(MENAFN- The Peninsula) By Christopher Palmeri, Anousha Sakoui and Gerry Smith / Bloomberg
Walt Disney Co.'s Bob Iger is ready to embrace the cord cutter.
Disney, the world's largest entertainment company, outlined plans Tuesday to sell some of its premiere content directly to consumers online starting next year. It will offer live sports and animated films including 'Toy Story 4, sidestepping partners from Netflix Inc. to pay-TV providers like Comcast Corp. and DirecTV.
'If you look at Disney's businesses, except for the theme parks, virtually all of the businesses touch consumers through third parties, everything from big box retailers to the owners of motion-picture theaters, Disney's chief executive officer said in an interview on Bloomberg TV. 'This is an opportunity to reach the consumer directly.
The need for Disney to act was underscored by the company's fiscal third-quarter financial results, which were also announced Tuesday and helped send shares tumbling as much as 6.1 percent on Wednesday, the most since February 2016. Sales and profit fell because of weakness in the company's big cable TV division, especially ESPN, where subscribers and ad sales shrank. Still, Iger's decision shocked investors, sending shares of both Disney and Netflix lower in late trading.
Disney's plans include a new online ESPN service next year that would broadcast more than 10,000 live sporting events, including major league baseball, hockey, soccer and tennis for what Iger called a 'reasonable monthly fee. In 2019, the company will launch a Disney video service, featuring live-action films, Disney Channel TV shows and Pixar movies.
In the process, the Burbank, California-based company said it's ending a deal to offer its newest films online through Netflix, the video-streaming pioneer. That will stop in 2019. Consumers, Iger said, are moving rapidly online and Disney needs to move with them.
Shares of Disney fell 5.5 percent to $101.07 as of 9:31 a.m. in New York. Netflix, which is losing a key supplier, was down 4.5 percent to $170.40.
Barton Crocket, an analyst at FBR Capital Markets & Co., said Disney's new digital strategy could weigh on both Disney and Netflix.
At Disney, "we see a measure of EPS pressure as the investments ramp up," he wrote in a note Wednesday. "We see this as negative for Netflix: More options for the consumer have to limit Netflix's pricing leverage and constrain its market opportunity as some consumers might be happy with Disney for online entertainment, instead of Netflix."
Iger, 66, has shown a willingness make big bets in the past. To revive the company's flagging film business, he spent $15.2 billion over almost a decade buying a trove of movie ideas: Pixar Animation, Marvel Entertainment's cast of comic superheroes and Lucasfilm's 'Star Wars franchise.
Biggest Business
Now, he's focusing on Disney's biggest business, television, where cord cutters and cord shavers threaten two crucial sources of revenue -- advertising and subscriber fees.
In the third quarter that ended July 1, Disney reported a rare drop in sales and profit. Earnings at the company's TV networks slumped 22 percent amid higher-costs for sports programming, as well as a drop in subscribers and weak ad sales at its flagship ESPN channel. While profit of $1.58 a share beat analysts' estimates, revenue declined slightly and missed projections.
'We looked at the sub losses of 3 percent as the high end, Edward Jones analyst Robin Diedrich said in an interview. 'We're not seeing the tailing off that we expected. This is continuing to happen.
The immediate fallout for Netflix looks minimal, though investors may fear other Hollywood studios will move against the company and further restrict what they sell to the online service. Netflix will spend more than $6 billion on programming in 2017, much of it from other media outlets, and has a long term budget of $15.7 billion, with a significant portion dedicated to the company's own original productions.
Netflix Fallout
Netflix has lost content before, including pictures from Sony, Paramount, MGM and Lions Gate. Yet its subscribers have continued to grow and the company has successfully expanded its streaming service worldwide.
'U.S. Netflix members will have access to Disney films on the service through the end of 2019, including all new films that are shown theatrically through the end of 2018, Los Gatos, California-based Netflix said in a statement. 'We continue to do business with the Walt Disney Company on many fronts, including our ongoing relationship with Marvel TV.
Disney already has its toes in direct-to-consumer businesses. For two years, the company has offered Disney Life, an online video service in the U.K. featuring classic films and TV. As part of Tuesday's announcement, Iger said Disney would pay $1.58 billion to buy an additional 42 percent of BamTech, an arm of Major League Baseball that provides streaming services for everything from ball games to World Wrestling Entertainment Inc.
Disney will let viewers watch what Iger called a 'Netflix of sports via a single ESPN app. Some will be cable customers who watch ESPN and ESPN2 over the web. Others will be monthly subscribers for just the new online sports programming. Some day, Disney could seamlessly offer all of its traditional TV channels online for a monthly fee, he said.
To some degree, Disney's CEO is taking a page from other entertainment executives, such as CBS Corp.'s Les Moonves and Time Warner Inc.'s Jeff Bewkes, who have have launched direct-to-consumer subscription services such as CBS All Access and HBO Now. But few have the characters and sports licenses that Disney has accumulated and the potential to sell those to customers around the world.
'Disney has great content that crosses generations, said Trip Miller, a shareholder at Gullane Capital Partners in Memphis. 'There is no doubt my grandchildren will consume Disney content that we consumed as children. They are just going to be consuming it a different way.
Disney's new services have the potential to attract viewers that trust the company's brand, Neil Begley, an analyst at Moody's Investors Service, said in a note. Still, the company may see more volatility as it will be easier for viewers to subscribe and unsubscribe, compared with pay-TV bundles, he said.
Iger knows his plans and remarks will likely anger big distributors such as Comcast Corp.'s Brian Roberts and Randall Stephenson of AT & T Inc., which owns DirecTV. He acknowledged that on Bloomberg TV Tuesday.
'My guess is distributors will look at this probably more as a threat than anything else, Iger said. 'It's not intended to be that. We are reacting to the marketplace.
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