Neil Cybart 11/15/23 Neil Cybart 11/15/23

Disney FY4Q23 Earnings, Another Disney Bomb at the Box Office

Happy Tuesday. In today’s update, we will go over Disney's earnings. The discussion will also cover the latest box office developments.

Disney FY4Q23 Earnings

Disney’s legacy business performance was fine in FY4Q23 (July through September). Bob Iger spent months talking down expectations for those businesses to the point of there not being too many negative surprises. At this point, the lack of implosions would lead to a sigh of relief on Wall Street.

While Disney’s linear TV business is shrinking (revenue down 9% last quarter), the assets are kicking off roughly the same amount of cash. Linear Networks generated $805M of operating income, unchanged from last year. Disney benefited from a one-time gain in FY4Q23 related to its A&E investment.
ESPN saw similar results to last year with flat revenue of $3.5B while operating income was up 16% to $987M due to the non-renewal of the Big Ten.

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Neil Cybart 8/11/23 Neil Cybart 8/11/23

Disney 3Q23 Earnings, Iger Setting Low Expectations, Disney Raises DTC Streaming Prices

Hello everyone. We end the week with one of the more anticipated earnings releases of the current cycle: Disney. Let’s jump right in.

Disney 3Q23 Earnings

This was not the disaster of a quarter that some were expecting. One could go so far as to say it was an OK quarter, although there are caveats found with that statement.

There were several moving parts found in Disney’s earnings. Expectations of this release being a disaster were never realistic to begin with. More on that shortly.

The moving parts:

Linear Networks (cable/broadcast) results weren’t great with revenue down 7% and operating income down 23%. The weak numbers were found in both Domestic and International.
Parks & Experiences benefited from an easy year-over-year compare for Shanghai Disney Resort (related to COVID closures). Domestic results were on the weak side with just 4% revenue growth. Lower volumes at Disney World were partially offset by Disneyland results that were modestly better year-over-year. The numbers add credibility to the WSJ’s article about fewer visitors at Disney World.

An Above Avalon membership is required to continue reading this update. Members can read the full update here. An audio version of this update is available to members who have the podcast add-on attached to their membership. More information about the podcast add-on is found here.