The coronavirus crisis has not spared even the giant corporation, Walt Disney. Before the outbreak of the pandemic, the multinational media corporation held the undisputed top box office in theaters. However, it is now suffering losses and is looking for new ways of development in the context of a renewed reality, when cinemas and amusement parks are closed in most countries of the world. So, what transformations await the world's largest media group of the entertainment industry?
The company's second-quarter operating profit plunged 98%. This year was a failure for most large and small companies as well as Disney: shareholders were not paid dividends for the first time. In July, the media corporation was unable to pay $1.6 billion in dividends for the first half of fiscal 2020. With the introduction of quarantine measures, cinemas and theme parks in most countries of the world have been closed, so it should not be surprising that Disney is suffering great losses.
It was recently reported that the company had decided to lay off about 28,000 employees in amusement parks. This forced measure is primarily due to the fact that Disney theme parks are currently open to only a limited number of visitors and to this day, Disneyland California has never reopened.
Due to the current crisis, the company is looking for new opportunities to replenish its budget. In this regard, one of the investors in the Walt Disney company advised the management to stop paying annual dividends. He sees the solution to the problem in promoting and supporting Disney+ streaming service, which launched last November 12, 2019. The investor advises that the funds released from paying dividends should be used to finance this service, which subscriptions are designed to compensate for losses. Earlier, it was reported that Futuresource analysts predict Disney+ undisputed success and the opportunity to take the position of the second or third streaming service in the world on a par with Netflix and Amazon.
Moreover, Dan Loeb, Third Point hedge fund founder, sees streaming as the future of the movie industry. In his letter to Disney CEO, Bob Chapek, he calls for spending annual dividends, or $3 billion, specifically to stimulate this service. Disney should rely on the distribution of new films on the streaming platform, not in theaters. This new policy should also focus on creating original content and attracting additional subscribers. But for this to happen, the company needs to combine streaming services from Disney +, ESPN +, Hulu, Star into one platform. The most realistic thing is including new films in the standard subscription of users. Loeb believes in the superiority of the future streaming platform over the current industry leader Netflix. Moreover, the transformation of Disney cinema, which has unsurpassed franchises and high content creation potential, will allow us to achieve this in just a few years. For comparison, the audience of users of all Walt Disney – owned streaming services today is more than 100 million people, and the audience of Netflix subscribers by the beginning of the second half of the year is 193 million.
By the way, the crisis affected all areas of business of the Disney media corporation. The only area that has not been affected by the pandemic is the streaming segment. Thus, this kind of business transformation promises to increase service revenues. It should be noted that the company's shares jumped 2% after Bloomberg covered the ideas of investor Dan Loeb regarding changes in Disney.
