Dana Walden, co-chairman of Disney Entertainment, took a moment out of Disney’s upfront frenzy in New York on Tuesday to talk up the growth potential of the company’s streaming operations and the resilience of its linear business with CNBC’s James Cramer.
“This is a growth business for our company,” Walden said of Disney+ and the bundle of Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ that has in recent quarters moved steadily into profitability. “We are moving toward those double-digit margins” of black ink that Wall Street covets from Disney+ after five years and many billions of dollars in investment.
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Cramer raved about Disney’s performance in the first three months of the year and noted that its stock price has climbed for the past eight trading sessions. He praised Disney CEO Bob Iger and Walden for being effective stewards of a unit that had been posting huge lossees.
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“You have an amazing breadth. You have fabulous IP, but the fact was, you were in a business that was losing a billion a quarter,” Cramer said. “We all hated Disney because of that business, and now it’s the reason why we love Disney and why the stock won’t quit.”
Cramer pressed Walden on whether Wall Street is overly negative on the prospects for Hollywood’s traditional linear TV operations. Walden explained how the combination of linear and streaming, in a best case scenario, can bring Disney an enormous and largely unduplicated audience.
“We look at our core linear channels — FX, Disney Channel, Nat Geo and ABC — as an opportunity to program for audiences that are still watching on linear, and then that same content is windowed onto streaming, where it’s on demand and available for subscribers whenever they want it,” Walden said. “And that enables us to speak to a very broad audience. Fifty percent of our audience watches on linear programming, and 50% watch it on streaming. So we’ve made good sense of these two forms of distribution.”
Walden also talked up the news of the morning — the unveiling of pricing and launch plans for mothership ESPN, which will be available in the fall for purchase as a streaming channel or as part of the existing Disney+ bundle that at present includes Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+. Come fall, the ESPN+ tile will be replaced by mothership ESPN, which will incorporate the original content that has been made for ESPN+ since its launch in 2018.
“Very soon, you’ll be able to bundle those three services together,” Walden said. “A very simple interface, all of that content will be available through one app, which is Disney+. Our bundling strategy is really paying off.”
Walden also pointed to how Disney’s powerhouse film studio feeds marquee titles into Disney+.
“The films are amazing. Many of them are billion dollar-plus performers at the box office. And then they go on to Disney+, where they stimulate subscriber acquisition and they drive engagement,” she said.
Cramer couldn’t stop heaping compliments on Walden. “Also what’s paying off is that you have brought an attitude. People want to work with you. Stars want to work with you,” he gushed.
At the same time, Cramer pressed Walden on why there’s still such a differential in valuation between Disney and Netflix. Netflix shares closed Tuesday at $1,138.44, up 2.6% for the day. Disney was up 1% for the day to close at $111.38.
Walden is seen as the top internal contender to succeed Iger as CEO next year. Tuesday’s sit-down with CNBC’s notoriously unpredictable host will only reinforce that status. In responding to Cramer, Walden deftly sidestepped the Netflix vs. Disney question to reinforce the company’s faith in the Disney+ bundle as its engine of the future.
“It’s worth remembering that Disney+ is now five years old. It’s still a very young service, and we’re so pleased with the direction we’re moving. We’re growing in all of the important metrics,” Walden said. “We’re moving in exactly the right direction, and we’re really not looking at the competition. We have a unique ecosystem. Disney+ is the portal for Disney fandom around the world, and those iconic stories and characters are activated in our parks, on our cruise ships, in consumer products. There are so many ways that we’re able to optimize and monetize that content that other companies are not able to do.”
(Pictured: James Cramer and Dana Walden)
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