The Walt Disney Co. adjusted its outlook for how many streaming subscribers it will have from the targets it originally set when it launched Disney Plus.

The company originally said that it expected to have between 230 million and 260 million subscribers worldwide by 2024. 

On Wednesday's third-quarter earnings call with analysts, CFO Christine McCarthy broke up the sub count, separating Disney Plus and Hot Star in India.

McCarthy said that "core" Disney Plus has a target range of 135 million to 165 million global subscribers by the end of fiscal 2024. She called that number "largely consistent" with previously provided guidance that non-Hotstar Disney Plus subscribers in 2024 would account for 60% to 70% of the total subscriber base.

She said Hotstar would have up to 80 million subscribers, leaving the new total at 215 million to 245 million subscribers.

In India, Disney was outbid for the streaming rights to cricket, the most popular sport there.

"We intend to refine this target over time as subscriber visibility in India will be clearer once the ICC and BCCI cricket rights sales processes are completed," McCarthy said.

She said that in the current fiscal fourth quarter, Disney expects Disney Plus core net additions to accelerate modestly, particularly in the domestic market.

Disney's announcement follows a drop in subscribers at Netflix that had Wall Street reexamining its expectation for the streaming business that sent media company stocks plummeting. 

But the market seemed to take Disney's announcement in stride. In after-hours trading, Disney stock was up more than 6%. 

McCarthy also said that Disney remains confident that Disney Plus will achieve profitability in fiscal 2024 and that peak streaming losses will be in the current fiscal year.

Cash content spend across Disney is expected to be $30 billion for fiscal 2022, down slightly from previous guidance, she said.

Disney’s ability to add subscribers will be affected by the launch of the ad-supported version of Disney Plus and by a round of price increases for Disney’s streaming products.

Disney CEO Bob Chapek, speaking on the earnings call, noted that Disney Plus had launched at a very low price point. "I think it’s easy to say we’re probably the best value for streaming," he said.

"We believe that because of the increase in the investment over the past two and a half years, relative to a very good price point, that we have plenty of room on price value," Chapek said. "And we do not believe that there's going to be any meaningful long-term impact on our churn as a result. I mean, one only needs to look at our recent significant increase on ESPN Plus, which had really no meaningful impact at all on our churn. And we believe that we've got plenty of price value room left to go."

The ad supported version of Disney Plus will launch December 8. McCarthy said that Disney Plus will have a lower ad load and lower ad frequency than Hulu.

"But because of that disciplined, lower ad load, lower frequency, and the strong advertising demand that we've had, that translates into some of the ... industry-leaning CPM rates at the most-recent upfront for Disney Plus," she said. 

McCarthy said that Disney intends to take the ad-supported version of Disney Plus international sometime next year.

"We've built these strong advertising relationships around the world with our previously existing and currently existing linear footprint, so we're confident in our ability to navigate the international advertising marketplace, given our depth of knowledge and experience with the traditional linear business," she said.  

Chapek added that Disney Plus will run on a completely different ad tech platform from Hulu.

"While we certainly have tremendous learnings over the years, in terms of how to do addressable advertising and we've done that at the advantage of our shareholders results, I will have to say that we are not encumbered by that or in any way limited by what we've done in the past," Chapek said. "Therefore, we could have, you know, an ad proposition as good as the one we had on Hulu, but could actually be better because of that different technology platform." ■

Disney International Content and Operations Chair Rebecca Campbell sought to explain the company's rationale for not securing coveted streaming rights to Indian Premier League cricket and declaring Disney's intention to pursue other OTT rights to live sports in the region. 

Corrected: An earlier version of this story misidentified Rebecca Campbell. 

"We made disciplined bids with a focus on long-term value. We chose not to proceed with the digital rights given the price required to secure that package," Campbell said in a statement released Tuesday.

Also read: Disney’s Wish For Star India Success Swings on Cricket Deal

Viacom18, a joint venture between Paramount Global and Reliance Industries, ended up paying around $3 billion to acquire rights to the IPL tournament from 2023-2027. Disney was able to secure broadcast TV rights for Disney Star during that same span, also paying around $3 billion. 

But Disney Plus Hotstar, which had been IPL's streaming home for a fraction of the new bid, will not have rights starting next April, when the IPL tournament convenes.

"We will be exploring other multi-platform cricket rights, including future rights for International Cricket Council (ICC) and Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), which we currently hold through the 2023 and 2024 seasons, respectively," Campbell added. "Additionally, we hold ProKabaddi League rights, India Super League football rights, as well as various international sports rights, including the Wimbledon Championships and the English Premier League. At the same time, we are focused on growing our robust slate of original entertainment content for Disney Plus Hotstar and our television channels in the region."

Average revenue per user is still relatively very low in India for American streaming companies. But the region is one of intense competitive focus right now, given the comparatively low levels of streaming saturation -- there's a huge percentage of India's 1.38 billion citizens who have yet to adopt the streaming habit, and live sports is viewed as a catalyst to entice them. 

The missed IPL opportunity comes with CEO Chapek taking intense criticism, both on the Disney lot and among his peers, for his abrupt firing last week of widely respected Entertainment Chair Peter Rice -- a move many suspect has more to do with self-preservation than business sense. 

The Disney board released a statement last week, seeking to affirm the embattled chief executive. 

Disney has lost its bid to acquire streaming rights to what has emerged as one of the world's most coveted live sports packages, the Indian Premier League cricket tournament. 

Viacom18, a Mumbai-based joint venture between Paramount Global and Reliance Industries' TV18, won the five-year IPL streaming package with a $3 billion bid. Disney, however, will retain broadcast rights, paying a reported $3 billion. 

In all, IPL will collect $6.2 billion for TV rights to 410 matches that are played in April and May. 

Updated: This story has been updated to include new, higher figures for the IPL rights deals. 

Viacom18 and Disney also beat out Amazon and Sony for the rights packages. 

Also read: Disney’s Wish For Star India Success Swings on Cricket Deal

The 14-year-old IPL plays a special form of cricket, and has grown to be hugely popular in India. The league added two more teams last year, paying $800 million each to join the bonanza. Disney inherited the cricket rights when it bought Star India as part of its $71 billion acquisition of much of Fox in 2019, and since has incorporated Star into Disney Plus in India. 

In terms of profitability, owning streaming for the IPL isn't the same thing as, say, owning NBA rights in the U.S. 

Monthly ARPU (average revenue per user) is just 76 cents in India. Compare that to the rest of the planet: those subs fetch an ARPU of $6.35. Disney has acknowledged in multiple earnings reports that the India sector has been a drag on streaming revenue, and it could get a lot worse. 

Also read: Netflix Sees Green Shoots in India

But with Star India controlling more than 46 million subscribers in the region, Disney has dominance in a coveted, unsaturated market with 1.38 billion customers. That figure dwarfs the presence of rivals like Netflix, which is investing big money to expand its Asian-Pacific region presence. 

Once upon a time, Disney’s Jiminy Cricket sang about wishing upon a star, indelibly linking the song to the House That Walt Built. These days, by Jiminy, Disney’s Star streaming service is wishing upon cricket. Without it, Disney’s dreams of creating a real streaming service may run into even more trouble than that kid with the big nose did on Pleasure Island. 

It’s the latest question hanging over Bob Chapek’s empire, which already had enough headaches in Florida, Anaheim and China to make some of us wonder if it might be more than a board oversight that the new-ish CEO hasn’t had his three-year contract extended. 

Even amid all the streaming mayhem of recent weeks, Disney resolutely maintains it will have 230 million - 260 million combined subscribers by 2025. That is, despite the Netflix-induced chill that has settled across the streaming industry. But by the end of the week, we’ll know a lot more about how attainable Disney’s stubbornly ambitious goal will be. 

On June 12, the governing board of the world’s biggest cricket organization will announce which streaming service has won the privilege of paying something like $5 billion to carry the massively popular Indian Premier League for the next five years, in streaming, broadcasting and international rights. 

Also read: Amazon Unveils Slate of 41 Local Shows and New Rental Service in India, as Regional Battle with Netflix and Disney Heats Up

The 14-year-old league plays a special form of cricket, and has been hugely popular since it was founded. The league added two more teams last year, which paid $800 million each to join the bonanza. Disney inherited the cricket rights when it bought Star India as part of its $71 billion acquisition of much of Fox in 2019, and since has incorporated Star into Disney Plus in India. 

Now the company has to decide if it’s ready to stick with cricket. 

The minimum bid for the new contract is $4.4 billion, according to the governing Board of Control for Cricket in India. Other major bidders expected to step to the wicket include Alphabet’s YouTube, Amazon, a reinvigorated Sony Pictures Networks India that recently merged with local media giant Zee, and yet another local/US partnership, Viacom18, which includes Paramount Global and Reliance Industries. 

In the years since Star paid $2.5 billion for the contract in 2017, Disney has accumulated a significant empire of more than 50 million subscribers in what soon will be the world’s most populous country. That’s nearly a quarter of Disney’s combined 205 million global subscribers, pushing it within hailing distance of worldwide leader Netflix.  

And Disney has had no problems splashing down billions for other top-level sports rights. Look at the palace coup it pulled in 2020 to scoop up TV rights to SEC college football and basketball games.

That deal (estimated at more than $300 million per year) caused eyes to bug out across college sports, not the least because it’s more than five times what long-time incumbent CBS has paid, in what admittedly was a ludicrous bargain. 

But splashing the cash for the quasi-professional games of college football’s best conference is one thing. You can sell a lot of truck and beer ads, pump up the Disney-owned SEC Network, and give people a reason (finally) to watch ESPN Plus. Most importantly, you can make your money back. 

That’s less certain with the IPL contract, which likely will require a winning bid well north of $5 billion, for a five-year deal. Can a deal that pricey pencil out for Disney? Maybe not. 

That’s because those Indian subscribers aren’t paying much to watch. Monthly ARPU (average revenue per user) is a pitiful 76 cents in India. Compare that to the rest of the planet: those subs fetch an ARPU of $6.35. Disney has acknowledged in multiple earnings reports that the India sector has been a drag on streaming revenue, and it could get a lot worse. 

The company may be able to extract more advertising and marketing revenue (it doesn’t disclose those numbers) but will certainly have to execute at a high level in a complex market to make back its outlays if it pays to keep the rights. 

Also read: Netflix Sees Green Shoots in India

Disney isn’t the only American company struggling to make the numbers add up in India, of course. 

Netflix has repeatedly had to tweak its subscriber offerings there, with mobile-only packages charging minimal amounts, then upselling to get people to pay more for offerings designed for connected TVs. Amazon has faced its own challenges in India, though more for its e-commerce offerings, of which streaming is just another enticement to sign up. 

And Disney executives have said subscribers are there for more than cricket. The company does have all those great Disney franchises, and also offers thousands of hours of local content. 

But given outsized numbers involved, this one deal could have a pivotal impact on Disney’s global streaming ambitions. It might be the most fascinating cricket match Hollywood has ever watched. 

Catching Netflix, which then had over 165 million subscribers, was an almost unthinkable prospect for Disney on November 12, 2019. But just 31 months after it launched Disney Plus, surpassing Netflix in global scale is no longer a matter of if, but when. 

And "when" is probably later this year. 

Disney added 9.2 million streaming subscribers in its fiscal second quarter ending April 2, upping its total direct-to-consumer base to 205.6 million customers across its Disney Plus, Disney Plus Hotstar, Hulu and ESPN Plus brands. 

Disney added 7.9 million subscribers alone across its Disney Plus and India-situated Disney Plus Hotstar brands, and it now has 137.7 million customers under the Disney Plus brand. By fiscal 2024, it expects that number to grow to between 230-260 million. (Hulu added around 300,000 customers during the quarter, while ESPN Plus grew by about 1 million subs.)

Revenue growth remained strong for Disney, rising 23% to $19.2 billion. (You can read a full summary of Disney's fiscal Q2 report here.)

After enduring its first quarterly subscriber drop in over a decade, Netflix finished the first three months of 2022 with 221.6 million customers. It expects to lose around 2 million more in the second quarter. Revenue growth, which flew well above 20% each quarter amid the pandemic, slid below 10%. 

To return to growth, Netflix is making aggressive investments in regions like India, the global market with perhaps the best potential for developing future broadband and streaming users. But Disney Plus Hotstar finished 2021 with 50 million users in the region, dwarfing Netflix's current local stature. 

And with Disney Plus set to deploy in around 53 new international markets, and unfurl a local international production slate of more than 500 original titles, its runway seems immeasurably longer than Netflix's at the moment.

With Disney charging only a fraction globally of what Netflix does, revenue varies widely. But oranges and apples comparisons of respective business models aside, the raw subscriber numbers carry huge sway in places like Wall Street. This horserace matters. ■

Varun Narang has been named chief product officer at Fox, where he will oversee the company’s Fox-branded streaming products, platforms and engineering.

Narang had been chief product officer with Disney Plus Hotstar, which he joined in 2015, before it was sold by 21st Century Fox to Disney. 

He will report to Fox CTO and president of digital Paul Cheesbrough.

“Varun is a unique visionary whose passion, expertise and creativity make him the ideal leader of our streaming products and experiences. His leadership will accelerate the momentum of our digital businesses and deepen the outstanding digital talent that we have developed across our brands,” said Cheesbrough. “I look forward to working closely with him to charter the next phase of digital growth and consumer offerings for the company.”

In his newly created post, Narang will be working closely with Fox’s brands to provide consumers with world-class experiences and build on the momentum and talent already at the company, Fox said.

At Disney Plus Hotstar, Narang helped grow the service in India into one of the largest operations in the world. Before that he was with Hulu, Amazon and Xerox.

 The Walt Disney Co. said it plans to raise the price of its fast-growing Disney Plus service by $1 a month to $7.99 a month in March.. 

Disney also aggressively raised its targets for how many subscribers it will have by 2024, and for how much it will be spending on content. The additional subscriber revenue will be put back into the business to make the streaming services grow, so the company still targets profitability in 2024, with peak losses in 2021, the company Disney CFO Christine McCarthy said.

Also read: Disney Plus Now at 8.68 million subscribers

The price increase reflects increase in the underlying value of the service,” said McCarthy Thursday during the company's investor day, where analysts were overwhelmed with the amount of original content the direct to consumers services would be streaming over the next few years.

For U.S. customers, Disney Plus will be available for $79.95 a year. 

Disney is also raising the price of its Disney Plus, Hulu and ESPN Plus bundle by $1 to $13.99 per month.

Prices will also be going up internationally, including by 2 Euros in Europe per month for Disney Plus.

For all of Disney’s DTC services--Disney Plus, Hulu and ESPN Plus, Disney expects to have between 300 and 350 million global subscribers by the end of 2024, up from 137 million as of Dec. 2.

The company expects to have between 230 million and 260 million Disney Plus subscribers globally, with 30% to 40% of those being from the Disney Plus Hotstar international service. 

For Hulu, Disney expects to have 50 million to 60 million subscribers by 2024, up from the 40 million to 60 million predicted in 2019.

ESPN Plus will be adding original content to make the product more broadly popular and expects to have 20 million to 30 million subscribers by the end of 2024. It expects ESPN Plus to be profitable in 2023.

At its 2019 DTC investor day Disney said it expected content spending to grow from $2 billion in 2020 to $4 billion in 2024. Now the company expected content spending for Disney Plus to be between $8 billion to $9 billion, representing fund going to the original five core brands--Disney, Marvel, Star Wars, National Geographic and Pixar-- plus sending for Star internationally, including acquiring local content.

Content spending for its DTC business is expected to reach $14-16 billion by 2024, including some sports rights, but excluding programming cost for Hulu Plus Live TV. 

UPDATED 3.23.20: Disney said it will push back its launch of Disney Plus in France until April 7, at the request of the French government. The streaming service will launch in the UK, Ireland, Germany, Italy, Spain, Austria and Switzerland as planned on Tuesday, March 24.

The Walt Disney Company is postponing plans to deploy its new Disney Plus streaming service in India, as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to massively disrupt global commerce.

The service, which got off to a massive start in North America, amassing 28.6 million subscribers from November 1 through December 31, was originally set to expand to the subcontinent on March 29. (Variety appears to be the first to report on this delay.)

Also read: Disney Plus: How It Went From Zero to 28.6 Million in Less Than Three Months

Disney Plus is being integrated into Hotstar, a Disney-owned streaming service already established in India. The SVOD service’s launch was to coincide with the start of the Indian Premiere League cricket tournament. But that tournament, like virtually every other sporting event around the world, has been postponed amid coronavirus-fueled social distancing and quarantines.

Visit Next TV to read more stories like this one. 

The tournament has been postponed until April 15 … for now.

:“Given the delay of the season, we have made the decision to briefly pause the roll-out of Disney Plus and will announce a new revised premiere date for the service soon,” said Uday Shankar, president of The Walt Disney Company APAC, and chairman of Star and Disney India, in a statement

Also read: HBO Max, Quibi Stick with Launch Plans Despite Global COVID-19 Disruption

Notably, WarnerMedia told Next TV this week it has no plans to move off its late-May launch plan for HBO Plus. Likewise, Quibi said it plans to stick to its April 6 launch plan. 

UPDATED ON 3/23/20: Disney said it will proceed with plans to launch Disney Plus on Tuesday, March 24 in the U.K., Ireland, Germany, Italy, Spain, Austria and Switzerland. However, at the behest of the French government, it will delay launch in France until April 7.

The Walt Disney Company is postponing plans to deploy its new Disney Plus streaming service in India, as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to massively disrupt global commerce.

The service, which got off to a massive start in North America, amassing 28.6 million subscribers from Nov. 1 through Dec. 31, was originally set to expand to the subcontinent on March 29. (Variety appears to be the first to report on this delay.)

Also read: Disney Plus: How It Went From Zero to 28.6 Million in Less Than Three Months

Disney Plus is being integrated into Hotstar, a Disney-owned streaming service already established in India. The SVOD service’s launch was to coincide with the start of the Indian Premiere League cricket tournament. But that tournament, like virtually every other sporting event around the world, has been postponed amid coronavirus-fueled social distancing and quarantines. 

The tournament has been postponed until April 15 … for now. 

“Given the delay of the season, we have made the decision to briefly pause the roll-out of Disney Plus and will announce a new revised premiere date for the service soon,” said Uday Shankar, president of The Walt Disney Company APAC, and chairman of Star and Disney India, in a statement.

Also read: HBO Max, Quibi Stick with Launch Plans Despite Global COVID-19 Disruption

Notably, WarnerMedia told Next TV this week it has no plans to move off its late-May launch plan for HBO Plus. Likewise, Quibi said it plans to stick to its April 6 launch plan.