Cesar R M
Well-Known Member
The Shat could sing Rocket Man while you're beaming it right up
the hilarity is how "the shat" fits very well with the "poop" and "crap" talk.
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The Spirited Seventh Heaven ...
- Thread starter WDW1974
- Start date
the hilarity is how "the shat" fits very well with the "poop" and "crap" talk.
bhg469
Well-Known Member
I'll take one if you got one but do not try to give me that red r5 unit with a bad motivator.
Nubs70
Well-Known Member
Today's WDW is becoming much like a low margin/high volume lightbulb. P&R, by focusing on lowest costs and efficiency "uber alles", is molding the parks using commodity manufacturing transformation theory while marketing the parks as a mass customized experience. This bipolar approach is self defeating once input costs rise and product demand falls margins can turn negative very rapidly. Once margins are negative, you can't make up revenue by increasing volume.If you think about it, what Disney has done at WDW is dump their unique low-margin merchandise & food and replace it with generic high-margin merchandise & food.
What we'd do is dump the low-margin bulbs and realign our resources to sell more high-margin bulbs. We'd chase both sales and margins. Accepting the status quo is never an option.
We'd let Walmart sell the high-volume, low-margin bulbs. Considering what has happened to the WDW product since Iger took over, it seems like an appropriate comparison.
If our investors can't get the return they want from us, they'll put their money elsewhere. Lucky for us, we have shareholders who are in it for the long hall and recognize that the product investments we've made in the past are paying off today, while the product investments we make today will payoff tomorrow.
In the end, the goal is to improve both sales and margins. If we are wasting valuable company resources selling low-margin products, then we our doing our investors a disservice.
In 2013, Universal Parks spent $1.5B to make $700M, which is not exactly like selling 10 light bulbs a week.
In 2013, Universal invested 26% of Theme Parks revenue for improvements. The money Universal spent last year for Diagon Alley will pay off big-time for years to come. Universal was smart and invested in the right product.
In 2013, Disney's P&R had to spend $11.8B in order to make $2.2B.
In 2013 and the first half of 2014, Disney invested 15% in P&R. For some reason, Disney decided it would rather spend the extra billions they had lying around buying back company stock, which was trading at a PE of 21.
Kinda suggests Disney doesn't have confidence in their own P&R segment to provide a better return.
Even if they were broken up into standalone businesses, both Universal's Theme Parks segment and Disney's Parks & Resorts would be too large for most single investors. As standalone companies, a theoretical "Universal Theme Parks Company" would be outperforming its "Disney Parks & Resort" counterpart by a two-to-one spread.
In such a match-up, the smart money would be on the mythical "Universal Theme Parks Company". The smart money would be on the company that's hungry for business, not the one that's coasting on past glory.
Still, if you want to look at the companies as a whole, Comcast generated more revenue and more cash than Disney.
In 2013, Disney's gross margin from all operations was 23.8% while its P&R margin was 15.8%.
At Comcast, gross margin from all operations was 21.0%, while Theme Parks ran at 31.5%.
Uni's Theme Parks pulled the company up whereas Disney's P&R pulled the company down.
As I've stated before, one Theme Parks organization is being run intelligently.
The other one is being run considerably less so.
Is it any wonder Iger & company are unhappy with P&R?
jdmdisney99
Well-Known Member
bhg469
Well-Known Member
That is pretty funny. I would never notice or care. They were obviously in the park, seems silly to remove the globe.
Tokyo DisneySea is a great achievement, but it does not compare to what has been accomplished inside Diagon Alley and Hogwarts Express. Sorry.
I'll place my unbridled enthusiasm wherever I damn well please, thank you.
Universal has real studio facilities in Orlando. NBC owns them. NBC can tape its shows wherever it likes, particularly the facilities they happen to own. Uni parks paid for promotional consideration for Tonight Show and it is noted as such in the show's credits.
I think Disney is just scared of NBC's ability to "synergize" its parks with TV in 2014 in a cool and relevant way when Disney has failed left and right for quite a while now.
PhotoDave219
Well-Known Member
OH MY GOD DISNEY PLEASE GIVE US SOMETHING TO TALK ABOUT.
We are reduced (no pun intended) to discussing defecation in Space Opera. Grunted, er, granted, I helped start it. But my Charmin, it is PAINFUL!
(That's what he said!)
I tried today. Instead, we're stuck and have to let it go.
PhotoDave219
Well-Known Member
Next Big Thing
Well-Known Member
I don't think that needs to be what they are worried about. They need to start making solid attractions again and the rest will work itself out.
And if they really want to synergize in a "cool and relevant" way, they have Kimmel. Throw him in Atlantic Dance Hall for a week of shows and let him and Guillermo run around.
They can synergize too. They just need substance to make it worth the effort.
Longhairbear
Well-Known Member
My reply is not directly related to your post, but we got a letter from our DVC guide saying the price of Aulani, and VGF points are going up. $160, and $165 respectively per point. They must really need to show more income from anywhere in the resorts because MM+ isn't bringing anything in so far.If you think about it, what Disney has done at WDW is dump their unique low-margin merchandise & food and replace it with generic high-margin merchandise & food.
What we'd do is dump the low-margin bulbs and realign our resources to sell more high-margin bulbs. We'd chase both sales and margins. Accepting the status quo is never an option.
We'd let Walmart sell the high-volume, low-margin bulbs. Considering what has happened to the WDW product since Iger took over, it seems like an appropriate comparison.
If our investors can't get the return they want from us, they'll put their money elsewhere. Lucky for us, we have shareholders who are in it for the long hall and recognize that product investments we've made in the past are paying off today, while product investments we make today will payoff tomorrow.
In the end, the goal is to improve both sales and margins. If we are wasting valuable company resources selling low-margin products, then we our doing our investors a disservice.
In 2013, Universal Theme Parks spent $1.5B to make $700M, which is not exactly like selling 10 light bulbs a week.
In 2013, Universal invested 26% of Theme Parks revenue for improvements. The money Universal spent last year for Diagon Alley will pay off big-time for years to come. Universal was smart and invested in the right product.
In 2013, Disney's P&R had to spend $11.8B in order to make $2.2B.
In 2013 and the first half of 2014, Disney invested 15% in P&R. For some reason, Disney decided it would rather spend the extra billions they had lying around buying back company stock, which was trading at a PE of 21.
Kinda suggests Disney doesn't have confidence in their own P&R segment to provide a better return.
Even if they were broken up into standalone businesses, both Universal's Theme Parks segment and Disney's Parks & Resorts segment would be too large for most single investors. As standalone companies, a theoretical "Universal Theme Parks Company" would be outperforming its "Disney Parks & Resort" counterpart by a two-to-one spread.
In such a match-up, the smart money would be on the mythical "Universal Theme Parks Company". The smart money would be on the company that's hungry for business, not the one that's coasting on past glory.
Still, if you want to look at the companies as a whole, Comcast generated more revenue and more cash than Disney.
In 2013, Disney's gross margin from all operations was 23.8% while its P&R margin was 15.8%.
At Comcast, gross margin from all operations was 21.0%, while Theme Parks ran at 31.5%.
Uni's Theme Parks pulled the company up whereas Disney's P&R pulled the company down.
As I've stated before, one Theme Parks organization is being run intelligently.
The other one is being run considerably less so.
Is it any wonder Iger & company are unhappy with P&R?
I'm not exactly sure, but I think we paid $78- $89 per point for Wilderness back in 2003. I think that is about $103.00 in today's money. Not $165.00.
Also, from pictures I saw in our latest copy of Disney Files of the refurb of the Wilderness Villas, we're thinking the One Disney is spilling over to One DVC, making all the Villas look alike, and saving cost at the expense of theming. To quote what I wrote to MS on the DVCMember site, Wilderness now looks like the Beach Club with Bambi pillows. I got a call on my answering machine from MS, usual BS.
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FigmentJedi
Well-Known Member
Man, remember when Disney World Inside Out was a thing? Disney needs to do something like that again.
AEfx
Well-Known Member
I suspect that is correct. Or more specifically, ABC.
Obviously this all seems odd because Disney/ABC, Universal/NBC, which seems absurd since Disney uses ABC all the time. I don't even watch the show, but apparently there was an entire episode of "The Middle" at Disneyland recently that they promoted the absolute hell out of. Same with their Star Wars episode.
Thinking about it, though - I want to say that because of those very blurred lines between the Entertainment and News Divisions at networks, and those antiquated rules about which falls under which (Barbara Walters has talked about this on the View before), it is plausible that the Tonight Show, even though it's a talk show, straddles those lines which would invoke some sort of "equal airtime" thing.
Then as soon as I arrived at that possibility, I remembered the week The View spent with the round table smack in front of Sleeping Beauty's Castle, and the guests came from inside and sat down every day. That little Universal ball is nothing compared to that.
I'm wondering if it's not about the ball at all, because if you look at the pics in it - it does kind of stand out and it looks like it's growing out of his microphone. It may have just been too visually distracting. It may have nothing to do with whatever supposedly went down, just be a coincidence.
Cesar R M
Well-Known Member
please.. dont give disney ideas.
next they will have disney chars roaming in ESPN.
Next Big Thing
Well-Known Member
I think this is a very distinct possibility. It was removed after Monday's show, meaning it was the first day they got to see how everything really looked while editing the show afterwards.
Maybe they did just decide it was too distracting. I mean, they left everything else that symbolized Universal there.
Cesar R M
Well-Known Member
No, but I mean during matches and stuff, characters roaming..etc..
wogwog
Well-Known Member
I would nominate Goofy to caddy a PGA tournament.
articos
Well-Known Member
Just to clarify this for others reading: not true in the slightest, in any way. Yes, Hogwarts Express has video instead of windows, but it's way more than "tv's instead of windows." And Escape from Gringotts is in no way comparable to Dwarves.
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articos
Well-Known Member
Been slow for both, although that's about to change, obviously. But the past year has had strange crowd patterns in general.
My opinion is why not just call them by their names: Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley. If you need to refer to them as areas, just call them the Potter lands within UIOA or Universal Studios Florida. Simple and to the point. They're not parks, and the lengthy names are ridiculous. Universal tried to capitalize on "The Wizarding World of Harry Potter", but that should have been a full park's name, if they had built a full park devoted to the IP. Instead it's a confusing marketing name that Universal's marketing dept uses to describe two lands within the property, which is fine if they want to use it, but trying to explain that to the general public is a nightmare.
articos
Well-Known Member
Unless something has changed, the Terminator stores have always been and still are Universal owned and operated. The merch buyers just have a lot of leeway.