The destruction of Disney+ is here, after price hikes have been announced, while content reduction has also occurred.
Recently, Disney held their Q3 2023 Earnings Call. Here we saw that direct-to-consumer sales have increased 9%. That being said, Disney+ subscribers have dropped to 146.1 million. Disneyโs goal for Disney+ subscribers was 154.8 million, so this now falls short. Disneyโs
โcoreโ consumers increased by 1% โ regardless, we are starting to see subscribers drop off now that Disney has begun to reduce the amount of content they can bring to their audience, the people paying for these services on a month-to-month basis.
Disney CEO Bob Iger expressed the following:
Direct-to-Consumer revenues for the quarter increased 9% to $5.5 billion, and operating loss decreased to $0.5 billion from a loss of $1.1 billion. The decrease in operating loss was due to a lower loss at Disney+, higher operating income at Hulu, and a lower loss at ESPN+. 4 The improvement at Disney+ was due to higher subscription revenue and a decrease in marketing costs, partially offset by higher programming and production costs and lower advertising revenue. Higher subscription revenue was attributable to Disney+ Core subscriber growth and Disney+ Core retail pricing increases. The increase in programming and production costs was due to higher costs for non-sports content, partially offset by decreased sports programming costs. The decreases in sports programming costs and advertising revenue reflected the comparison to IPL cricket programming in the prior-year quarter, as we did not renew the digital rights beginning with the 2023 season.
Iger continued to discuss how they have raised prices across Disney+ prices and that ad-supported Disney+ subscription service options have been purchased by 40% of users. Ad-free bundles will also be coming to the US for Disney+ and Hulu, which will cost more than their current…