Last week, Josh D’Amaro faced investors for the first time as Walt Disney Co.’s chief executive during the company’s fiscal second-quarter earnings call. |
The call gave D’Amaro a chance to lay out his long-term plan for the Mouse House — one that focuses heavily on building an ecosystem around the Burbank media and entertainment giant’s well-known franchises and new, original stories. |
“Disney is uniquely positioned in the entertainment industry,” D’Amaro said during last Wednesday’s call. “No other company reaches consumers to the same degree across both digital and physical environments. Our goal is to leverage that position to extend our reach, deepen engagement and generate greater value from our world-class intellectual property.” |
Disney’s theme parks, of course, have long been a way for the company to bring its brand to consumers. |
Over the years, the company has increasingly integrated its movies into the parks — whether it’s the recently opened World of Frozen land at Disneyland Paris, re-theming the Submarine Voyage ride to “Finding Nemo” at Anaheim’s Disneyland or building a “Zootopia” area in Shanghai Disneyland to capitalize on China’s great affinity for the 2016 original (and, it turns out, the 2025 sequel, which ended up grossing more than $651 million in China alone). |
Disney’s on track to continue its investment in its parks, particularly since D’Amaro spent his entire career in that division. |
But in a slightly different twist, D’Amaro also noted that he sees Disney+ “playing an increasingly central role.” |
“Our parks, they’re essentially the physical centerpiece of the company,” he said. “Similarly, we’re building Disney+ to serve as the immersive, interactive, digital centerpiece of the company. In the long term, what you’ll see is those pieces of the company become increasingly connected.” |
In D’Amaro’s vision, Disney+ won’t just be a streaming platform for Disney movies and TV shows. It’ll be a nexus, connecting the company’s entertainment, sports, games and experiences in one place. The one app to rule them all, if you will (I know “Lord of the Rings” is not Disney’s intellectual property, but I couldn’t resist). |
Already, Disney is integrating Hulu into Disney+, and the company is working on improving the user experience and increasingly personalizing the content people see there. It has also added Verts on Disney+ — short-form vertical videos of scenes from various Disney movies and shows — in an attempt to boost engagement and make checking Disney+ a regular habit by encouraging phone use. |
As far as games go, D’Amaro said that if Disney+ is the “hub,” then Epic Games is one of the spokes, as Disney’s universe within “Fortnite” gives the company exposure to younger audiences. |
It’s not the first time Disney has homed in on a one-stop-shop for its fans. |
Back in 1983, Disney launched the Disney Channel on cable TV, which aired movies and shows from Disney’s library and also broadcast new kids cartoons based on classic animated films. By the mid-2000s, the channel had started to cater to tweens with shows such as “Lizzie McGuire,” which starred Hilary Duff, and proved that teen TV stars could drive spinoff movies, record deals and merchandise sales throughout the Disney ecosystem. |
In 2019, a similar idea was behind the launch of Disney+. After initially losing billions of dollars, the service is now profitable, though former CEO Bob Iger did later cut back on the number of films and TV shows made specifically for streaming, noting that Disney needed to focus on quality over quantity. |
But given the recent performance of Disney’s entertainment division, the renewed focus on Disney+ isn’t a surprise. During this past quarter, the entertainment business drove the company’s overall earnings. The streaming business, in particular, saw 13% growth in revenue year over year and 88% growth in operating income compared with the previous year’s quarter. |
Disney’s greatest asset is its dedicated fan base, and trying to gather them in one place and keep them engaged amid the myriad distractions would seem to be a sound plan. All the more so if Disney wants to compete against Netflix. |
Stuff We Wrote |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Film shoots |
 |
|
|
Number of the week |
 |
Last week, news broke that CBS’ “Tracker” was awarded a California film and TV tax credit in a previous round of production incentives. The show will relocate from Vancouver to Los Angeles for its fourth season. |
“Tracker” got a $48-million credit, the largest such state incentive for TV shows. Before the procedural, the biggest TV incentives went to Season 3 of Amazon’s “Fallout,” which got a $42-million credit and relocated from New York to L.A., and new NFL drama “The Land,” which received $42.8 million. |
The popular procedural stars Justin Hartley as a reward seeker who tracks down lost people. Its current third season was the fourth most-watched program on linear TV as of late April, according to Nielsen. The show is produced by Disney’s 20th Television. |
| Keep up with California |
Your support helps us deliver the news that matters most. Subscribe to the Los Angeles Times.
|
|
|
|
|
|
What I’m watching |
I rewatched 2006’s “The Devil Wears Prada” after seeing the sequel and got to revel in that era of big-budget glossy magazines. A worthy follow, in my view. That’s all. |
