by Thinus Ferreira
Disney on Wednesday night in its latest quarterly earnings report announced that its Disney+ had lost subscribers again for the second consecutive quarter and will cut back on the volume of content it makes for its video streaming service.
Disney+ lost 4 million subscribers globally during the first three months of 2023, falling from 161.8 million to 157.8 million subscribers, after ending 2022 with the streamer's first decline in user numbers.
While Disney+ added almost one million international subscribers outside of India, in India it lost 4.6 million Disney+ Hotstar subscribers where it lost the rights to Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket matches, and it lost another 300 000 subscribers in the United States and Canada.
Christine McCarthy, Disney chief financial officer, on the quarterly earnings call, said that Disney has decided to cut back on the volume of content it will be producing for Disney+ going forward.
She said that Disney is "in the process of reviewing the content on our direct-to-consumer (DTC) services to align with the strategic changes in our approach to content curation".
Disney "will be removing certain content from our streaming platforms" as a result. "Going forward we intend to produce lower volumes of content in alignment with this strategic shift," she said.
Disney also made less money from its international pay-TV channels business during the quarter. The revenue from its international TV channels for the quarter dropped 18% to $1.1 billion, while operating income decreased by 65% to $85 million.
Bob Iger, Disney CEO, said that the company plans to eventually move the ESPN TV channels to streaming and that pricing still has to be figured out, with the company's plans for ESPN which have not changed.
