The Walt Disney Company is exploring more licensing of its films and television series to rival media outlets as a way to curb the losses of its streaming business, according to Bloomberg.
What’s Happening:
- Bloomberg is reporting that the Walt Disney Company is exploring more licensing options of its movies and tv series to rival media outlets to help curb the losses in its own streaming divisions.
- Reports say that the talks are private, but despite a recent shift in strategy to keep original programming on Disney+ and Hulu, Disney is trying to earn more cash with this idea, leveraging their massive content library.
- Although Disney already licenses some titles to other platforms including the Amazon Prime streaming service, they began to hoard content with the launch of Disney+ in 2019. Disney curtailed licensing of its own programs to third parties to boost that service and a deal that had Disney films running on Netflix was phased out.
- The company is under pressure to reassess their streaming strategy. After Disney reported a $1.5 billion loss for its online video business in the third quarter, the board fired Chief Executive Officer Bob Chapek, replacing him with Bob Iger, who had previously held that job for 15 years.
- Iger is likely to share more of these plans on February 8th, when the Walt Disney Company holds their first earnings call since he was reinstated as CEO. The earnings call will likely also mention other decisions he has made, reversing those made by Chapek, and a promise to completely restructure the company, namely an unpopular move that Chapek made which allowed for the film and TV release schedule to land in the hands of distribution executives that decided what would go to theaters or Disney+ and when. Iger plans on allowing more important decision making to lie in the hands of creative executives.
- Among Iger’s many challenges, he now must also cope with a proxy fight by activist Nelson Peltz, who’s seeking a seat on Disney’s board and pushing for better performance.
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