Specialist
Former SVP & C-level executive, Walt Disney International at Walt Disney Co
Agenda
- Disney's (NYSE: DIS) operating environment, pinpointing expectations for the upcoming Disney+ over-the-top (OTT) platform
- Comparative assessment of Disney, Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX), Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) and others
- Expected adoption rates for Disney+, ESPN+ and Hulu
- Outlook for 2019 and beyond – R&D spend and bundling opportunities
Questions
1.
What’s your industry-wide overview of what’s currently occurring for direct-to-consumer streaming services, which key trends or drivers do you think we should be paying attention to?
2.
Do you expect the direct-to-consumer movement to eventually accelerate the cord-cutting process? If so, how should we think about the pace of declines to expect for subscriber losses for traditional multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs), maybe in 2020 once some of the streaming platforms come online?
3.
If you expect about 2-3 services per home, who would you say is the biggest threat to Disney+ in terms of most direct competition of market share? Maybe OTT platforms or some virtual MVPDs? How should we think about relative ability to gain market share moving forward?
4.
Do you think any lessons were learned from DisneyLife in the UK? Do you think it was deemed a success in terms of doing some sort of direct-to-consumer streaming, and why? How does this correlate to your expectations for Disney+ rolling out?
5.
A lot of new information came out at the investor day, one thing being the price point – how do you feel about whether it’s the right price point to be rolled out at? Do you expect any price increases moving forward, or any pricing differentiation when it rolls out in some of the international markets at a later point?
6.
Do you see Disney+, and maybe more broadly the direct-to-consumer platform strategy, as overall net present value (NPV) positive, or do you think it’s more defensive? Based on your thoughts here, how should we think about MVPDs potentially cutting affiliate fees and how it might impact Disney on a revenue basis?
7.
Would you be able to quantify or contextualise what revenue loss looks like on the Netflix side, what’s the potential compression in affiliate fees on the MVPD side? I’d like to contextualise how we should think about Disney approaching a break-even in terms of maybe over-passing the lost revenues at a certain point, regardless of the timing?
8.
If you don’t expect Disney+ to hit 60-90 million subscribers by 2024, what growth do you think it might achieve at that point, or how long would you expect it to take to reach the actual projection?
9.
There are plans to launch in western Europe and APAC in early 2020, then eastern Europe and Latin America in early 2021, do you think that’s achievable? How might this factor into subscriber growth achievements?
10.
Looking at the technology costs to roll-out distribution networks in the international markets, how should we think about the costs and timings of the necessary investments, whether it be on the payment method side of things or maybe improving some of the lower-bandwidth markets?
11.
Do you think it would be critical to not follow the Amazon Prime Video strategy of maybe turning the service on, and if so, what is more of a suitable estimate for when there should be roll-outs in some of the various markets that you’re most familiar with?
12.
How should we think about bundling opportunities across the three direct-to-consumer offerings, especially as it relates to not having full control of Hulu? How does that complicate things and do you think Hulu should be overhauled on to an underlying platform that is Bamtech, which it isn’t at the moment?
13.
Looking at profitability for the streaming services, Disney is projecting break-even to be 2024. Do you think this is achievable and how might you quantify peak operating losses, what are some factors to consider?
14.
Do you have any closing remarks about Disney and OTT strategy?
