Posted on 08/10/2017 11:16:31 AM PDT by Enlightened1
The Walt Disney Co. has finally given in to the streaming shift that has completely altered the media landscape in the last few years and battered the company’s world-wide leader in sports programming, ESPN.
Disney DIS, -1.20% on Tuesday, laid out plans to launch a much awaited direct-to-consumer streaming service for ESPN to combat the damage the company has suffered from cord-cutting.
The company also said it plans to nix its licensing deal with Netflix Inc. NFLX, -3.27% and pull its movies from the service and launch a Disney branded streaming service in 2019. Netflix shares fell on the news, but the response is most likely a knee-jerk reaction.
For Disney, however, it could be too little, too late, according to BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield. In a blog post following Disney’s announcement, Greenfield lambasted the strategic steps the company and its Chief Executive Robert Iger have taken.
Greenfield is expecting Disney to lose up to $2 billion a year as it foregoes third-party revenue and invests heavily to build up content and start a streaming service from scratch.
“Disney’s announcement was light on details and did not sound terribly well hashed out. The announcement appeared designed to distract investors from Disney’s weak earnings and disappointing forward guidance,” Greenfield wrote. “Disney simply waited too long to make this critical decision.”
Fears of cord-cutting really took hold of the industry back in 2015, when a number of media companies and networks—Disney and ESPN included—reported a mass subscriber exodus.
(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...
When conservative Southern males pull the cord on ESPN and the SEC Network during college football season, I’ll be impressed with talk of boycotts. As long as you have to “watch your team”, ESPN will never change. A Southern boycott of college football would be the final nail in the coffin.
That !
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