Disney/ESPN Annual Financials - Printable Version +- CSNbbs (https://csnbbs.com) +-- Forum: Active Boards (/forum-769.html) +--- Forum: Lounge (/forum-564.html) +---- Forum: College Sports and Conference Realignment (/forum-637.html) +---- Thread: Disney/ESPN Annual Financials (/thread-833151.html) Pages: 1 2 |
Disney/ESPN Annual Financials - orangefan - 11-11-2017 01:24 PM On Thursday, Disney released its financial results for FY17 (which ran from 10/1/16-9/30/17). https://ditm-twdc-us.storage.googleapis.com/q4-fy17-earnings.pdf Disney's Cable Networks division, of which ESPN is a part, reported revenues of $16.527 billion as compared to $16.632 billion in FY16, a decrease 1%. The division reported operating income of $5.353 billion as compared to $5.965 in FY16, a decrease of approximately 10%. Disney offered the following brief analysis of the division results, which appear to relate only to the fourth quarter: Quote:Cable Networks My quick take, ESPN's revenues remain stable despite a loss of subscribers because of increasing subscriber fees. However, profits are down due to increases in rights fees. Despite all of this, ESPN remains extremely profitable, with a gross margin of over 32% for FY17. It's biggest immediate challenge is getting its costs under control. RE: Disney/ESPN Annual Financials - Tom in Lazybrook - 11-11-2017 01:45 PM (11-11-2017 01:24 PM)orangefan Wrote: On Thursday, Disney released its financial results for FY17 (which ran from 10/1/16-9/30/17). https://ditm-twdc-us.storage.googleapis.com/q4-fy17-earnings.pdf Ok, the bottom hasn't fallen out - yet. But lets look at the wording in the press release. 'increasing revenue per payor, but with lower numbers of payors'. I think what that means is this. Its just a contractual raise in the must take. I think that if they're really profitable, they probably are okay with current expenses and revenues. But the long term problem is the declining subscribers. RE: Disney/ESPN Annual Financials - billybobby777 - 11-11-2017 03:22 PM (11-11-2017 01:24 PM)orangefan Wrote: On Thursday, Disney released its financial results for FY17 (which ran from 10/1/16-9/30/17). https://ditm-twdc-us.storage.googleapis.com/q4-fy17-earnings.pdf Congratulations? RE: Disney/ESPN Annual Financials - billybobby777 - 11-11-2017 03:28 PM The irony of us poor or lower middle class college football fans....rooting for big evil empire monopolies to get richer because the school we went to has a football team that occasionally plays on their tv channel. Happy Veterans Day Disney. RE: Disney/ESPN Annual Financials - MWC Tex - 11-11-2017 04:20 PM There are many channels that are profitable and I don't think any reasonable person is saying they will not but the bigger issue is that they are still losing subscribers by tens of thousands per day and will soon be under 80 million housholds very soon if not already. Its like ESPN is a Bentley. Very valuable but like all vehicles, they depreciate in value and time is making it less valuable as subscribers are dropping like flies. RE: Disney/ESPN Annual Financials - orangefan - 11-13-2017 07:52 AM (11-11-2017 04:20 PM)MWC Tex Wrote: There are many channels that are profitable and I don't think any reasonable person is saying they will not but the bigger issue is that they are still losing subscribers by tens of thousands per day and will soon be under 80 million housholds very soon if not already. It is difficult to say how many subscribers ESPN is actually losing. The most recent round of earnings announcements from the cable and satellite industry was pretty alarming, but it is pretty clear that a good percentage of those dropping traditional video packages are switching to internet based bundles such as Sling and Playstation Vue. Customers switching to these services continue to subscribe to ESPN at full price, so the impact on ESPN is smaller. SNL Kagan publishes subscriber counts by network, but usually does so only once a year, when the information is already old. It would be useful for investors if Disney would include subscriber counts in their financials in the same manner as cable and satellite companies do. I am certainly not suggesting that everything is rosy at ESPN. They are going to have some tough negotiations with the NFL and MLB when those deals come up in 2021. ESPN is going to be far more guarded against overpaying, as it was in recent Big Ten negotiations. For the SEC and ACC, this is largely irrelevant, as their primary deals with ESPN are in place through the mid 2030's. The future revenues from the SECN and ACCN may be affected, but industry evolution should affect them equally with the BTN. More significantly, the next round of negotiations with the CFP and NY6 will likely be tougher than the last one. ESPN will likely be reluctant to offer a significant increase in rights fees. If so, we could see pressure to expand the CFP to eight schools as a means of finding additional money. RE: Disney/ESPN Annual Financials - quo vadis - 11-13-2017 08:08 AM (11-11-2017 03:28 PM)billybobby777 Wrote: The irony of us poor or lower middle class college football fans....rooting for big evil empire monopolies to get richer because the school we went to has a football team that occasionally plays on their tv channel. Er, how is Disney either "evil" or a "monopoly"? If you haven't checked, they have heavyweight competition in all of their lines of business. I "root" for ESPN because of what they do for me, namely show about 18 college football games every Saturday from 11 AM to 11 PM across four different channels, plus a few more during the week. Love being able to see all those games. RE: Disney/ESPN Annual Financials - Attackcoog - 11-13-2017 10:34 AM (11-11-2017 01:24 PM)orangefan Wrote: On Thursday, Disney released its financial results for FY17 (which ran from 10/1/16-9/30/17). https://ditm-twdc-us.storage.googleapis.com/q4-fy17-earnings.pdf This is a fact I’ve mentioned before that most doom and gloomers don’t reaalize. Most carriage agreements ESPN signs have automatic escalators that raise the rate over the course of the agreement. So, if you lose subscribers at a 2% rate, but the rate increases by 4% or 5% of the 98% of the subscriber base that remains, the revenue doesn’t fall much at all. It may be stable or even increase slightly. Long term cable will have to address the cord cutting if it does not slow down, but the idea tha ESPN is nearing the end of its rope because they are now experiencing a leveling off of profits is hugely overstated. The layoffs are about getting the division to be less bloated and more profitable. The truth is, while ESPN remains incredibly profitable, it has completed the rapid growth phase of its corporate life cycle. It’s now a mature company and is experiencing competition from new companies attempting to horn in on its outsized profits. That means there will be more competition for sports rights in the future—not fewer. The idea that sports rights are going to decline so ESPN can grow it’s profits at a faster rate is a pretty unlikely outcome. RE: Disney/ESPN Annual Financials - arkstfan - 11-13-2017 05:26 PM Until the online services providing bundles that include ESPN are counted properly (same as cable/satellite) we simply won't have any clue what the subscriber loss is for the industry. We keep getting cable/sat lost X or Y moved to cut the cord but buying cable sans paying for the delivery infrastructure is still cable for all intents and purposes. RE: Disney/ESPN Annual Financials - MWC Tex - 11-13-2017 07:12 PM (11-13-2017 05:26 PM)arkstfan Wrote: Until the online services providing bundles that include ESPN are counted properly (same as cable/satellite) we simply won't have any clue what the subscriber loss is for the industry. We keep getting cable/sat lost X or Y moved to cut the cord but buying cable sans paying for the delivery infrastructure is still cable for all intents and purposes. We have some of those stats. AT&T lossed 80k net. 330k drop from Direct TV and Uverse but added 250k to their DirecTV Now. Dish loss 145k net and that includes Sling numbers. All have ESPN on the base package. RE: Disney/ESPN Annual Financials - orangefan - 11-14-2017 08:18 AM (11-13-2017 07:12 PM)MWC Tex Wrote:(11-13-2017 05:26 PM)arkstfan Wrote: Until the online services providing bundles that include ESPN are counted properly (same as cable/satellite) we simply won't have any clue what the subscriber loss is for the industry. We keep getting cable/sat lost X or Y moved to cut the cord but buying cable sans paying for the delivery infrastructure is still cable for all intents and purposes. Still doesn't tell us what the adds were for Playstation Vue, Hulu Live, or Youtube Live TV. RE: Disney/ESPN Annual Financials - Gamecock - 11-14-2017 09:50 AM (11-13-2017 08:08 AM)quo vadis Wrote:(11-11-2017 03:28 PM)billybobby777 Wrote: The irony of us poor or lower middle class college football fans....rooting for big evil empire monopolies to get richer because the school we went to has a football team that occasionally plays on their tv channel. Same. I love ESPN's college football coverage and I'm absolutely glued to their stations about 14-15 days a year RE: Disney/ESPN Annual Financials - MWC Tex - 11-14-2017 10:09 AM (11-14-2017 08:18 AM)orangefan Wrote:(11-13-2017 07:12 PM)MWC Tex Wrote:(11-13-2017 05:26 PM)arkstfan Wrote: Until the online services providing bundles that include ESPN are counted properly (same as cable/satellite) we simply won't have any clue what the subscriber loss is for the industry. We keep getting cable/sat lost X or Y moved to cut the cord but buying cable sans paying for the delivery infrastructure is still cable for all intents and purposes. That's because they don't report those numbers for some reason. However, I did see that Hulu Live TV only has 300k subscribers. PS Vue has a new CEO and raised rates but hasn't reported if they are losing customers. I know they lost one (myself) to the rate raise and I move to DirecTV TV. But you see the jist of the info and that is there are a lot of customers that are not moving to the TV streaming packages and there is still a significant net loss quarter over quarter. This is giving the OTA households a bigger percentage that is now at 20% and increasing each quarter. RE: Disney/ESPN Annual Financials - orangefan - 11-14-2017 10:24 AM (11-14-2017 10:09 AM)MWC Tex Wrote:(11-14-2017 08:18 AM)orangefan Wrote:(11-13-2017 07:12 PM)MWC Tex Wrote:(11-13-2017 05:26 PM)arkstfan Wrote: Until the online services providing bundles that include ESPN are counted properly (same as cable/satellite) we simply won't have any clue what the subscriber loss is for the industry. We keep getting cable/sat lost X or Y moved to cut the cord but buying cable sans paying for the delivery infrastructure is still cable for all intents and purposes. There's no question that there are many customers who are cord cutting and not switching to slim bundles, but there are also "cord nevers" signing up for slim bundles. My point is that although ESPN's subscriber numbers are clearly falling, it's not as fast as, for instance, Charter's and Comcast's subscriber loss rate would indicate. The longer term question is whether there is a stable number at which the combination of traditional bundles and slim bundles will settle. RE: Disney/ESPN Annual Financials - Attackcoog - 11-14-2017 10:54 AM (11-14-2017 10:24 AM)orangefan Wrote:(11-14-2017 10:09 AM)MWC Tex Wrote:(11-14-2017 08:18 AM)orangefan Wrote:(11-13-2017 07:12 PM)MWC Tex Wrote:(11-13-2017 05:26 PM)arkstfan Wrote: Until the online services providing bundles that include ESPN are counted properly (same as cable/satellite) we simply won't have any clue what the subscriber loss is for the industry. We keep getting cable/sat lost X or Y moved to cut the cord but buying cable sans paying for the delivery infrastructure is still cable for all intents and purposes. Exactly. At this point—traditional cable tv has really not tried to be competive on pricing. Eventually it will fight back with skinny bundles and a la Carte. Also, streaming services largely are getting better deals on rights fees because they represent fewer viewers and were looked at as a place for content providers to derive a little incremental revenue. As streamers become a larger part of the pipeline to consumers and as cable networks have less cash sloshing around, content providers will look to streamers to pay more for content—meaning the cost of streaming will rise. Eventually, there will be an equilibrium between the two as streaming loses its big price advantage. RE: Disney/ESPN Annual Financials - orangefan - 11-14-2017 11:16 AM Article about a new sports free skinny bundle called Philo: http://mashable.com/2017/11/14/sports-free-internet-tv-philo/#mzcSwGSy9iqT $16/month for 34 channels. Not surprised to see the Viacom (MTV, NICK), Discovery, and AMC channels all included. Also, not surprised to see the Disney, Fox, Time Warner/Turner and Comcast channels excluded given each of their important sports programming commitments. Not having these media companies also denies the package a 24 hour news channel. More surprised to see the A&E channels (A&E, History, Lifetime, etc.) included given their overlapping ownership with ESPN (ESPN is 80/20 Disney/Hearst, A&E is 50/50 Disney/Hearst). It will be interesting to see if there's any market for this, although my first thought is: what's the point of a live service that only shows taped programming? RE: Disney/ESPN Annual Financials - MWC Tex - 11-14-2017 12:07 PM (11-14-2017 11:16 AM)orangefan Wrote: Article about a new sports free skinny bundle called Philo: http://mashable.com/2017/11/14/sports-free-internet-tv-philo/#mzcSwGSy9iqTBoom! Was wondering if someone will do something like this. This is totally focus on the 80% who don't watch sports or don't watch sports on pay TV. That's a good lineup for $16. Even includes Nick, Teen Nick For the kids. I think they will be more popular than most people will expect. It is even on OTT devices. https://try.philo.com/ RE: Disney/ESPN Annual Financials - arkstfan - 11-14-2017 05:28 PM (11-14-2017 11:16 AM)orangefan Wrote: Article about a new sports free skinny bundle called Philo: http://mashable.com/2017/11/14/sports-free-internet-tv-philo/#mzcSwGSy9iqT Well you get it at the same time everyone else is watching which gives it a leg up over the traditional Hulu product and presumably it authorizes you to use the apps for those channels to watch older content on-demand. I think there is a market for such, how big that market is? Guess we are about to find out. RE: Disney/ESPN Annual Financials - orangefan - 11-16-2017 02:52 PM (11-14-2017 10:54 AM)Attackcoog Wrote:(11-14-2017 10:24 AM)orangefan Wrote:(11-14-2017 10:09 AM)MWC Tex Wrote:(11-14-2017 08:18 AM)orangefan Wrote:(11-13-2017 07:12 PM)MWC Tex Wrote: We have some of those stats. AT&T lossed 80k net. 330k drop from Direct TV and Uverse but added 250k to their DirecTV Now. http://variety.com/2017/biz/news/pay-tv-subscribers-q3-internet-virtual-bundles-1202616516/ Very interesting development directly related to these questions. The research firm MoffettNathanson estimates that virtual cable packages (Sling, Hulu Live, Playstation Vue, Directv Now, etc.) added 962,000 subscribers in Q3. This compares to losses for traditional cable and satellite services of 872,000 subscribers for the same period. In other words, there was a net gain of 90,000 subscribers. Quote:The dynamics in the pay-TV biz are splitting programming groups in “haves” and “have-nots,” according to Moffett. RE: Disney/ESPN Annual Financials - Transic_nyc - 11-23-2017 11:44 PM http://www.sportingnews.com/other-sports/news/espn-layoffs-news-rumors-firings-jemele-hill-michael-smith-cari-champion-david-lloyd-mike-greenberg/ssug7uo3f6gi1co2iabhcqxe0 Quote:ESPN is poised to slash an estimated $80 million in salaries and other costs in coming weeks, sources tell Sporting News. |