Disney’s Problem
These past two weeks have been a whirlwind for Disney. Last week’s Apple Vision Pro launch saw Disney as one of the largest third-party video streamers to embrace Apple’s new computing platform. On Tuesday, news broke of Disney forming a surprising partnership with Warner Bros. Discovery and FOX for an all-new sports app. On Wednesday, Disney announced it would buy a stake in Epic Games as part of a larger agreement that will see the gaming company leverage Disney IP into a new Fortnite-like Disney universe. Despite these moves, some of which are likely being done to quiet down activist shareholders, it’s hard to shake the feeling that Disney’s actual problem is being minimized, or worse, ignored, by management.
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Higher Video Streaming Pricing Is a Good Thing
In what has become something of a quarterly tradition, people are once again sounding the alarm about video streamers raising subscription prices. Disney was the latest company to announce higher prices with Disney+ (with no ads) seeing a 27% price increase and Hulu (with no ads) seeing a 20% increase. Despite drawing anger and frustration, continued price increases end up being one of the better developments for an industry that has been dealing with its fair share of issues and challenges.
A common refrain that has accompanied video streaming price increases is that the cost of streaming is getting close to what the big cable bundle costs. This is then said to indicate failure on the part of streamers to push the video industry forward. A major issue with this line of thinking is that it ignores why the cable bundle was problematic.
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Disney vs. Florida
Disney finds itself in an awkward place. From a financial perspective, things are humming along. Disney Parks are busy printing cash. Linear networks are offsetting ongoing losses in streaming. From a PR perspective, the Disney train is off the rails. Bob Iger is embroiled in an all-out feud with Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida. Caught in the crosshairs: Disney Imagineering – one of the storied groups within the company, responsible for customer-facing experiences at its parks. The saga produces an interesting case study of the changing role being given to CEOs - and why Disney is making mistakes that a company like Apple has been careful to avoid.
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The Year of Paid Video Streaming Price Hikes
Paid video streaming has provided analysts and pundits plenty to talk about in 2022. Competition has intensified as Disney goes after Netflix for the subscriber crown (Disney has already won). Wall Street also turned sour on most streamers, driven by the higher competition and concerns with business model sustainability.
Set within this change and chaos, there is one theme that ended up being quite reliable: subscription price hikes.
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