Bob Iger, CEO, Disney at the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference on July 11, 2023 in Sun Valley, Idaho
David A. Grogan | CNBC
Disney CEO Bob Iger opened the door to selling the company’s linear TV assets as the business struggles during the media industry’s transition to streaming and digital offerings.
Iger appeared on CNBC on Thursday, the morning after the company announced it would extend his contract by two years through 2026. He returned to the helm of the company in November after Disney’s board ousted Bob Chapek with a two-year contract through 2024 and plans to find a next successor.
“After coming back, I realized the company is facing a lot of challenges, some of them self inflicted,” Iger told CNBC’s Faber on Thursday, noting he’s accomplished a lot of work in seven months but there’s more to be done.
At the top of the list is assessing the traditional TV business, Iger said on Thursday. Disney owns a portfolio of TV networks, from broadcast station ABC to cable-TV channels like ESPN.
Disney is going to be “expansive” in its thinking about the traditional TV business, leaving the door open to a possible sale of the networks. “They may not be core to Disney,” Iger said, adding the creativity that has come from those networks has been core to Disney.
Cable-TV channel ESPN is in a different bucket, however. On that front, Iger said Disney is open to finding a strategic partner, which could take the form of a joint venture or offloading an ownership stake.
Iger said when he had left the company he had predicted the future of traditional TV and had been “very pessimistic,” and has found since his return that he was right in his thinking, adding it’s worse than he expected.
When Iger last spoke with Faber in February, soon after announcing a major restructuring at the company, he said he felt “a sense of obligation” to return to Disney and that his preference was to stay for his two-year contract.
“We’ve gotten a lot done very quickly, significant cost reductions and significant realignment of the company,” Iger said. “But dealing head on with some of our biggest challenges.”
The appearance in February came shortly after Disney announced a sweeping restructuring that included thousands of layoffs and billions of dollars cut in spending.
The reorganization warded off a potential proxy fight with activist investor Nelson Peltz.
Disney reorganized into three segments: Disney Entertainment, which includes most of its streaming and media operations; an ESPN division; and a parks, experiences and product unit.
These were some of Iger’s most significant actions in the months after his return. Disney revealed it would cut $5.5 billion in costs, consisting of $3 billion from content, excluding sports, and the remaining amount from non-content costs. The company earmarked 7,000 layoffs.
In addition to looking for his next successor, Iger has been tasked with bringing Disney’s streaming business to profitability. In the last year, media executives across all companies have focused on how to make streaming profitable, particularly after streaming behemoth Netflix lost subscribers early last year and since instituted ad-supported streaming and a crackdown on password sharing to drive revenue.
While the company posted revenue and profit in line with Wall Street estimates last quarter, it saw a loss of 4 million subscribers at its flagship streamer Disney+.
Those subscriber losses were offset by price increases, which Iger said in May weren’t to blame for the lower numbers. Instead, he said it showed room for further increases when it comes to streaming, and pushing customers toward the ad-supported tier, with the aim of reaching profitability.
In an effort to bulk up Disney+ and attract more subscribers to its cheaper, ad-supported tier – which it launched last year – the company announced last quarter it would add Hulu content to Disney+.
In May, Iger had attributed the move toward a one-app location for both Disney+ and Hulu content to the increased advertising potential of a combined platform.
Disney has been weighing whether it should buy all of Hulu, as it owns 66% and Comcast owns the rest. It’s likely Comcast will sell its Hulu stake to Disney at the beginning of 2024, CNBC previously reported.
Disney will report its fiscal third quarter earnings after the market closes Aug. 9.
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal, which includes CNBC.
Bob Iger, Giám đốc Disney, đã công bố những bước tiến mới với thị trường bán lại tài sản TV khi kinh doanh tuyến thẳng của hãng có thể gặp phải khó khăn. Tác động của điều này có thể tạo ra một khoản tài trợ về tài chính cho Disney trong thời gian tới.
Theo những gì được đề cập trong cuộc họp thượng đỉnh khách quan, Disney sẽ cho phép các nhà đầu tư đại chúng nhận lại tài sản của hãng trong các chương trình như phim, thử thách đấu với bạn bè và các chương trình độc quyền khác. Khi bạn mua lại các khoản tài sản này, bạn sẽ nhận được lợi tức không l�ym từ doanh thu tất cả các chương trình từ phát trực tuyến đến phát lại từ dùng truyền hình có kênh bán tiền.
Điều này đã đc xem là một bước lớn về tiến triển cho công nghệ Disney. Đồng thời, hãng mong đợi sẽ tạo ra thêm đầu tư nhân lực để tạo ra tiền không phải thuộc về các mặt hàng như rạp chiếu phim trên toàn thế giới. Điều đó cũng sẽ giúp cho Disney bảo vệ lợi nhuận của hãng trong giới hạn chống lại sự tập trung của các công ty khác trên thị trường.
Với phương châm về “Thiết kế xu hướng tương lai,” ước mong Disney sẽ không ngừng cải tiến để giúp cho những người mua doanh thu của công ty tại thời điểm hiện tại và trong tương lai.