News Disney’s Q1 FY25 Earnings Results Webcast

[Agent H]

Well a 50% surcharge on value at restaurants…not so much on quickserve

The ride upcharges are a glaring one

Shutting parks down early to devalue the day tickets and charge again for them…

That doesn’t even take into account the cost cutting tactics that reduce the value

Like never having more than one water park open…the airport shuttle being canned…parking and valet fees jacked up…etc etc etc

…please don’t say “it’s worth it to ME”?

One thing here it’s not like you pay for both water parks and even than I’m curious how many vacationer’s actually visit the water parks cause whenever I’m at one of them I always get the feeling I’m surrounded by locals

 

[Chi84]

Well a 50% surcharge on value at restaurants…not so much on quickserve

The ride upcharges are a glaring one

Shutting parks down early to devalue the day tickets and charge again for them…

That doesn’t even take into account the cost cutting tactics that reduce the value

Like never having more than one water park open…the airport shuttle being canned…parking and valet fees jacked up…etc etc etc

…please don’t say “it’s worth it to ME”?

I asked about up charges, not cost cutting or price increases.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

One thing here it’s not like you pay for both water parks and even than I’m curious how many vacationer’s actually visit the water parks cause whenever I’m at one of them I always get the feeling I’m surrounded by locals

If you buy multi day tickets or season passes with waterparks included…you ABSOLUTELY pay for both water parks

Because they never lowered the prices when they went to one. Quite the opposite

But what they did was save 1,000 employees or so each day…and concentrate the expenses on what’s left. At the expense at customer choice.

I can’t say with a straight face it’s not smart.

 

[BrianLo]

What is the revenue opportunity lost by not licensing out their content to third party distribution like Netflix rather than keeping it in-house and essentially paying themselves for the ability to do so?

With the vast library of significant Disney IP, does licensing not make more sense?

In a nutshell, absolutely not. Licensing would yield significantly less than current DTC revenue. They are paying productions fair market value based on what Netflix or other distributors would have paid.

By virtue of DTC breaking even they have their own internal licensing stream. The company would be in a much worse fiscal position if they didn’t go it alone. They’d lack creative control and be at the whim of external services wanting to license their material. Revenue at the company would be significantly smaller than it is now. There was only more money in the prior model if they couldn’t make the service itself financially viable.

Lastly and probably most importantly, going to licensing means that they've given up D+ (and would ding Bob's ego).

And now we really swing around to the crux of why these analysis make no sense to me. This isn’t personal; the company has a viable service worth approaching 100B, they aren’t shuttering it, turning off the consumer spend to pick up spare change from Netflix.

All Netflix licensing is, is another pocket in the way skimming their own cut.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

I asked about up charges, not cost cutting or price increases.

You shot past the upcharges part, huh?

The ride skips and the nights events are upcharges…no matter how you slice them.

But trying to compartmentalize the pricing is a red herring approach.

It’s a weeklong thing…to say that only “upcharges” listed is causing the grind/problems is not accurate.

Just as comparing Disney trips to the price of football games or Chappell roan tickers is not intellectualy honest…it’s cherry picking

The only thing that is close 1:1 are cruises.

People defended the Star Wars hotel price - even though it was Doa - on this board as “not that much”…

But that never held water because nobody was going for 2 days and heading home

It was more a $5,000+6,000 kinda thing. And it broke the camels back

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

Personally? Keep attendance down. The place was miserable 2016-2019 and I have no desire to go back if it returns to those levels without a significant increase in capacity, both attractions and actual land for people to spread out.

In terms of Disney, I am sure they would love both but reality is they can't support the attendance. None of that means I like or approve of how they are going about it.

I would love it if they were limiting attendance to make the lines more manageable and the parks more fun but in my experience they’ve offset any advantage of fewer guests with fewer CMs, fewer shows, fewer parades, etc.

The attendance at the parks is down and other than less crowded paths the guests experience hasn’t gotten any better.

If their goal is to limit attendance to make the parks more enjoyable for their guests they are failing miserably.

 

[Chi84]

You shot past the upcharges part, huh?

The ride skips and the nights events are upcharges…no matter how you slice them.

But trying to compartmentalize the pricing is a red herring approach.

It’s a weeklong thing…to say that only “upcharges” listed is causing the grind/problems is not accurate.

Just as comparing Disney trips to the price of football games or Chappell roan tickers is not intellectual honest…it’s cherry picking

The only think that is close 1:1 are cruises.

People defended the Star Wars hotel price - even though it was Doa - on this board as “not that much”…

But that never held water because nobody was going for 2 days and heading home

It was more a $5,000+6,000 kinda thing. And it broke the camels back

No, I was responding to a poster who mentioned needing the up charge events to have a good experience and I asked which ones he was referring to. He answered that it was the LLs and he wasn't thinking of any others. Another poster mentioned after hours events.

Please take a moment to actually read the posts. Not every post is intended to attack or defend something. No one said only the up charges are causing problems.

 

[monothingie]

In a nutshell, absolutely not. Licensing would yield significantly less than current DTC revenue. They are paying productions fair market value based on what Netflix or other distributors would have paid.

By virtue of DTC breaking even they have their own internal licensing stream. The company would be in a much worse fiscal position if they didn’t go it alone. They’d lack creative control and be at the whim of external services wanting to license their material. Revenue at the company would be significantly smaller than it is now. There was only more money in the prior model if they couldn’t make the service itself financially viable.



And now we really swing around to the crux of why these analysis make no sense to me. This isn’t personal; the company has a viable service worth approaching 100B, they aren’t shuttering it, turning off the consumer spend to pick up spare change from Netflix.

Sorry, when you've invested billions and billions into a Streaming service that will never equal Netflix in terms of revenue generation and that has an OI of a couple hundred million at best, you're not leveraging your production portfolio and distribution strategy correctly.

Netflix spent $1B for the rights to Spiderman from Sony for a 5 year term. Imagine how much the rights to any number of pieces of legendary Disney IP would go for. Imagine Netflix or Prime paying (overpaying) Disney to produce their garbage Original Content for Star Wars and Marvel, and then paying them for the privilege of distributing it.

Right now Disney absorbs the ridiculous development, production, and distribution costs and makes next to nothing (if anything?) from them.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

In a nutshell, absolutely not. Licensing would yield significantly less than current DTC revenue. They are paying productions fair market value based on what Netflix or other distributors would have paid.

By virtue of DTC breaking even they have their own internal licensing stream. The company would be in a much worse fiscal position if they didn’t go it alone. They’d lack creative control and be at the whim of external services wanting to license their material. Revenue at the company would be significantly smaller than it is now. There was only more money in the prior model if they couldn’t make the service itself financially viable.



And now we really swing around to the crux of why these analysis make no sense to me. This isn’t personal; the company has a viable service worth approaching 100B, they aren’t shuttering it, turning off the consumer spend to pick up spare change from Netflix.

All Netflix licensing is, is another pocket in the way skimming their own cut.

Do you work in streaming? Because your level of adamance on this one thing is defcon 1

The reality is…as of yet…that none of the gold rush long predicted from streaming - especially Disney - is there and not on the horizon

And lm not talking raw numbers…because yesterday dollar is worth $0.50 today…I’m talking about filling the void of the fees and ads that was the backbone of the Disney revenues for its biggest expansion years…until evil Michael screwed it up by being far more innovative than Bob.

The numbers are there again…and a lot more trouble

DTC is not growing at the pace Wall Street wants…so parks have to do more…but they aren’t holding up…so now it’s cruise lines turn for “baby it’s cold outside”

These things can change…I’ll never doubt the ability of the name to make lemonade out of lemons
But the trajectory is still not good

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

No, I was responding to a poster who mentioned needing the up charge events to have a good experience and I asked which ones he was referring to. He answered that it was the LLs and he wasn't thinking of any others. Another poster mentioned after hours events.

Please take a moment to actually read the posts. Not every post is intended to attack or defend something. No one said only the up charges are causing problems.

Ohhh…so these are private exchanges now?

My bad…I didnt realize that gotcha was limited to a 17 year old…not me who’s seen a few more moons?

 

[Chi84]

I would love it if they were limiting attendance to make the lines more manageable and the parks more fun but in my experience they’ve offset any advantage of fewer guests with fewer CMs, fewer shows, fewer parades, etc.

The attendance at the parks is down and other than less crowded paths the guests experience hasn’t gotten any better.

If their goal is to limit attendance to make the parks more enjoyable for their guests they are failing miserably.

I understand your point, but that wasn't my experience. We went for a week and there was plenty for us to do; we could have used another couple of days. But that was my particular experience with a large, multi-generational group. If it was a younger couple who spent more time in the parks, maybe we would have felt differently.

We did everything we wanted to with fewer people crowding the pools, water park, buses, restaurants, etc. For us the lower attendance made the experience much better.

The expense was significantly higher than we paid in 2018, but we had a better experience. Again, I don't speak for anyone but myself. Also, I am surprisingly indifferent to Disney's business problems and whether or not it can stay in business.

 

[BrianLo]

Sorry, when you've invested billions and billions into a Streaming service that will never equal Netflix in terms of revenue generation and that has an OI of a couple hundred million at best, you're not leveraging your library correctly.

Netflix spent $1B for the rights to Spiderman from Sony for a 5 year term. Imagine how much the rights to any number of pieces of legendary Disney IP would go for. Imagine Netflix or Prime paying (overpaying) Disney to produce their garbage Original Content for Star Wars and Marvel, and then paying them for the privilege of distributing it.

Right now Disney absorbs the ridiculous development, production, and distribution costs and makes next to nothing (if anything?) from them.

Yes, they did all that in the 2010’s. If it made more revenue for the company, where is it all on their financial reports? Almost all the decline in the company revenue has been in linear. Almost all the increase has been DTC.

Keep in mind I’m referring to revenue. It’s still up for Dis to make this all operationally hum. You can clock me on thinking OI for DTC is going to overtake linears peak in about 12 quarters.

Much as DTC ‘for sure’ wasn’t going to be profitable, it is. DTC is still rapidly transitioning and isn’t remotely wrung dry… unlike the parks. The wringing of consumers in the streaming space is just in its infancy. A quarter of a billion now, over a billion a quarter in the nearish future, billions in the moderate term (3-5 years).

After all, we all agree that Bob knows how to price hike.

 

[Chi84]

Ohhh…so these are private exchanges now?

My bad…I didnt realize that gotcha was limited to a 17 year old…not me who’s seen a few more moons?

They aren’t private, but the words do have meaning. Not every post is an invitation to post the same general denouncement of the company. Otherwise every second thread ends up with the same old doom schlock ©. @DarkMetroid567

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

No, I was responding to a poster who mentioned needing the up charge events to have a good experience

Who said that?

 

[Agent H]

You shot past the upcharges part, huh?

The ride skips and the nights events are upcharges…no matter how you slice them.

But trying to compartmentalize the pricing is a red herring approach.

It’s a weeklong thing…to say that only “upcharges” listed is causing the grind/problems is not accurate.

Just as comparing Disney trips to the price of football games or Chappell roan tickers is not intellectualy honest…it’s cherry picking

The only thing that is close 1:1 are cruises.

People defended the Star Wars hotel price - even though it was Doa - on this board as “not that much”…

But that never held water because nobody was going for 2 days and heading home

It was more a $5,000+6,000 kinda thing. And it broke the camels back

The night events are things they have been doing regularly for like 30 years

 

[BrianLo]

Do you work in streaming? Because you level of adamance on this one thing is defcon 1

No, I’ve outed myself as a physician in the past. No horse in the race other than it interests me greatly and I’ve thus far been right…

It’s not just Dis, I went through the same song and dance on Netflix when the market turned on it a couple of years ago that it wasn’t seeing the huge money spigot they were turning on and hitching their wagons to the totally wrong metric (subscriber numbers). Something Chapek fudged to his great undoing.

The reality is…as of yet…that none of the gold rush long predicted from streaming - especially Disney - is there and not on the horizon

It depends on whose definition we’re using. I was hyper critical of the stock bubble in 2021. I just think the pendulum of negativity (by Wall Street, not here) overshot the other direction.

But the trajectory is still not good

The trajectory has done what you all said it wouldn’t do. We’ve just seen a 1.75B OI swing in 8 quarters.

 

[Chi84]

Who said that?

I think the problem isn’t so much the price of tickets as it is the amount of up charges within the bubble

What up charges do you mean in addition to paid ride reservations?

Yeah I admit I got nothing I thought that there would be more than that when I actually thought about it still think there a bad idea though

 

[monothingie]

Yes, they did all that in the 2010’s. If it made more revenue for the company, where is it all on their financial reports? Almost all the decline in the company revenue has been in linear. Almost all the increase has been DTC.

Keep in mind I’m referring to revenue. It’s still up for Dis to make this all operationally hum. You can clock me on thinking OI for DTC is going to overtake linears peak in about 12 quarters.

Much as DTC ‘for sure’ wasn’t going to be profitable, it is. DTC is still rapidly transitioning and isn’t remotely wrung dry… unlike the parks. The wringing of consumers in the streaming space is just in its infancy. A quarter of a billion now, over a billion a quarter in the nearish future, billions in the moderate term (3-5 years).

After all, we all agree that Bob knows how to price hike.

I'm not sure where your going with this, but it didn't have anything to do with linear.

The streaming bubble burst when everyone decided they needed to get in on it. D+ has two paths forward, they buy the smaller competition or they get bought by the bigger ones or companies that can easily afford to buy them.

Now if Bob is positioning for D+ to get bought....

 

[Dranth]

I would love it if they were limiting attendance to make the lines more manageable and the parks more fun but in my experience they’ve offset any advantage of fewer guests with fewer CMs, fewer shows, fewer parades, etc.

The attendance at the parks is down and other than less crowded paths the guests experience hasn’t gotten any better.

If their goal is to limit attendance to make the parks more enjoyable for their guests they are failing miserably.

I understand some people have experiences like this, but it hasn't been mine. Whether or not they meant to do it, they 100% made the parks more enjoyable for us by slowing the return to pre-2020 levels. Again, we went from not going to going every year.

That doesn't mean I don't want a nighttime parade, shuttered attractions to be used, better maintenance around property, quality of merch/food improved, or want to see employees overloaded. It just means my experience does not match what you are describing.

 

[BrianLo]

I'm not sure where your going with this, but it didn't have anything to do with linear.

The streaming bubble burst when everyone decided they needed to get in on it. D+ has two paths forward, they buy the smaller competition or they get bought by the bigger ones or companies that can easily afford to buy them.

Now if Bob is positioning for a D+ to get bought....

I don’t disagree. But they’ve already done the former. It didn’t initially feel like they needed Hulu, but in hindsight I don’t think the American D+ product is that great.

D+ Star or D+ Hulu is a fairly fortified product.