Walt Disney Company Q3 Earnings Report

[rteetz]

They’d simply just raise the subscription price, not make shows a la cart. I cant imagine Disney keeping the $7 price tag once the MCU shows and other Star Wars programming gets up and running.

I think we see that in 2021. I don't think they raise that price this year yet.

 

[Krandor]

I, too, was surprised by the “uproar” on social media from people who I guess just learned that Disney values the out-of-market dollars more than the local-AP dollars?

It isn't about who they "value" more. It is simply raw dollars and cents.

I think the people getting upset don't normally listen to earnings calls. The general public is not the audience. It is investors deciding to give a company money or not. They have to lay out information like that so people can decide to invest or not. Yes earnings reports and calls are available to anybody but the general public is not the target audience for the information.

If you are normally 80% "one time" visitors and 20% AP and the "one time" people spend more per day and now you are at 50/50 then revenue per day and revenue per person is going to be lower. That is simply information investors need (and have) to be given. It isn't about making value judgements. It is simply what the numbers show which is right now and the current capacity numbers, dollars per visitor is lower then normal and here is why.

 

[Mit88]

Considering they accidentally charged all those APs last month...

I want to laugh at this because its “funny but true” but man, I’d be furious (about the AP, not the movie). Especially if I had money tied up in buying a house or car and my card got charged like that.

 

[TwoMisfits]

$30 is the same amount that it would cost if they released Mulan straight to blu ray. It doesn’t seem exhortinant at all to me. It seems pretty obvious that theaters in the US won’t be opening any time soon and Disney probably doesn’t want to sit on Mulan for a year or more. It was always destined to do better in the Chinese market so it’ll be interesting to see what they do with Mulan over there.

One data point isn’t a trend. Would you be this upset if they sold it for $30 on Amazon, Xbox....etc?

Since Disney is not letting you own the title, hell's yes. You literally only have it as long as you keep D+...

 

[Mit88]

I think we see that in 2021. I don't think they raise that price this year yet.

I think if the pandemic didnt occur, maybe they would have upped the price to $10 at the 1 year mark when Verizon and 1 year discounted contracts were up. But thats assuming you’d have just gotten S2 of Mandalorian, and Falcon and the WInter Soldier, and Wandavision coming in December. I dont think you can up the price with just S2 of the Mandalorian. You need to have a steady stream of overlapping originals, imo. Monsters Inc, Wandavision, What if?, Loki, Hawkeye coming out next year would make it a lot easier to reel people in with a higher subscription price.

 

[Mit88]

Would it make you guys feel more at
home if they mailed a themed cupcake to every household who paid for the early release?

Never underestimate Disney’s ability to entice people to spend more.

Magnets or bust

 

[Krandor]

And thats also typically $30 for the Blu-ray AFTER you spent money seeing it in theaters. Unless you’re blind buying the movie on physical media.

Very true and there are not a lot of movies I'd buy blind. MCU probably because they have earned my trust. Star Wars? Maybe based on if the plot sounded good (Solo would not have been a blind buy and was actually never a buy). Avatar? Loved the first one but been so long and not sure where the story can go - probably not until I see reviews. Any of the live-action remakes like Mulan? No... they have mostly been disappointing. Lion King as an example was beautiful visually but was almost too realistic in the animation where the emotions of the characters was lost.

So I'd only blind buy a movie was an establishes series that I have faith and trust in. But then that almost encourages the continuation of hollywood making reboots and sequels vs new original content which is even a current problem.

 

[DGsAtBLT]

I think if the pandemic didnt occur, maybe they would have upped the price to $10 at the 1 year mark when Verizon and 1 year discounted contracts were up. But thats assuming you’d have just gotten S2 of Mandalorian, and Falcon and the WInter Soldier, and Wandavision coming in December. I dont think you can up the price with just S2 of the Mandalorian. You need to have a steady stream of overlapping originals, imo. Monsters Inc, Wandavision, What if?, Loki, Hawkeye coming out next year would make it a lot easier to reel people in with a higher subscription price.

And Lizzie McGuire. I’m still so bitter about that one, had to take the opportunity to bring it up.

 

[JacknSally]

It isn't about who they "value" more. It is simply raw dollars and cents.

I think the people getting upset don't normally listen to earnings calls. The general public is not the audience. It is investors deciding to give a company money or not. They have to lay out information like that so people can decide to invest or not. Yes earnings reports and calls are available to anybody but the general public is not the target audience for the information.

If you are normally 80% "one time" visitors and 20% AP and the "one time" people spend more per day and now you are at 50/50 then revenue per day and revenue per person is going to be lower. That is simply information investors need (and have) to be given. It isn't about making value judgements. It is simply what the numbers show which is right now and the current capacity numbers, dollars per visitor is lower then normal and here is why.

Yes, I agree. All I meant by they’re “valued” more is that the spending that comes with everything involved in an out-of-market visitor attending the parks carries more/different weight to the investors and the bottom line than the spending that comes with an AP attending the park, and that is absolutely important context for calls like today. I was being tongue-in-cheek about the social media reactions which probably didn’t translate here.

I’m sure a lot of the people who are upset didn’t listen to the call today and don’t realize (or care to realize) all of the context that goes into the comments made. Like I said, hearing it reported from sources after the call that “Disney cares more about day guests than APs” or however the upset APs saw it worded was probably a pride hit for some APs who see their pass as a “Disney’s Special/Favorite Guest” status thing.

 

[coaster32]

so overall not too bad, about what was expected.....

 

[Krandor]

Yes, I agree. All I meant by they’re “valued” more is that the spending that comes with everything involved in an out-of-market visitor attending the parks carries more/different weight to the investors and the bottom line than the spending that comes with an AP attending the park, and that is absolutely important context for calls like today. I was being tongue-in-cheek about the social media reactions which probably didn’t translate here.

Very fair and there is a component of coming often that can factor into these things too.

As an example and on-topic for the previous theater discussion prior to covid I listened to some AMC calls after they introduced A-List which lets people see up to 3 movies a week for a flat fee. AMC was happy with it but on the call did mention that per-visit spending on concessions for A-list members was lower which they expected but because an a-list member came 2-3 times as often per month as non a-list members, the per-month numbers were higher. A-list was like 10-20% of visitors at the time I believe. AMC was good with those numbers at the time.

Now if A-list was 50% of the people coming in, then that lower per-visit concession number becomes a bigger issue.

But I agree a think a lot of people complaining missed the context/audience for the call. I like in atlanta and when I go to six flags (have a membership) I rarely spend any money while at the park unless it's for alcohol (have the dining plan for food). Outside of alcohol the only other money I spend is if I go to the water park I may get a locker. So I'm in that group of I pay my monthly membership fee and little else. Does that at times make me not as profitable on a per-day basis as somebody buying a single-day ticket? absolutely and I'm fine with that.

 

[sethschroeder]

I’d pay it. I’m on the D23 deal for Disney+, so paying roughly $3 and change a month for Disney+. $30 is less than I’d pay to go to the movies with my wife and buy snacks, so yeah, I’m good with it.

Service is still barely worth it IMO.

We had what like 6-7 original shows which can basically be consumed in the course of a single month.

Your TV service likely has most other things and I already own most of the Disney movies.

Benefit of Disney Plus is cheaper digital movies to buy though lol.

 

[sethschroeder]

Since Disney is not letting you own the title, hell's yes. You literally only have it as long as you keep D+...

Also Blu Ray's with a disc and a code typically are around 21-24 the first few days of release. Then you can typically buy movie codes online for cheaper depending how old and what studio.

I am with you it's crazy to have a $30 rental. The last owner of Blockbuster must be fuming lol.

 

[dina444444]

Also Blu Ray's with a disc and a code typically are around 21-24 the first few days of release. Then you can typically buy movie codes online for cheaper depending how old and what studio.

I am with you it's crazy to have a $30 rental. The last owner of Blockbuster must be fuming lol.

I buy Blu-ray’s on Black Friday to get the digital codes for a really good price.

 

[sethschroeder]

And thats also typically $30 for the Blu-ray AFTER you spent money seeing it in theaters. Unless you’re blind buying the movie on physical media.

Well, you own it until its released on D+ as part of their library. So technically you’re losing it about 45-50 days after release anyway. It’s a $30 one month rental essentially

Majority of movies are consume outside of the theater for the first time. Bought probably 75-100 blurays without going to the movie theater. Probably roughly 625 of my 650 digital movies were movies I never saw in a theater.

Like half of Americans even go to the movies a single time in a year. Also with things like Totten tomatoes and IMDB you are fairly safe with blind buys.

On top of all that movies are all over streaming services that people have. I am pretty safe in assuming a vast majority of movies people watch they never saw in a movie theater.

 

[sethschroeder]

I buy Blu-ray’s on Black Friday to get the digital codes for a really good price.

Also check out ultra violet cinema. It consolidates most of the reputable code stores in to a single location as well.

 

[anthony2k7]

And they are in many places.

In America yes. Pretty much none in the UK. Iv no idea about the rest of the world.

 

[anthony2k7]

Buy or rent, it doesn’t really matter. Come October its on D+ for $7 a month until streaming is no longer a thing. I dont believe newer projects for Disney have any obligations to other networks or services like they did prior to 2020 with Starz and Netflix.

Trolls made $300M under PVOD. Granted, that was in early April when everything outside of essential businesses were closed in every state. So there was more time on people’s hands to pay for movies like Trolls because there was nothing to do.

From what I’m tallying through film twitter it seems like about 1 out of every 10 people are saying they’ll buy it. 6 out of 10 saying they’ll wait until its no extra charge, and 3/10 saying they had no interest in seeing it outside of a theater anyway.

Doesn’t look good for Disney from initial reactions. This was certainly not the brightest plan as a company considering this movie would have had worldwide appeal and likely crossed the 1B dollar mark at the box office. But not much they can do with states not allowing theaters to reopen. But if you want a lap dance, gentleman’s clubs are open...because those are safer than movie theaters

Maybe disney needs to get some screens put up in gentleman's clubs....

 

[anthony2k7]

Trolls was the event that will never happen again. 1st to do it. Every country and state shut down. Easter weekend. Someone, anyone looking for something to have a happy kid holiday memory. And it hasn't been repeated yet. Scoob! did not release numbers b/c it didn't top it.

And we've only opened more and more since Scoob!.

Edit to Add: Rumor is Scoob! only got 40% of Trolls...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottm...that-changed-absolutely-nothing/#555795f832eb

Trolls was also only half the price of Mulan and available on a lot more platforms

 

[anthony2k7]

So not a 24-48 hour rental, but not owning, either. This sounds like basically the $30 pays for early access before the movie eventually goes to Disney+ for streaming - how long before that happens is still unknown.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1290812730148937728

Interesting additional detail there in that tweet. Own it as long as you're a continual subscriber. Sounds like they are hoping people build up a library of bought content over time that they then hope people value enough to never end their subscription.