Disney Sees Ad Dollars Go To Sports, Digital in Weak TV Upfront

Disney parks in the U.S., and especially abroad have been bolstering the company’s quarterly earnings coming out of Covid, and the company is investing to ensure that growth continues. Its Parks and Experiences division has laid out an ambitious schedule of openings for rides, attractions, hotels and cruises over the next 1-4 years.

EXCLUSIVE: Amid a focus on content curation and Disney-owned IP, Disney+ is not proceeding with The Spiderwick Chronicles, its live-action series adaptation of the popular children’s fantasy books, Deadline has learned.

The idea of exclusivity with streaming services is starting to lose its meaning quite a bit. During the pandemic, it felt as if streaming services couldn’t spend enough money to grab up as many “exclusive” films and TV series to draw in subscribers.

Telegraph that Walt Disney Studios’ upcoming adaptation — which has already been blasted for being “politically correct” after leaked images showed the seven dwarfs reimagined as “magical creatures” of all sizes and genders — is “insulting” and “woke.”“I mean, it’s a whole different concept, and I just totally disagree with it, and I know my dad and Walt would also very much disagree with it,” he told the Telegraph.Studio bosses have “destroyed” his father’s creation,” said 91-year-old Hand of the adapted edition to his dad’s famed work, according to the outlet.The Mouse House’s modern take on the animated original, which was based on the 1812 Brothers Grimm fairytale, will see a character named “Jonathan” in place of Prince Charming, 22-year-old Hispanic actress Rachel Zegler as Snow White and dwarfs that Disney has said “avoid reinforcing stereotypes.”There have also been rumors that Disney has ditched the film’s classic song, “Someday My Prince Will Come.”“I think it’s pathetic that people feel that way… these are art forms in the world of film today,” Hand said of the updates, which he predicts will make young viewers — especially those who “have never seen the original” — “misunderstand” the film.Meanwhile, her successor as the titular character, Zegler, has blasted the original storyline as being “extremely outdated” with a prince whose behavior is similar to that of a “stalker.”“The original cartoon came out in 1937 and very evidently so. There’s a big focus on her love story with the guy who literally stalks her.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Madison Avenue pulled hundreds of millions of dollars out of primetime TV and sent them to streaming venues in the industry’s recently completed “upfront” market, the latest sign that one of the media sector’s most stable mediums is in an era of severe flux. Ad commitments for primetime broadcast TV fell 3%, to $9.595 billion, compared with $9.91 billion in last year’s market, according to Media Dynamics Inc., an advertising consultancy that tracks the upfront, when U.S. TV networks try to sell the bulk of their commercial inventory for their next programming cycle.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Bleacher Report has a new type of game to analyze. Surf on over to the sports-commentary site that has been part of the Warner Bros. Discovery stable since 2012, and you’ll see the usual stuff: a ranking of the best superstar duos in the NBA; speculation over whether the Atlanta Hawks will trade for the Toronto Raptors’ Shams Chanria; and an aggregation of a story about the Kansas City Chiefs and defensive tackle Chris Jones.

Disney+ has announced plans to launch a new, cheaper streaming option with adverts in the UK as profits continue to fall at the company.The new plan, which is already available in the US, will also be introduced to Canada, the UK, France, Germany, Sweden, Italy and other parts of Europe on November 1.Subscribers of the advert-supported service will be charged £4.99 per month in the UK, while the most common form of subscription will increase from £7.99 to £10.99.There is currently only one price tier for Disney+ in the UK, which costs £7.99 per month. However, come November there will be three new tiers available.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Disney is coming for the streaming password-sharing freeloaders. Taking a page from Netflix’s playbook, Disney chief Bob Iger announced that the media conglomerate has put a priority on finding ways to convert password-borrowing users into paying customers.

Disney’s giant theme park division was first out of the gate in a post-pandemic recovery, showing giant jumps in revenue and profit due to pent-up demand. But the engine is sputtering.

Disney is following through on stated plan to raise streaming prices (welcome news to investors if not to many consumers), as well as launching a bundled version of Disney+ and Hulu and expanding the ad-supported version of Disney+ to Europe and Canada.

Disney saw direct-to-consumer losses shrink and adjusted EPS top estimates for the three months ended in June as CEO Bob Iger said the company’s on track to exceed $5.5 billion in anticipated cost savings.

Swimsuit Edition this past May — and why the response from fans was “encouraging.”“I [only] had two months to get ready,” Stewart admitted during a panel appearance in Las Vegas Monday, according to The Hollywood Reporter. “So let’s just say I’m now an avid pilates fan.”The CBD entrepreneur was the oldest woman to ever pose for the cover of the legendary swimsuit edition of the magazine, and she said that she felt like people were inspired by the decision.

Disney has wrapped up its 2023-24 upfront sales process, with gains in sports and streaming helping it return to 2022 revenue and volume levels.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor ESPN muscled aside the upstart Barstool Sports and struck a major sports-betting pact with operator Penn Entertainment that will put the Disney-owner sports giant into gaming and wagering in a major way.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Fox Corp. relied more heavily on its ability to drive revenue from the transmission of the Fox broadcast network and its Fox stations, as it grappled with downturns in advertising during its fiscal fourth quarter. The owner of Fox News, Fox Sports and the Fox broadcast network said it generated profit of $375 million, or 74 cents per share, compared with $306 million, or 55 per share in the year-earlier period.

Naman Ramachandran Disney+ Hotstar India’s Syria-set thriller series “The Freelancer” is in the works. Based on the bestselling 2017 book “A Ticket to Syria” by Shirish Thorat, the series is from showrunner Neeraj Pandey (Disney+ Hotstar’s Special Ops franchise), produced by Friday Storytellers and directed by Bhav Dhulia (Netflix’s “Khakee: The Bihar Chapter”). Pandey said: “’The Freelancer’ is a high-scale thriller series that unfolds an extraordinary rescue operation of a young girl held against her will in a war-torn Syria.

Disney Illusion Island, has shared that there are a number of Disney games that the team would leap at the opportunity to create.In an interview with Tech Radar Gaming, AJ Grand-Scrutton spoke about the love that he and IT director Mark Ragon still have for the original Castle Of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse and World Of Illusion games on the Sega Mega Drive.“This game wouldn’t exist without those games,” he explained, expanding on the more recent influences on Disney Illusion Island like the Ori series, the Metroid games and Gato Roboto.In the future, it remains to be seen if there will be downloadable content (DLC) for the game like new playable characters outside of Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Goofy. Despite this, Grand-Scrutton seemed to sound very positive about the partnership with Disney and has already thought of what Dlala Studios could create next.“There’s a list.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Warner Bros. Discovery appears to have bigger digital plans for Charles Barkley and Anderson Cooper. Warner Bros.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Warner Bros. Discovery trimmed its losses in its second quarter but saw revenue fall in key areas such as advertising and content production as the company, built from a merger of WarnerMedia and Discovery Communications, continues to navigate shifting terrain in the media sector.

The collaboration we didn’t know we needed has officially arrived, and it sees beauty brand Charlotte Tilbury partnering up with Disney to create a collection that’s every bit as magical as you would imagine.To celebrate 10 years of Charlotte Tilbury and Disney100 (100 years since the launch of Disney) the two global brands have teamed up to create a collection of makeup and skincare that combines Charlotte’s innovative products with one of Disney’s most iconic characters, Tinkerbell. Following the success of the Charlotte Tilbury Magic Cream, £52 here, the two brands are here to spread a little bit of magic to everyone, and some of the MUA’s best-loved beauty products – and Charlotte herself – have been given a pixie dust makeover.