95 million subscribers later, Disney's streaming division is crushing it

[Shawn Knight]

Bottom line: Disney has quickly become a force to be reckoned with in the streaming industry. Despite some launch day login errors caused by heavy demand and an unfortunate account hack, it’s been largely onwards and upwards for the media and entertainment conglomerate. The company's latest earnings report reveal that Disney+ now has 94.9 million paying subscribers. A year ago, the service only had 26.5 million paid subscribers.

The ongoing pandemic dealt a major blow to Disney's business in the most recent quarter, especially its parks and cruise ship divisions. The saving grace was streaming, where strong performance across the portfolio has helped to dampen the overall financial impact brought about by Covid-19.

Disney has seen impressive growth across its entire streaming portfolio, not just Disney+.

ESPN+ plus finished the quarter with 12.1 million subscribers, an 83 percent increase compared to the 6.6 million subscribers it had at the same point a year ago. Hulu, meanwhile, grew its subscriber base by 30 percent to 39.4 million users.

Despite the streaming wins, it was still a rough quarter for Disney due to the continued pandemic and its impact on the company’s theme park and cruise ship business.

For the quarter, Disney generated earnings of $16.25 billion, down 22 percent year-over-year from $20.88 billion. Diluted earnings per share were just $0.02 versus $1.17 a year earlier. Still, it’s better than Wall Street was expecting. Analysts with Refinitiv were anticipating revenue of $15.9 billion and a loss of $0.41 per share.

Image credit: Koshiro K, Jonathan Weiss

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https://www.techspot.com/news/88615-disney-has-amassed-nearly-95-million-subscribers-little.html

 

[jonny888]

They may be crushing it slightly less hard given people's (understandable) reaction to their treatment and firing of Gina Carano. But alas probably not enough to hurt them meaningfully.

 

[Shadowboxer]

They may be crushing it slightly less hard given people's (understandable) reaction to their treatment and firing of Gina Carano. But alas probably not enough to hurt them meaningfully.

Yes I thought that. Disney remove the black actors from the promotional material of their movies in order to get better sales in other countries like China. But Gina Carano making a vulgar but technically historically accurate Instagram post gets her fired? After James Gunn was reinstated for far worse social media posts (albeit a long time ago). It’s not consistent at all. Gina did come out as a trump supporter not that long ago, the conspiracy theorist in me makes me wonder if that was the actual reason why she was dropped.

I had already cancelled my Disney plus subscription this month due to the poor video quality I get on my PC and a lack of content I want to watch. This Gina Carano incident re-affirms that decision.

 

[Uncle Al]

They may be crushing it slightly less hard given people's (understandable) reaction to their treatment and firing of Gina Carano. But alas probably not enough to hurt them meaningfully.

Unfortunately for Disney, sooner or later they will be a target of minorities like BLM who will not only stop buying their products but flood the airways with a lot of negative press. If Disney were smart they would have compelled her to make public apologies and offer herself up as an example of how anyone and everyone has the potential to make the same fopa ... they talk about how to conduct yourself afterwards with apologies and doing some good, sound, PSA's'.

The person that can freely admit their mistakes should be praised, not punished and work harder to be a good example to everyone, ESPECIALLY children!

 

[terzaerian]

Unfortunately for Disney, sooner or later they will be a target of minorities like BLM who will not only stop buying their products but flood the airways with a lot of negative press. If Disney were smart they would have compelled her to make public apologies and offer herself up as an example of how anyone and everyone has the potential to make the same fopa ... they talk about how to conduct yourself afterwards with apologies and doing some good, sound, PSA's'.

The person that can freely admit their mistakes should be praised, not punished and work harder to be a good example to everyone, ESPECIALLY children!

They did compel an apology out of her - she was fired hours later. It basically sent yet another object lesson to never apologize.

 

[Irata]

They did compel an apology out of her - she was fired hours later. It basically sent yet another object lesson to never apologize.

The irony is that they cancel a strong outspoken woman and the same thing has no consequences for a male actor. And he‘s made posts like this before

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1009572721548595201

 

[bexwhitt]

They may be crushing it slightly less hard given people's (understandable) reaction to their treatment and firing of Gina Carano. But alas probably not enough to hurt them meaningfully.

They didn't really have a choice, her dumb and inflammatory statements deserved to boot.

 

[jonny888]

They didn't really have a choice, her dumb and inflammatory statements deserved to boot.

Based on what little I know, I would disagree. Not to mention I detest mob/witch hunting mentality in general.

 

[drjekelmrhyde]

OMG they fired Gina Carano! Did you youngins forget that Disney fired Bill Maher ?
"ABC decided against renewing Maher's contract for Politically Incorrect in 2002, after he made a controversial on-air remark six days after the September 11 attacks.[23] He agreed with his guest, conservative pundit Dinesh D'Souza, that the 9/11 terrorists did not act in a cowardly manner (in rebuttal to President Bush's statement calling them cowards). Maher said, "We have been the cowards. Lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That's cowardly. "

 

[cliffordcooley]

her dumb and inflammatory statements deserved to boot.

There was nothing dumb and inflammatory about her statements. Her statement was a prediction based on history.

 

[pencea]

They have buckets of money and yet none of the videos/contents are in 4k. All still at 1080p...

 

[toooooot]

Evil tw**s. I can not wish them luck and I will not pay for a single of their product which has been easy lately. Take new Mulan for example, they surgically removed soul from an old classic movie.
They probably had a checklist asking themselves, how do identify all the things people love about Mulan and how do we replace them with the things everybody will hate. And them thanking the government of province in china that has concentration camps, is the icing on the cake of that movie. Are you surprised they fire people who dare to express thoughts and believes as free people?
Rapey mouse crawling in the dark, stop feeding it.

 

[Zinixo]

There was not enough new content to make me want to keep Disney channel after the free month as I own most of what I want to watch from them anyways .
However offering dolby atmos passthrough is defiantly a step in the right direction