How Mickey Mouse Is Coping With Covid-19
Walt
Disney is a media and entertainment giant, with
beloved franchises and diversified revenue streams. But it's been feeling pressure
from practically all sides during the coronavirus pandemic. Movie theaters
are closed around the world, delaying new film releases. Companies pulling
back on spending are slashing their advertising budgets, hitting
Disney's networks. ESPN in particular is hurting, without live sports to
broadcast. Theme parks like Disneyland are shut and Disney's cruises aren't
operating.
Even the
relatively new streaming service Disney+—which
surpassed 50 million subscribers today—isn't helping to offset
losses in other divisions: All those new subscribers aren't yet profitable
for Disney.
Barron's Jack
Hough caught up with Disney's executive
chairman Bob Iger earlier this
week. Iger recently relinquished the CEO role to Bob
Chapek, but is staying on to guide the company's
creative efforts.
Here are a few highlights
from Jack's
conversation with Iger:
On
Disney’s financial strength, and ability to bounce back:
We’re fortunate as a company that we have
access to capital that will keep us more than solvent through a prolonged
period. Now when I say prolonged, I don’t necessarily mean forever. No one’s
got that. That said, we’ve taken steps during this period of time—you know,
the furloughs—to reduce costs out of necessity. We started with the senior
executives. We felt that was necessary, not just in terms of reducing costs,
but also sending a signal. Others obviously will feel the impact as well as
we look to preserve the long-term health of the company financially.
In addition
to that, I don’t think we’re ever going to see a return to business as usual
in the sense that, I can’t speak for all companies, but Disney will take this
opportunity to look for ways to run our businesses more efficiently when we
come back. So what we’re doing is thinking, OK, as things start to return,
one, what must we address in terms of making people feel safe, but secondly,
what must we address in terms of running the company more efficiently, given
what we believe business conditions will dictate.
On
reopening the parks after the virus passes:
One of the
things that we’re discussing already is that in order to return to some
semblance of normal, people will have to feel comfortable that they’re safe.
Some of that could come in the form ultimately of a vaccine, but in the
absence of that it could come from basically, more scrutiny, more
restrictions. Just as we now do bag checks for everybody that goes into our
parks, it could be that at some point we add a component of that that takes
people’s temperatures, as a for-instance.
On
what is being done with films already in production:
There are
some we’ve decided to put on Disney+. We already announced one, Artemis
Fowl, that would have been released in theaters.
Others we’ve simply delayed. In some cases we’ve moved things onto Disney+
faster than we would have. Frozen 2 was one of them, but Onward would be the biggest example. It was in
theaters when this happened. We moved to a pay-per-view period for a couple
of weeks where people could buy it and own it. And then we ended up putting
it on Disney+.
On
streaming:
Unfortunately,
or fortunately, it’s going great. The launch in Europe has been strong.
France is just launching, because we delayed them, because they had some
concerns about bandwidth. India just launched. We’re going to have launches
in Latin America coming up. But the bottom line is that I think Disney+ was
going to be popular no matter what. In this time, it’s probably far more popular
than we ever imagined it would be, in part because it’s a welcome relief and
a great alternative in terms of entertainment, for people who don’t have
access given all the restrictions.
Find the
rest of Jack's Q&A with Bob Iger here.
|
To be a Medicare Agent's source of information on topics affecting the agent and their business, and most importantly, their clientele, is the intention of this site. Sourced from various means rooted in the health insurance industry - insurance carriers, governmental agencies, and industry news agencies, this is aimed as a resource of varying viewpoints to spark critical thought and discussion. We welcome your contributions.
Wednesday, April 8, 2020
How Mickey Mouse Is Coping With Covid-19
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment