New WILD Claim Made By Female Employee After Gamers Nexus Video Crushed!
August 17, 2023Snow White Actress Rachel Zegler DESTROYED By Gina Carano Over Insane Hypocrisy! It Gets Worse!
August 19, 2023Robert A. Iger’s urgent need to overhaul Disney — to turn its streaming division into a profitable enterprise and pull back on its troubled traditional television business — came into sharp relief on Wednesday.
Disney’s streaming operation lost $512 million in the most-recent quarter, the company said, bringing total streaming losses since 2019, when Disney+ was introduced, to more than $11 billion. Disney+ lost roughly 11.7 million subscribers worldwide in the three months that ended July 1, for a new total of 146.1 million.
All the decline came from a low-priced version of Disney+ in India. Last year, Disney lost a bid to renew the expensive rights to Indian Premier League cricket matches. Excluding India, Disney+ gained 800,000 subscribers, primarily overseas.
To make streaming profitable, Mr. Iger, Disney’s chief executive, has shifted the focus at Disney+ away from brisk subscriber growth, which requires expensive marketing campaigns. Instead, Disney has been trying to make more money from the Disney+ subscribers it already has. The monthly price for access to an ad-free version of Disney+ rose to $11 in December, from $8.
Another hefty price increase is on the way. Starting on Oct. 12, the ad-free version will cost $14, Disney said. Hulu, which is also controlled by Disney, will begin charging $18 for ad-free access, up from $15. As an incentive, Disney will begin selling a new streaming package — ad-free access to both Disney+ and Hulu — for $20 a month starting on Sept. 6.
The ad-supported options for both Disney+ and Hulu will remain the same, at $8. “We’re obviously trying with our pricing strategy to migrate more subs to the advertiser-supported tier,” Mr. Iger told analysts on a conference call. The pricing news, along with a vow by Mr. Iger to follow Netflix by cracking down on password sharing, sent Disney shares up roughly 2 percent in after-hours trading.
