Has any year except the pandemic-ridden 2020 brought such disruption to the market as 2023? As the streaming platforms that once saw near-unlimited growth through the pandemic closures are now forced to fight for profit and subscription numbers alike, we’ve seen a year packed with churn at all levels of employment, as well as budget cuts, strategic rethinks, and content write-downs. Now Disney is set to join the fray with a ‘changed approach’ to content creation across its streaming platforms. Blake & Wang P.A entertainment attorney Los Angeles, Brandon Blake, unpacks the news.
Content Removed from Streaming
In a strategic rethink regarding both content and strategy, Disney will be taking onboard a content impairment charge of between $1.5B to $1.8B. While no programming has yet been specifically announced, we’ve been told the bulk of the financial hit will be in Q3 of this year, with specific titles removed from the streaming platform. CEO Bob Iger has announced they will be ‘getting much more surgical about what we make,’ too.
The reasons for the change? Disney has been pumping a lot of money into high-end titles on their IPs, as well as marketing them, without much impact on their subscriber bottom line.
A Theatrical Swing?
Interestingly, we also saw a lot of praise from Bob Iger for their theatrical film releases, especially the tentpole content they have been producing recently. And it finally seems that the Disney Giant has lumbered its way to acknowledging that smart marketing and theatrical releases are a critical profit driver, a model we’ve seen play out over and over again since the end of the pandemic era. We’ve mentioned the loss of potential many recent Disney and Pixar titles have had through a focus on the streaming platform and not their theatrical marketing- now it seems we will see a greater focus on this missed angle from them. And that can only be good news for the Box Office, as well as the market in general.
