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(CBR)   "New information about outgoing Disney CEO Bob Chapek's tenure suggests he disguised Disney+'s losses by moving around budgets for its original shows"   (cbr.com) divider line
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    More: Followup, Pixar, Disney's ex-CEO Bob Chapek, The Walt Disney Company, Disney+ originals, 21st century, Disney Channel, Wall Street Journal, surprising announcement  
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1602 clicks; posted to Entertainment » and Business » on 26 Nov 2022 at 6:05 AM (16 weeks ago)   |   Favorite    |   share:  Share on Twitter share via Email Share on Facebook



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View Voting Results: Smartest and Funniest


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Too-Tall [TotalFark]
2022-11-25 9:41:41 PM  
No wonder he was fired.  Hiding losses from your board and investors in a division that's supposed to be a big future profit generator is asking to be canned.
 
roddikinsathome [TotalFark]
2022-11-25 10:00:49 PM  
Ho-lee Shnit Snax! FTFA:
"164 million subscribers for Monopoly Mouse+, roughly two-thirds of Netflix's current number, and $30 billion invested in content in 2022 alone haven't been enough to stop losses from increasing for the last four quarters. Overall, the streaming division has lost more than $8.5 billion since Monopoly Mouse+ launched in 2019."

That is seriously close to "SHUT IT ALL DOWN" money. Wow.
 
Gubbo [TotalFark] [OhFark]
2022-11-25 10:03:19 PM  

roddikinsathome: Ho-lee Shnit Snax! FTFA:
"164 million subscribers for Monopoly Mouse+, roughly two-thirds of Netflix's current number, and $30 billion invested in content in 2022 alone haven't been enough to stop losses from increasing for the last four quarters. Overall, the streaming division has lost more than $8.5 billion since Monopoly Mouse+ launched in 2019."

That is seriously close to "SHUT IT ALL DOWN" money. Wow.


How much of the cost was one off infrastructure costs vs how much is recurring production costs.

It might not be all that bad. Or it might be
 
roddikinsathome [TotalFark]
2022-11-25 10:19:06 PM  

This has been Gubbo does drunk history: roddikinsathome: Ho-lee Shnit Snax! FTFA:
"164 million subscribers for Monopoly Mouse+, roughly two-thirds of Netflix's current number, and $30 billion invested in content in 2022 alone haven't been enough to stop losses from increasing for the last four quarters. Overall, the streaming division has lost more than $8.5 billion since Monopoly Mouse+ launched in 2019."

That is seriously close to "SHUT IT ALL DOWN" money. Wow.

How much of the cost was one off infrastructure costs vs how much is recurring production costs.

It might not be all that bad. Or it might be


It's 'only' losing 2.12B a year. More than a rounding error... but that's with pumping in 30B this year. Not sustainable.

Stove-Piping content doesn't BUILD your fandom. Fandom is their real audience.
 
Gubbo [TotalFark] [OhFark]
2022-11-25 10:22:00 PM  

roddikinsathome: This has been Gubbo does drunk history: roddikinsathome: Ho-lee Shnit Snax! FTFA:
"164 million subscribers for Monopoly Mouse+, roughly two-thirds of Netflix's current number, and $30 billion invested in content in 2022 alone haven't been enough to stop losses from increasing for the last four quarters. Overall, the streaming division has lost more than $8.5 billion since Monopoly Mouse+ launched in 2019."

That is seriously close to "SHUT IT ALL DOWN" money. Wow.

How much of the cost was one off infrastructure costs vs how much is recurring production costs.

It might not be all that bad. Or it might be

It's 'only' losing 2.12B a year. More than a rounding error... but that's with pumping in 30B this year. Not sustainable.

Stove-Piping content doesn't BUILD your fandom. Fandom is their real audience.


Yeah reading it again that is a lot to put into content.

If you assume your content costs would remain about the same, you might be able to grow subscribers and get out of the hole.

Or more likely, cut content and increase the cost of a subscription.
 
Lsherm [TotalFark]
2022-11-26 1:04:06 AM  

Gubbo: Or more likely, cut content and increase the cost of a subscription.


That's exactly what Chapek did, and they canned him.

Chapek honestly wasn't doing anything that Iger hadn't already set up. Iger is coming back in for two years to take the fall again, and then Disney+ is going to get absorbed into another streaming service.
 
Mugato [TotalFark]
2022-11-26 1:38:15 AM  
I guarantee it's because they're not making new Jessica Jones episodes.
 
Mr. Coffee Nerves [TotalFark] [OhFark]
2022-11-26 4:14:36 AM  
It was all the money sunk into actually genetically engineering a Baby Yoda instead of just using special effects.
 
Thoreny
2022-11-26 6:12:05 AM  
Is this just for Disney+?

Disney's streaming services include Hulu and ESPN+

Disney+ being the big money loser makes little sense considering that they have over 100 million subs.
 
Cubansaltyballs
2022-11-26 6:28:31 AM  
That is one of the worst written articles I've ever seen. It's like it was written in English and then Google translated to italian and then back to English.
 
smd31
2022-11-26 6:29:54 AM  
Well their Star Wars series haven't been a big hit for the most part, and same could be said of some of their Marvel shows.

Need more JJ, and DD, and Loki (and Hawkeye!) shows. 😅
 
Thoreny
2022-11-26 6:46:37 AM  

Cubansaltyballs: That is one of the worst written articles I've ever seen. It's like it was written in English and then Google translated to italian and then back to English.


Welcome to Nu English, the next era of the English language influenced by speakers who don't use it as their first language.
 
Wine Sipping Elitist [TotalFark]
2022-11-26 6:47:13 AM  
They are throwing the old CEO under the bus, per usual. This is normal Hollywood Accounting. There is even a Wikipedia article on the matter. Fun Fact from the article: due to Hollywood Accounting, Return of the Jedi has never made a profit. Think about that.

It's the same accounting Courtney Love wrote about many moons ago, probably before some of you adults were even born.

It's Hollywood, yo. Behind all that fun and excitement you enjoy, something is getting the business, either an actress, a child star or a wallet.
 
robertus [TotalFark]
2022-11-26 7:40:11 AM  

Mr. Coffee Nerves: It was all the money sunk into actually genetically engineering a Baby Yoda instead of just using special effects.


Nobody told them Yoda was a puppet
 
whitebuffaloburgers
2022-11-26 7:47:06 AM  

Cubansaltyballs: That is one of the worst written articles I've ever seen. It's like it was written in English and then Google translated to italian and then back to English.


Super Karate Monkey Death Car | NewsRadio
Youtube LD5Hgzayhj8
 
CarnySaur [TotalFark]
2022-11-26 8:16:26 AM  
Also the plot of the next season of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law
 
darkman2000
2022-11-26 8:19:12 AM  

Lsherm: Disney+ is going to get absorbed into another streaming service.


LOL, no.
Disney is a 'crush the competition' corporation with many revenue streams to tap.

Disney vs Netflix is like WW1; Netflix is Germany, isolated and starving with no more real resources. That makes Disney the allied forces who Netflix likes to think is just as starved as they are and they just have stay standing long enough for Disney to fall over (they won't).
 
king of vegas
2022-11-26 9:05:39 AM  
CEOs are witchdoctors. They try voodoo solutions. A few work. Most don't. They still make 1,000 times as much per hour as their entry-level employees, who may actually be individually providing more positive value to the company.
 
The Wooden Pickle
2022-11-26 9:15:30 AM  
Not enough Ant-Man.
 
Kris_Romm
2022-11-26 9:36:16 AM  
Shocked I say, shocked, that "Doogie Kameāloha, M.D." actually took a loss.

😆

To be fair, it's never been clear how you calculate profit for an individual show when the content you produce plays on your own channel, and the shows don't have individual advertising.
 
OtherLittleGuy [BareFark]
2022-11-26 9:36:55 AM  

Too-Tall: No wonder he was fired.  Hiding losses from your board and investors in a division that's supposed to be a big future profit generator is asking to be canned.


He Elizabeth Holmes'd.

Farker around with money from rich people, in this case, the Mouse.
 
Another Government Employee
2022-11-26 9:51:51 AM  
Bialystock and Bloom? Do we get "Springtime for Mickey"?
 
browneye [TotalFark]
2022-11-26 9:59:25 AM  

Wine Sipping Elitist: They are throwing the old CEO under the bus, per usual. This is normal Hollywood Accounting. There is even a Wikipedia article on the matter. Fun Fact from the article: due to Hollywood Accounting, Return of the Jedi has never made a profit. Think about that.

It's the same accounting Courtney Love wrote about many moons ago, probably before some of you adults were even born.

It's Hollywood, yo. Behind all that fun and excitement you enjoy, something is getting the business, either an actress, a child star or a wallet.


But if this is 'normal' Hollywood accounting, then why fire Chapeks?
 
scanman61
2022-11-26 9:59:39 AM  

OtherLittleGuy: Too-Tall: No wonder he was fired.  Hiding losses from your board and investors in a division that's supposed to be a big future profit generator is asking to be canned.

He Elizabeth Holmes'd.

Farker around with money from rich people, in this case, the Mouse.


Don't fark around with Mr Mouse


media.tenor.comView Full Size
 
jjorsett
2022-11-26 10:07:07 AM  
Per The Wall Street Journal, "people familiar with the matter" shared that shows intended to be (and billed as) Disney+ originals, including The Mysterious Benedict Society and Doogie Kameāloha, M.D., were aired first on other networks, such as the Disney Channel, so their production and marketing budgets wouldn't be counted against Disney+. In this way, the streaming service was seen as losing less money on original content.

Sam Bankman-Chapek.
 
Metaluna Mutant
2022-11-26 10:14:23 AM  

browneye: Wine Sipping Elitist: They are throwing the old CEO under the bus, per usual. This is normal Hollywood Accounting. There is even a Wikipedia article on the matter. Fun Fact from the article: due to Hollywood Accounting, Return of the Jedi has never made a profit. Think about that.

It's the same accounting Courtney Love wrote about many moons ago, probably before some of you adults were even born.

It's Hollywood, yo. Behind all that fun and excitement you enjoy, something is getting the business, either an actress, a child star or a wallet.

But if this is 'normal' Hollywood accounting, then why fire Chapeks?


Because he was making money but not making MORE money. Disney isn't hurting believe me. But making mony isn't enough. You need to break records & pay ever increasing dividends or be considered a failure.
 
Bslim [TotalFark]
2022-11-26 10:32:54 AM  
Sounds like he was commiting fraud to me.
 
mcreadyblue
2022-11-26 10:43:51 AM  

Too-Tall: No wonder he was fired.  Hiding losses from your board and investors in a division that's supposed to be a big future profit generator is asking to be canned.


After Sarbanes-Oxkey, it is supposed to mean jail time. The board also.
 
mcreadyblue
2022-11-26 10:45:45 AM  

Metaluna Mutant: browneye: Wine Sipping Elitist: They are throwing the old CEO under the bus, per usual. This is normal Hollywood Accounting. There is even a Wikipedia article on the matter. Fun Fact from the article: due to Hollywood Accounting, Return of the Jedi has never made a profit. Think about that.

It's the same accounting Courtney Love wrote about many moons ago, probably before some of you adults were even born.

It's Hollywood, yo. Behind all that fun and excitement you enjoy, something is getting the business, either an actress, a child star or a wallet.

But if this is 'normal' Hollywood accounting, then why fire Chapeks?

Because he was making money but not making MORE money. Disney isn't hurting believe me. But making mony isn't enough. You need to break records & pay ever increasing dividends or be considered a failure.


Walk Street demanded his head.
 
Gubbo [TotalFark] [OhFark]
2022-11-26 11:08:47 AM  

browneye: Wine Sipping Elitist: They are throwing the old CEO under the bus, per usual. This is normal Hollywood Accounting. There is even a Wikipedia article on the matter. Fun Fact from the article: due to Hollywood Accounting, Return of the Jedi has never made a profit. Think about that.

It's the same accounting Courtney Love wrote about many moons ago, probably before some of you adults were even born.

It's Hollywood, yo. Behind all that fun and excitement you enjoy, something is getting the business, either an actress, a child star or a wallet.

But if this is 'normal' Hollywood accounting, then why fire Chapeks?


Because you don't present the crooked books to the people in charge. The crooked books go to the people that you owe money based on the accounting. The real books go to the bigwigs.
 
DecemberNitro
2022-11-26 12:23:37 PM  
I really hope Disney is gonna be okay

media.giphy.comView Full Size
 
pacified
2022-11-26 1:00:29 PM  
Star wars and marvel are so played out. Maybe they need another prequel series
 
eddievercetti
2022-11-26 1:06:28 PM  
It's been evidenced the services are bleeding money, as much as they are making money, they are also losing some. Netflix just made a profit after 8 years since flipping on their thing back in 2012.

Chapek was trying to make shareholders happy by going all in D+ despite them having many arms.

The other issue is Wall Street farks are also wanting Iger to do stupid things like selling ESPN/Hulu which would help ease their debt but why the fark are you gonna sell your other top earners?
 
Bslim [TotalFark]
2022-11-26 1:53:37 PM  
eddievercetti:

Chapek was trying to make shareholders happy by going all in D+ despite them having many arms.
media.tenor.comView Full Size
 
akallen404
2022-11-26 2:50:54 PM  
The "subscription" model doesn't work for what they're trying to do with it. No matter how much new and original content you push onto your platform, the number of actual subscribers isn't going to increase dramatically just for one or two shows.

They're probably better off making the entire service free and charging a $1 rental for most content and $4 for originals. For shows like Andor or Kenobi you can sucker the fans into paying $50 a season; that's basically a DVD release without the expense of having to produce and distribute DVDs.
 
noazark [OhFark]
2022-11-26 3:05:27 PM  

Mugato: I guarantee it's because they're not making new Jessica Jones Rabbit episodes.
 
MechaPyx
2022-11-26 3:46:48 PM  

akallen404: The "subscription" model doesn't work for what they're trying to do with it. No matter how much new and original content you push onto your platform, the number of actual subscribers isn't going to increase dramatically just for one or two shows.

They're probably better off making the entire service free and charging a $1 rental for most content and $4 for originals. For shows like Andor or Kenobi you can sucker the fans into paying $50 a season; that's basically a DVD release without the expense of having to produce and distribute DVDs.


I'd drop the service if they did that.
 
jake3988 [OhFark]
2022-11-26 4:10:42 PM  

roddikinsathome: Ho-lee Shnit Snax! FTFA:
"164 million subscribers for Monopoly Mouse+, roughly two-thirds of Netflix's current number, and $30 billion invested in content in 2022 alone haven't been enough to stop losses from increasing for the last four quarters. Overall, the streaming division has lost more than $8.5 billion since Monopoly Mouse+ launched in 2019."

That is seriously close to "SHUT IT ALL DOWN" money. Wow.


It doesn't make a lick of sense.

164 million subscribers times $8 times 12 months in a year (yes, I'm ignoring bundles and yearly deals and free trials, but that just means I'm overestimating and proving my point more here) is approx 15-16 billion.  That's not anywhere close to 30 billion.  That's about half.  Which means they're lying.

My guess is that whoever is reporting on this crap doesn't understand anything and, unsurprisingly, is conflating numbers.  The $30 billion is likely ESPN plus ESPN+ plus Hulu plus Disney+ (plus probably Disney channel plus everything ABC produces plus FX/FXX produced shows).  Disney+ itself is not spending anywhere close to $30 billion this year.  And ESPN is heavily subsidized by cable fees.  And cable is dying.  Unless they shift that model (or just sell ESPN, which will probably happen), that's only going to get worse.  But that still has nothing to do with Disney+.

Plus all streaming services lose money right now.  You're not gonna get people subscribed unless you spend heavily on content (good content, not just 100s of garbage shows that get dumped and cancelled every single day like Netflix does).  So you go heavily into debt to get people subscribed and hooked and then you raise the price to pay for it.  Which... is exactly what they're doing.  (They're raising it $3/month, I think, which is 36*164 = 6 billion.  That's way more than enough to pay for all their outstanding debt and then some)
 
roddikinsathome [TotalFark]
2022-11-26 4:12:46 PM  

eddievercetti: It's been evidenced the services are bleeding money, as much as they are making money, they are also losing some. Netflix just made a profit after 8 years since flipping on their thing back in 2012.

Chapek was trying to make shareholders happy by going all in D+ despite them having many arms.

The other issue is Wall Street farks are also wanting Iger to do stupid things like selling ESPN/Hulu which would help ease their debt but why the fark are you gonna sell your other top earners?


Remember, these twerps were MAKING money on the Netflix deal AND growing audience visibility, BUT DECIDED TO TAKE ALL the money instead, assuming most of the fandom would show up. The were "right", but running the infrastructure is more expensive than parking your ip on Netflix and taking a cut on the back-end. They will continue to be dumb until D+ makes money, they shut it down and scatter the ip, OR JUST BUY NETFLIX LIKE THEY SHOULD HAVE DONE [instead of buying Fox].

/I am, of course, just guessing.
 
Tyrone Slothrop
2022-11-26 4:17:28 PM  
Maybe stop throwing money at (mostly) bad Marvel and Star Wars shows.
 
Tyrone Slothrop
2022-11-26 4:26:44 PM  

Wine Sipping Elitist: They are throwing the old CEO under the bus, per usual. This is normal Hollywood Accounting. There is even a Wikipedia article on the matter. Fun Fact from the article: due to Hollywood Accounting, Return of the Jedi has never made a profit. Think about that.

It's the same accounting Courtney Love wrote about many moons ago, probably before some of you adults were even born.

It's Hollywood, yo. Behind all that fun and excitement you enjoy, something is getting the business, either an actress, a child star or a wallet.


Which is why Alec Guinness got rich by getting a percentage of the gross from Star Wars, not a percentage of the profits. He knew how things work.
 
Tyrone Slothrop
2022-11-26 4:30:18 PM  

whitebuffaloburgers: Cubansaltyballs: That is one of the worst written articles I've ever seen. It's like it was written in English and then Google translated to italian and then back to English.

[iFrame https://www.youtube.com/embed/LD5Hgzayhj8?autoplay=1&widget_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.fark.com&start=0&enablejsapi=1&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.fark.com&widgetid=1]


Why was Ron Jeremy in the audience?
 
Mugato [TotalFark]
2022-11-26 4:44:18 PM  

akallen404: They're probably better off making the entire service free and charging a $1 rental for most content and $4 for originals. For shows like Andor or Kenobi you can sucker the fans into paying $50 a season; that's basically a DVD release without the expense of having to produce and distribute DVDs.


That's just...horrible.
 
ukexpat
2022-11-26 5:39:30 PM  

browneye: Wine Sipping Elitist: They are throwing the old CEO under the bus, per usual. This is normal Hollywood Accounting. There is even a Wikipedia article on the matter. Fun Fact from the article: due to Hollywood Accounting, Return of the Jedi has never made a profit. Think about that.

It's the same accounting Courtney Love wrote about many moons ago, probably before some of you adults were even born.

It's Hollywood, yo. Behind all that fun and excitement you enjoy, something is getting the business, either an actress, a child star or a wallet.

But if this is 'normal' Hollywood accounting, then why fire Chapeks?


Because if such accounting practices affect the stock price or mislead investors, it can be a problem with the SEC.
 
trialpha
2022-11-26 6:27:48 PM  

Mugato: akallen404: They're probably better off making the entire service free and charging a $1 rental for most content and $4 for originals. For shows like Andor or Kenobi you can sucker the fans into paying $50 a season; that's basically a DVD release without the expense of having to produce and distribute DVDs.

That's just...horrible.


I'm surprised they haven't moved to it already.
 
T.rex
2022-11-26 6:28:29 PM  
Christ...i very much assumed D+ was a big money maker.  Its not like they have any shows with budgets close to Game of Thrones or Stranger Things.   Though at the same time, they have slightly lower tier shows, but LOTS of them..... The Mandalorians and Boba Fetts and all those middling Marvel shows i'm sure add up.
 
roddikinsathome [TotalFark]
2022-11-26 7:34:56 PM  
From AV Club;
"
Monopoly Mouse's grievances with Chapek-who, among other things, alienated its vaunted animation department with statements suggesting their output was consumed only by children-were fairly varied, but many of them were aimed at the company's heavy recent focus on streaming service Monopoly Mouse+, which continues to operate at a (planned for, and expected) loss. A recent earnings call, though, saw Monopoly Mouse under-perform company-wide on expectations-including indications that Monopoly Mouse+ wouldn'tstart being profitable by a hoped-for late-2024 window-and which appears to have been among the last straws, with company Chief Financial Officer Christine McCarthy reportedly very unhappy with Chapek's conduct, both on the call, and in general."
 
waxbeans [TotalFark]
2022-11-26 8:04:05 PM  

Mr. Coffee Nerves: It was all the money sunk into actually genetically engineering a Baby Yoda instead of just using special effects.


/
When I was a kid I didn't understand how the Rebels got themselves into robot Storm Trooper systems to disguise themselves.
Not till the movie with
 
waxbeans [TotalFark]
2022-11-26 8:05:11 PM  

waxbeans: Mr. Coffee Nerves: It was all the money sunk into actually genetically engineering a Baby Yoda instead of just using special effects.

/
When I was a kid I didn't understand how the Rebels got themselves into robot Storm Trooper systems to disguise themselves.
Not till the movie with


Not until The Force Awakens did I realize STs are humans.
 
twistedsteel5252
2022-11-26 8:42:55 PM  
The Disney board: you can let racists threaten us and our guest, let a small politician run rough shod over us, and produce another "the Santa clause" but comingling funds is shameful behavior.
 
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