Disney Plus Fails to Meet Wallstreet Expectations

Terrible earnings call for Bob Chapek today.

The growth of Disney Plus is tortoise-like and it’s all in the wrong markets. Disney Plus needs to get subs in the West where they can charge decent prices that will actually turn the company a profit. Instead, the only place anyone is signing up is in India, where the business model is dependent on low prices with mass subscriptions.

I asked a friend who still has a free year left how often Disney Plus gets used. Answer: about once a month and mostly for Phineas and Ferb, Milo Murphy, or Gravity Falls.

All of which have long since been canceled.

Revenue from Mickey the Great and Terrible’s flagship product has gone down when everyone… Simply everyone (except me) thought it was going to go up. I didn’t think it would go up because there is simply no reason to subscribe to Disney Plus. You were supposed to subscribe for three reasons:

One, Classic Disney, which they delivered on but there isn’t enough of it to justify a monthly streaming bill.

Two, Star Wars. Which is a broken franchise.

Three, Marvel. Also, a broken franchise but most of its fanboys haven’t cottoned on to that yet. They will.

And even if these weren’t broken franchises they generate nowhere near enough new content to support a premium streaming service.

In other bad Disney news.

The Parks were up 99% over last year. They had the nerve to brag about that.

The overpaid CFO pointed out that they would be reducing the size of meal portions at the parks (without reducing prices, naturally). Then made a fat joke that got Disney dragged on social media. This is the woman to whom Chapek gave an $11million bonus while laying off 10,000s of thousands of employees.

Disney stock closed at $162 per share, which is their lowest point YTD.