The Walt Disney Co. said it has completed its upfront advertising sales, generating record commitments with sports and streaming, in particular, showing growth.

Overall dollar volume was up 5% from last year, with more than 40% of upfront commitments going towards addressable inventory, including streaming and digital.

Disney Advertising said it benefited from the expansion of ad-supported Disney Plus, as well as from women’s sports sponsorships, multicultural partnerships and investments from independent buying agencies.

Streaming and sports were both up by double digits, the company said.

Also Read: Disney’s Rita Ferro Is Banking on Sports, Streaming, Tech (Upfronts)

“Disney’s unrivaled storytelling paired with our unparalleled ad technology and data capabilities delivers the outcomes our partners continue to push us on, and we continue to raise the bar,” Disney president, global advertising Rita Ferro said. “Our growth in the number of marketers we work with and the increased investments in advertising innovation demonstrates Disney’s differentiator. As we double down on our commitment to world-class storytelling, automation, and new ad products, demonstrating growth for partners underpins our focus for the future.”

Also Read: Disney Upfront Welcomes Back Bob Iger — and Jimmy Kimmel

Streaming ad volume was up 10% across Hulu and Disney Plus, the company said. Advertisers took advantage of the Disney Streaming Entertainment package, which offers inventory across the company’s streaming apps.

Data and targeted advertising were in demand from advertisers looking to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of their campaigns.

Use of Disney’s first-party data was up 181% from a year ago, with nearly 60% of all data-enabled deals using Disney’s data.

Performance marketing deals were up 19%.

Categories that performed well for the 2024-25 upfront include international auto, beverages, food, personal care; financial services; healthcare and travel — specifically hotels and vacation rentals; and restaurants — led by quick-service restaurants. 

Earlier, NBCUniversal and Fox also reported strong upfront results in what was expected to be a difficult market.

After nearly overshadowing the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers during Super Bowl week, the joint venture newly kicked off by The Walt Disney Co.’s ESPN and rivals Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery isn’t as sure a thing as Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, who again emerged as the big game’s most valuable player.

Investors and observers were split on the joint venture. Some saw the companies as three wise men, creating their own virtual multichannel video distributor (vMVPD) to carry a skinny bundle of most of TV’s most-watched channels, including ESPN, ABC, Fox and TNT. Others thought the venture was formed by three blind mice who failed to see how their leviathan would open the floodgates to accelerated cord-cutting by letting sports escape the historically lucrative pay TV business.

Also Read: Sports Executive of the Year: Game on, Says Luis Silberwasser, TNT Sports Chief

The combination will encourage frustrated sports fans who have cut the cord to come into (or back into) the fast-eroding pay TV ecosystem, which for years has generated big profit margins for programmers, fans of the deal argued. And the JV will pay its founders top rates for their sports programming.

The optimism was met with concerns on Wall Street and elsewhere that the venture would encourage continued cord-cutting, making it easier for consumers to choose a skinnier bundle of programming for about $50 a month and stop subscribing to still-lucrative channels like CNN, Fox News, Disney Channel, HGTV and FX.

The price the venture would charge distributors was just one of the still unanswered questions about the still-unnamed business.

Who will run it? Will other partners be added? Will traditional distributors be able to offer the new bundle to their subscribers? Will affiliates be cut in?

During earnings calls the week the venture was announced, Disney CEO Bob Iger and Fox executive chairman and CEO Lachlan Murdoch both downplayed the risk of accelerating cord-cutting and further damaging their news and entertainment cable channels.

“While there might be some de minimis economic impact on us for us it’s very low-risk,” said Iger, who responded to pressure from activist investors by announcing that ESPN would go direct-to-consumer next year and that Taylor Swift’s concert film will be on Disney Plus next month.

Of the 125 million U.S. TV households, about half, or 60 million, are not in the traditional bundled ecosystem.

“We would not be launching this product if we thought it was going to significantly affect our affiliate partners,” Murdoch said, adding, “The opportunity is huge.” 

Wariness on Wall Street

Wall Street was skeptical. “Fox said they’re confident that the sports streaming JV with Disney and WBD won’t disrupt the traditional pay TV ecosystem,” Wells Fargo analyst Steven Cahall said. “We are not yet convinced and think it’s a gamble to give bundle subs additional options. ”

The news wasn’t great for companies impacted by the venture.

Fubo, the money-losing sports-oriented streaming service, saw its stock price fall about 20%.“We’re not surprised more sports streaming options are becoming available,” Fubo said, “We believe our robust programming and quality product experience cannot be duplicated by what is likely to emerge from this joint venture.” 

Fubo added that “we have already seen that a consortium born of historical competitors is a difficult undertaking, and streaming joint ventures rarely work.”

Paramount Global, whose rights holdings include the NFL, a piece of the men’s NCAA basketball tournament and college football, downplayed the strategy behind the sports venture.

“What we focus on is a broad strategy,” Paramount CEO Bob Bakish told CNBC. “We’ve looked at sports-only plays, including in digital, both on a standalone basis and with partners, but we continue to believe broad is better.”

More Reach for Stations

Stations, which are increasingly adding local sports to their lineup, could also be impacted but preferred to focus on the bright spots, at least in public. 

The venture “could be a significant opportunity to expand the pay TV ecosystem,” Gray Television said in a statement. “Gray welcomes any venture that expands the reach of local broadcasting stations, which in turn supports the ability of local stations to maintain trusted local news operations that benefit everyone.”

Said E.W. Scripps CEO Adam Symson, “Affiliates are going to be compensated for being carried along.” 

“People don’t want to go to a buffet where half the steam trays are missing,” Symson added. “It calls into question the value of the consumer proposition. If you’re a sports nut today and you need access to all the live telecasts of your favorite sports, you’re best off maintaining the pay TV bundle as it is.” 

The Walt Disney Co. said Nelson Peltz’s Trian Fund Management has formally provided notice of its intent to nominate two people to be Disney directors at the media company’s 2024 shareholder meeting.

Trian, working with former Disney executive Isaac Perlmutter, controls 44 million Disney shares, including Perlmutter’s 25 million shares.

Disney has alleged that Perlmutter, whose employment as chair of Marvel Entertainment was terminated by Disney earlier this year, has a “longstanding personal agenda” against Disney CEO Bob Iger.

Trian has complained that Disney’s shares have lost $70 billion in value since February, that further cost-cutting is needed and that Disney’s board needs more executives with media experience.

Under pressure from shareholders, Disney has cut $7.5 million in costs and reduced headcount by about 5,000. Disney stock is up about 6% today so far.

The company also has said it would resume paying shareholders a dividend.

Disney said the governance and nominating committee of its board will evaluate the proposed Trian nominees and provide a recommendation to the board as part of its governance process.

“Disney has an experienced, diverse, and highly qualified Board that is focused on the long-term performance of the company, strategic growth initiatives including the ongoing transformation of its businesses, the succession planning process and increasing shareholder value,” the company said.

The Walt Disney Co.’s $8.61 billion check to acquire Comcast's 33% stake in Hulu arrived on Friday, and Comcast president Mike Cavanagh told a UBS media investor conference in New York Monday morning (December 4) he expects there to be more money from the Hulu divesture coming in following an ongoing process to properly value the platform. 

The “check cleared, it’s in the account,” Cavanagh said. “We expect, and certainly hope to get, more than that once the process ends. But it’s really just the beginning.”

The payment, initial or final, is timely, given Cavanagh's disclosure that Comcast and its NBCUniversal media division will lose $2.8 billion on building streaming assets in 2023. Cavanagh told investors that he believes those losses have peaked. 

Notably, NBCUniversal now counts 30 million subscribers for its flagship streaming service, Peacock — more than three times as many paying customers as the platform had two years ago. 

“Our primary focus is to figure out domestic and make sure that we continue to have the reach and relevance between linear and digital as we look several years down the road,” Cavanagh said. 

At a time when several of NBCU’s peers have had the will to endure the heavy losses needed to build scale in emerging platforms, Cavanagh and his team seem to have their feet under them. Comcast shares were up more than 2% at the time this sentence was typed. 

“We disclose what we ‘lose’ in Peacock for clarity, and it’s going to peak this year at $2.8 billion of losses,” Cavanaugh said. “But don’t forget the counternarrative of, what would it all look like if we weren’t trying at Peacock? You’d be asking a different set of questions, which is, where are the linear businesses going if you’re not trying to figure out a future for the powerful platforms you have?”

Two days after her company jointly announced a groundbreaking distribution deal with The Walt Disney Co., Charter Communications chief financial officer Jessica Fischer expressed, in perhaps the most restrained way she could muster, her cable company's collective satisfaction over the new agreement. 

“We’re really happy with the deal,“ Fischer said Wednesday while speaking at the BofA Securities Media, Communications and Entertainment Conference in New York. “We met all of our objectives.

“I really think everybody wins in this deal. I think it was a win for us, I think it’s a win for Disney, I think it’s really a win for consumers,“ Fischer added. 

Sure, everybody won. But Charter seemed to win more. 

Negotiations on a renewal of Disney’s pay TV carriage deal with Charter covering ESPN, ABC and more than 20 other cable channels broke down on August 31, when those networks were pulled off of the program grids of 14.7 million Spectrum TV subscribers. 

Charter took a stern posture. It conceded that rate increases were inevitable, but the cable company was adamant about participating in the growth of Disney's more forward-looking business, direct-to-consumer streaming. 

And that it received. Charter successfully negotiated the ability to distribute the ad-supported Disney Plus and ESPN Plus at wholesale rates, while getting Disney to commit to providing Charter customers its direct-to-consumer streaming version of the flagship ESPN channel, whenever it is that it launches. 

Charter also received much-needed flexibility on how it tiers Disney channels. And it eighty-sixed lightly watched cable channels Baby TV, Disney Junior, Disney XD, Freeform, FXM, FXX, Nat Geo Wild, and Nat Geo Mundo — networks rendered obsolete in an era in which pretty much every company in media operates a FAST.

Charter achieved all of this by appearing, as sincerely as a cardiac event, as if they’d simply walk away from the pay TV business.  

Still, the ball having exploded off Charter’s bat and into the far realms of the bleachers, Fischer carefully dropped the bat and proceeded to professionally run around the bases. 

“Disney is going to get distribution growth across all of our linear [channels],” she said. “And in addition to that, they’ll have the distribution that we can offer to our broadband system, so access to a really great distribution engine. They’ll get the ad revenue, because the DTC that we’re bundling in is ad-supported.”

But it’s bigger than just Disney and Charter, of course. 

“The other thing that we’ve done that I think was important for Disney and Charter is that we’ve pulled together a package that we think can stabilize the linear video ecosystem and provide a glide path that gets us to the new direct-to-consumer environment,” Fischer said.

“They had the linchpin asset in ESPN,” she added. “You couldn't move to a new transformation model without ESPN. Because of that, we needed them to lead.”

One of the most closely observed distribution impasses in the history of technology, media and telecom has been resolved, with Disney and Charter Communications agreeing on a new contract that will restore ESPN, ABC and 17 other Disney networks to Charter’s Spectrum TV program guide. 

The channels had been blacked out for the cable company’s 14.7 million TV customers since August 31. 

With both sides diverting live-sports-craving Charter video customers to virtual pay TV services including Hulu Plus Live TV and YouTube TV in recent weeks, Charter’s video ranks are undoubtedly fewer. 

And with Disney making certain concessions, the list of more than 25 channels that Charter was once forced to distribute has been reduced to 19. (Networks that will no longer be included in Spectrum TV video packages include Baby TV, Disney Junior, Disney XD, Freeform, FXM, FXX, Nat Geo Wild, and Nat Geo Mundo.)

But the deal did restore the Disney channels ahead of ESPN's scheduled presentation of the highly anticipated season-premiere Monday Night Football matchup between the Buffalo Bills and New York Jets. 

Under terms of the deal, Charter will pay an unspecified fee increase to Disney. (The conglomerate has described these rate increases as being "very strong.") However, the cable company secured wholesale pricing on Disney streaming services.

This will allow, in the coming months, Charter to bundle the ad-supported Disney Plus Basic and ESPN Plus with its popular Spectrum TV Select programming package. ESPN's much-discussed DTC product will also be available to Spectrum TV Select users when it launches.

Disney will get added distribution for its $6.99-a-month Disney Plus ad tier, which only had around 3.3 million subscribers as of June. According to equity analyst Craig Moffett, Charter has between 9 million - 10 million subscribers in its Spectrum Select tier. 

And this deal term seems particularly important: “Charter will maintain flexibility to offer a range of video packages at varying price points based upon different customer viewing preferences.”

Key to Charter's dissonance has been guaranteed minimum clauses that compel pay TV providers to force channels on consumers they don't watch.

The distribution skirmish was set apart by Charter's notably aloof posture — the cable company seemed sincerely ready to forfeit the network it concedes is the “linchpin” to its video offering, ESPN, and move onto a post-cable-TV world. 

As Moffett astutely noted Monday morning before the announcement of the deal, a typical cable plant will use around 56% of its capacity on quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) video. So freeing that capacity up would render a huge speed benefit to what is now Charter's most profitable product, high-speed internet connectivity. 

Then again, video remains a sticky churn-buster for internet service packages. And being able to supply Disney streaming products at wholesale proved an attractive enticement for Charter. 

The respective CEOs of both companies, Disney's Bob Iger and Charter's Christopher Winfrey, released this statement: 

“Our collective goal has always been to build an innovative model for the future. This deal recognizes both the continued value of linear television and the growing popularity of streaming services, while addressing the evolving needs of our consumers. We also want to thank our mutual customers for their patience this past week, and are pleased that Spectrum viewers once again have access to Disney’s high-quality sports, news and entertainment programming, in time for Monday Night Football.” 

Charter Communications CEO Christopher Winfrey said the longer his cable company’s distribution tiff with Disney drags on, the less likely it is that both sides will ever agree to a renewal deal to restore ESPN, ABC and more than 20 other cable channels to Charter's Spectrum TV program guide. 

“As more video customers who value sports content migrate to alternative sources, our incentive to do a deal is reduced,” Winfrey said, speaking Thursday at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference.

Winfrey's speaking engagement directly coincided with the release of another Disney statement, in which the media company accused Charter of refusing multiple Disney offers to resolve the impasse and “functionally” exiting the video business. Disney also said that 71% of Charter pay TV subscribers watch Disney content. 

Also Read: How Ready Is Charter To Let Disney and ESPN Walk? It Plans To Funnel Blacked-Out ‘Monday Night Football’ Fans to Fubo and YouTube TV

Still, as he has since the dispute broke on August 31, Winfrey conveyed a seemingly sincere ease with “moving on” without Disney underpinning its business of bundled linear video distribution. 

He said that “rich linear fees that our customers are paying are being funneled to the direct-to-consumer products” of content partners, including Disney.

Also read: Is Bob Iger Really Feeling the ‘Squeeze’ From John Malone? Well, So Far, Charter's Down More Than Disney on Wall Street

“The idea that you could solve for DTC profitability by letting linear burn to the ground” is “not sustainable,” Winfrey added. “We have always thought of video as being an asset to our broadband connectivity business, but it’s on the verge of flipping and becoming a liability.”

Winfrey has urged Disney to dispense with the traditional carriage contract staple requirement of “minimum penetration,” which would allow Charter to deliver lower-priced bundles that deliver more value to customers who aren't into live sports. 

Also read: Charter Says Disney Blackout Presents Opportunity To Fix Broken Pay TV Model

Winfrey said Charter could also achieve this goal without Disney.

“In an alternative world, if you had an environment where you don't carry Disney content, what sports content would be left? The answer would be very little, but we could deliver smaller packages at a much better price.”

Winfrey culminated his address on the topic by framing the issue as being in Disney's court, describing the company and ESPN as “linchpins” for the pay TV ecosystem and urging it to “make a decision quickly as to where we’re going to go.”

If a redesigned way of doing pay TV business springs from this dispute, he said, “it will be because of them.” 

A Tampa, Florida, attorney has proposed the first of what seems like could ultimately be numerous class-action suits tied to the ongoing carriage dispute between Charter Communications and Disney. 

Billy Howard's team, the Florida Gators, had their college football opener against Utah blacked out when Charter took down ESPN Thursday. The lawyer said in his proposed class-action complaint, filed on behalf of Charter customer “Jen Gonzalez,” that the cable company “yanked the plug on college football fans and then blamed Mickey Mouse.”

Charter took down ESPN, ABC and 24 other Disney channels from its pay TV programming grid Thursday. The cable operator said that fundamental changes to the way Disney licenses its content networks must first be made before they can be restored. 

The plaintiffs, however, don't want to hear about Charter's problems. The suit contends that Charter could have extended the expired deal and kept Disney's channels on its service but chose not to. 

“Family and friends across America were eagerly waiting for the highly anticipated, beginning of college football, beginning on August 31, 2023, at 8:00 p.m,” the complaint adds. “Instead, the Gator Nation, along with football fans across the country experienced a ‘Lucy taking the football away from Charlie Brown’ moment as Spectrum pulled the football game, broadcasted a blackout and then claimed, ‘Disney made us do it.’ ”

One of the more anticipated media business deals will happen sooner than we thought. 

Comcast and The Walt Disney Co. have agreed to push up the start date to formally decide the fate of Hulu from January to the end of this month. 

Comcast chairman and CEO CEO Brian Roberts said his company will be basing the sale of its 33% stake in the Hulu joint venture on a valuation of the streaming service well north of $30 billion.

Also Read: Roberts: Comcast ‘Likely’ to Sell Its Stake in Hulu to Disney

“We are excited to get this resolved,” Roberts said during the Goldman Sachs Communcacopia + Technology Conference Wednesday. “And the minimum $27.5 billion that people have bandied about, that was a hypothetical that we picked five years ago because Disney has control of the company. The company is way more valuable today than it was then.”

Amid its purchase of Fox's entertainment assets in 2019, Disney became Hulu's majority and controlling shareholder. At that time, it also signed an agreement for Comcast to sell its remaining 33% stake in the JV at a minimum valuation of $27.5 billion. 

Hulu finished 2019 with just over 23 million subscribers. As of the end of June, the platform touted over 48 million paid users. 

Disney and Comcast have been negotiating an outcome for years. But now the formal timeline to arrive at a decision is set to start on September 30. 

“The next steps are an appraisal process for valuation with Comcast indicating it will have its own valuation, as will Disney and a third party,” Wells Fargo analyst Steven Cahall wrote. “No timing was given for a consummation of the process,” he added, “but we think investors will assume a deal by approximately year-end 2023.” 

The Walt Disney Co. said it has completed its upfront market negotiations, finishing with volume that was in line with the previous year.

More than 40% of the dollars advertisers committed to Disney were for streaming and digital. 

In what was expected to be a down market, most of the big media companies were able to put a good face in their upfront results. A growing amount of digital inventory was able to offset some of the declines in linear viewing and ad revenue.

The ad-supported tier of Disney Plus saw increased commitments. Disney Plus will be expanding its targeting, measurement and programmatic capabilities, Disney said.

Volume and pricing were up for sports, including women’s sports. Disney also generated increased commitments supporting inclusive programming from advertisers in the financial services, pharmaceutical, retail, tech and telecommunications categories.

“Our investments in the most dynamic technology and streaming capabilities, coupled with the most enviable sports rights, powerful storytelling and impactful cultural moments, sets Disney apart,” Disney Advertising president Rita Ferro said. “As we close the 2023-2024 Upfront, our insights-led approach and deep understanding of consumers continues to deliver growth for our clients, while deepening their connection to the most engaged audiences at scale.”

The Walt Disney Co. and its ESPN unit have recently held high-level discussions with the NFL, NBA and Major League Baseball about bringing the leagues in as actual stakeholders as ESPN moves to a direct-to-consumer streaming model. 

The news came late last week via an exclusive report from CNBC, which had just hosted Disney CEO Bob Iger on Squawk Box. The report was confirmed over the weekend by The New York Times and several other outlets. 

For the quarter ending March 31, revenue growth for Disney's linear TV networks finally and officially came to a stop. And in May, ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro confirmed what everyone in the television industry had long assumed — it isn’t a matter of if ESPN would go DTC, but when. 

Last week, while appearing on Squawk Box, Iger indicated that Disney was “looking for strategic partners” that could help ESPN with either distribution or content.

That quest appears to be underway, with Disney and ESPN talking to their biggest content licensing partners about a new way of proceeding that might not present as much risk for the media company. 

As CNBC noted, selling minority stakes to the leagues might be a way to mitigate massive multibillion-dollar national rights licensing costs for ESPN. This would allow Disney to better compete with Amazon, Apple and Google, who are aggressively courting rights to live sports. 

Disney, which said in an SEC filing late in 2022 that it has lost more than 10 million ESPN subscribers to cord-cutting over the past two years, expects to spend $45 billion on sports rights licensing over the next five years. 

Disney’s national TV rights deal with the NBA is set to expire in June 2025. Given Disney will be migrating ESPN to a distribution model with significantly leaner margins than what was traditionally seen in linear, it might make sense to offer such a league partner an equity stake rather than come up with a raise on the current bill of $2.5 billion a season. 

“We have great relationships with Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League and various college conferences, and of course the NFL and the NBA,” Iger told CNBC last week. “It’s not just about the live sports coverage of those leagues, those teams, it’s also about all of the shoulder programming it throws off on ESPN and what you can do with it in a streaming world.”

The media companies that helped Netflix grow by selling the streamer their best content on the cheap may be making the same strategic blunder again.

While Netflix’s original programming gets a lot of attention, acquired content represents a large and stable share of viewing by Netflix subscribers. The supply of acquired content dried up as media companies raced to build their own streaming services and add subscribers. That’s changing.

Analyst Michael Nathanson of MoffettNathanson notes that the media companies losing their shirts in streaming are selling content to Netflix and others in order to raise revenue. Notably, Warner Bros. Discovery recently sold series including Insecure, Six Feed Under and Band of Brothers to Netflix.

Also Read: ‘Insecure’ Arrives at Netflix on a Wave of HBO Shows Coming Over 

“Several of Netflix’s competitors face mounting debt and diminishing cash flows, and as such, the pressure to sell an ever-increasing amount of quality content to Netflix will only increase,” Nathanson said in a note published Thursday.

“Unfortunately for [the studios], this also has the potential to flood the marketplace for licensed content, diluting its value,“ Nathanson said. “We have already heard that the combo of tighter pocketbooks at streamers and a greater share of goods for sale has led to steep declines in the value of many library titles.” 

That’s bad news for the studios, but good for Netflix.

“Netflix started off its streaming journey buying the best content for next to nothing,“ he said. “It may soon be able to do so again, strengthening its hand.”

Nathanson analyzed Nielsen data and determined that acquired film and TV content still accounts for more than half of all time viewed on Netflix in the U.S. Hours viewed of acquired content is stable on a quarter-by-quarter basis, he said.

Viewing of original content accounts for fluctuation (and growth) for Netflix, but in the long run, hours spent viewing has increased over the past two years, Nathanson said.

Nathanson noticed a pattern in which viewers binge on original content when it first appears on the platform, but that viewing quickly ebbs, dropping about 6% of its peak.

Original content accounts for about 30% of Netflix’s viewership, with about 29% of that driven by the platform’s top 15 shows. But the sheer volume of original programming on Netflix creates a significant long tail. Shows 16 through 50 account for 23% of viewing time for originals; show 51 through 200 account for 29%; and the remaining 1,300 shows account for 19%.

Also Read: Less Than 36% of Netflix Viewing in U.S. Comes From Originals

“All of this is to show that Netflix’s massive content spend has been able to buy the platform increased engagement, while no single title has had a significantly outsized impact,” Nathanson said.

This leads Nathanson to the conclusion that The Walt Disney Co. would be best off by combining streamers Disney Plus and Hulu, assuming Disney buys out Comcast’s remaining ownership stake in Hulu.

“In combining the services, Disney should lean into its strengths and avoid its weaknesses,“ Nathanson said. “Continue to play the hits at Disney Plus. Continue to let others carry the risk of producing original content at Hulu while raising the output on a few more originals and use sports through ESPN Plus to drive dependable viewership and stickiness.

“In summary, while the struggling media landscape is playing into Netflix’s hands, we think Disney should be able to build an all-in-one offering that is more compelling and efficient than today’s packaging,” he said.

The Walt Disney Co. hosted its upfront presentation at the Jacob Javits Center in New York, with picketing writers protesting outside. Rita Ferro, president of Disney Advertising Sales, came out first. “Storytelling is what distinguishes us at Disney,” she said, adding that “creativity and innovation continue to be the cornerstone” of Disney programming. 

She then introduced her “pick for the athlete of all-time,” Serena Williams. Williams noted how “ESPN has championed my career from the very beginning,” and shared about an In the Arena docuseries focused on her. It will “track my ups and downs both professionally and personally,” she said. 

Next up was ESPN anchor Elle Duncan. “We’ve got the largest sports portfolio anywhere,” she boasted. Duncan said Christmas Day best displays ESPN’s might. ABC has NBA action, and Monday Night Football is on that day too. 

“We’ve got the biggest stars, we’ve got the marquee matchups,” Duncan said. 

Pat McAfee spoke of speaking with Jimmy Pitaro, ESPN president, about moving The Pat McAfee Show to ESPN. “He truly understood what the future of sports media is gonna look like,” said McAfee. 

Hannah Storm was out next to talk about NBA action. She introduced Donovan Mitchell of the Cavaliers, and the two spoke about the 71 points he had in a game in January. After a slow start that day, “Thank God the shots started going in,” Mitchell said. 

Talk turned to the WNBA, where Breanna Stewart and Angel Reese spoke about the upcoming season. “I’m a girlie-girl off the court,” said Reese, “but on the court I’m a dog.”

College football was up next, with Laura Rutledge, Desmond Howard and Dan Orlovsky on stage. Howard teased matchups such as Florida State versus LSU, Texas against Alabama and Notre Dame versus Clemson. 

“It’s an incredible synergy across all of our platforms,” said Rutledge. 

Next out was Caleb Williams, Heisman winner in 2022. “I got a lot of goals I still want to reach,” he promised. 

Orlovsky asked Williams which city he’d like to play in as a pro. “Whatever team picks first,” Williams answered diplomatically. 

Joe Buck and Troy Aikman of Monday Night Football came out next. Buck promised a new look for the show. He said of the schedule being revealed, “This was like Christmas the other day.”

The Monday schedule starts with Bills versus Jets. Aikman has his eye on week 11, Eagles versus Chiefs, a rematch of the last Super Bowl. 

Buck then brought out Damar Hamlin, who suffered cardiac arrest in a game in January. 

“It’s been a roller coaster of emotions, just getting back into the game,” said Hamlin after a standing ovation. 

Hamlin said he has learned a lot about humankind since his injury, noting how “people of all ethnicities, races and religions can come together” in difficult times. 

Peyton Manning was out next. He said for those who don’t want the polish of a Buck and Aikman broadcast, there’s Peyton & Eli, with the Manning brothers breaking down the game in the so-called Manningcast. 

Manning spoke about live events, including Dancing with the Stars and New Year’s Rockin’ Eve. Manning will again host the CMA Awards this year with Luke Bryan. Bryan, on video, called it “an amazing night of music.”

Next was ABC News. World News Tonight anchor David Muir said, “History is unfolding every day in this country and around the world.”

The DNA of World News Tonight, and ABC News, is boots on the ground, he said, chasing the story where it happens. Muir said ABC News, and parent Disney, are committed to the stories behind  the headlines. 

Muir thanked the stations for providing boots on the community ground, then introduced WABC New York anchors Bill Ritter and Sade Baderinwa. “We get to champion the local hometown heroes that remind us of our common bonds,” said Baderinwa. 

George Stephanopoulos and Michael Strahan from Good Morning America were out next. “It’s such a privilege to wake up and say good morning America to all our viewers,” Stephanopoulous said. 

Jesse Palmer, host of The Bachelor, was next. He spoke about Strahan questioning him about going on The Bachelor when both were NFL teammates. “Dude, you’re a quarterback on the New York Giants,” Palmer said, imitating Strahan. “And you’re going on TV to get a date?”

Palmer then introduced Kim and Khloe Kardashian. The Kardashians has been renewed on Hulu for 20 episodes, they shared, and season three drops May 25. Kim will also be in season 12 of American Horror Story. 

Kevin Feige, president of Marvel Studios, took his turn on stage. Scripted shows, on Disney Plus, were finally talked about. He teased three Marvel series on Disney Plus: Secret Invasion, which he called a twisty political thriller; Echo, out in November; and season two of Loki, out in October. Tom Hiddleston stars. 

Kathleen Kennedy, president of Lucasfilm, said it was Lucasfim’s first time in the upfront presentation. She spoke about Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny released in theaters next month, and the Indy Jones catalogue arriving on Disney Plus May 31. 

Kennedy also shared a trailer for The Acolyte, which premieres next year. She also shared clips from Skeleton Crew and Ahosoka. She said of Skeleton Crew, “This series is filmed with wonder and danger.”

Pete Docter, chief creative officer at Pixar, shared on-screen about the series Win or Lose. The show, the first Pixar series, premieres in December. 

Ryan Seacrest, American Idol host, came out to talk up both scripted and unscripted shows on ABC and Hulu as the event neared two hours, including Abbott Elementary, new arrival 9-1-1, Only Murders in the Building and American Idol. He spoke of Disney creating series “that become cultural touchstones,” and characters that are on a first-name basis in households across America. 

Seacrest then teased Hulu’s Oprah Winfrey series Black Cake, which he said “spans continents, cultures and decades.” It premieres this fall. 

Seacrest moved on to FX, talking about The Bear season two, which he called “the largest production in FX history,” and Shogun, which featured some samurai swordplay in the ballroom. The Bear is out June 22 while Shogun is “coming soon.”

A final word from Rita Ferro followed, and the Disney upfront show was done. 

Get ready for a different kind of upfront.

Sure, the foggy economy and the Writers Guild of America strike will affect the willingness of the buyers to engage and exactly what the network will put on their schedule.

But while the economy is likely to be cyclical, turning up at some point, and while the strike by the WGA will eventually be settled — returning fresh scripted shows to network schedules that already count reality and competition series like The Masked Singer and The Voice among their top performers — deeper changes are taking place in the TV advertising business.

Also Read: Writers Strike Dims Star Power As Networks Take Upfront Stage

With cord-cutting, traditional TV viewing is shrinking faster than anticipated. The result is that the primetime schedule reveals are becoming less and less relevant to the buyers who’ll see fewer stars and hear more about digital, streaming and data. More emphasis is being placed on other parts of media companies’ portfolios.

Here are some things the networks are likely to be talking about this week as they try to convince marketers to commit advertising dollars to them during the 2023-24 season.

It’s the economy, stupid: While some network executives claim they’ve already seen improvement in the ad market, others concede it is likely to move slowly this year because the economy provides little visibility about the future — and the upfront is essentially a futures market for TV and video advertising.

Just like during the pandemic, flexibility is a watchword, with clients wanting assurances that if they make commitments today, they’ll be able to move their spending to later in the year, focus on different brands, switch platforms or even, if necessary, cancel.

“I don't have to tell you it has not been as robust as it previously has been,“ Rita Ferro, president of Disney Advertising Sales, said. 

“I think that's going to continue for a little while longer,” Ferro said. “As we think of this upfront, we want to make sure that we're coming to partners with the value of being with Disney and the flexibility that we've been able to offer advertisers.“

Ferro said that in marketplaces where less dollars are available, “people are going to do fewer bigger deals with fewer partners to make sure that every dollar they’re spending gets return on ad spend.”

Also Read: NBCUniversal Sees Upfront Market Gathering Strength

Fragmentation is also an issue for marketers trying to reach consumers. “I think they're trying to evaluate where CTV fits in and where live fits in,” Marianne Gambelli, president of ad sales at Fox, said. “On top of the economic issues that I think are very real that they're dealing with, I think that has put a lot of stress on how they're coming to market this year.”

TV is finally going digital: in Last year’s upfront, Disney and Paramount Global claimed about 40% of their upfront business was digital or addressable. This shift came slowly and then all at once.

“What amazes me is how quickly the business has migrated to digital, how fluidly advertisers have just extended into digital media over the course of the last five years or so,” John Halley, president of ad sales at Paramount Global, said.

On Disney’s earning call last week, CEO Bob Iger rhapsodized over the company’s digital capabilities.

“Our streaming services are driving momentum,” Disney's Ferro said. “You’re seeing more and more advertisers wanting to be in these environments, so we built a strategy around our tech and data enablement for them to plan, buy and measure all they want within our ecosystem.”

The ad-supported version of Disney Plus is growing. Launched last year, Disney Plus had more than 100 advertisers and that number has increased in the scatter market, Ferro said. “It’s really starting to pick up in terms of audience. It takes a while when you launch a new product for it to be discovered and scale.”

Disney is rolling out new targeting capabilities for Disney Plus advertisers this quarter.

Warner Bros. Discovery has started selling title sponsorships in HBO original shows. Fifteen advertisers, including Mercedes-Benz, have signed up to run messages that say the upcoming episode of Succession is brought to you commercial-free by Mercedes. “And that’s on the ad-supported tier of what will become Max on May 23,”  Jon Steinlauf, president of ad sales U.S. for WBD, said. WBD will be adding a similar capability around recently released movies on Max. “We’re trying to create the cinema experience,” he said.

Data’s a big deal: Like several other media companies, Disney has developed an identity graph, Disney Select, that tells advertisers who — in an anonymized way —Disney’s viewers are and what they’re interested in. 

“We believe identity will be the new currency, which is why we’re investing so much in our Disney ID graphs and our first-party data,” Ferro said.

“I'm a believer that targeted advertising is going to be a big part of the future of our business,” Steinlauf said. “It may still be a little early to talk about addressable linear, but it is possible. We have a product we can offer in 50 million homes if you want to just buy on first-party data or targeted audiences in linear.”

Content might still be king, but scale matters too: Eventually, scripted shows will return, and for the most part, the big guys are big for a reason.

“The reason Disney matters is because we have such scale in the No. 1 broadcast network in entertainment,“ Ferro said. ‘We have the best in sports in ESPN across not only linear but streaming, social and everything else. 

“And it’s all premium, regardless of whether you’re buying linear or addressable,” she added. “Broadcast continues, to be extraordinarily important and our stations, and our local business continue to be extraordinarily important.”   

Live news and sports drive linear and this upfront:  “Sports and streaming will be the areas of highest demand for this upfront,“ Steinlauf said. “Targeted advertising, advanced advertising, new currencies, diversity, equity and inclusion.“We're working aggressively in  those areas to be well positioned for the upfront. 

“Even CMOs that have more of a female-skewed portfolio have said we really need the reach, the power, the impact, the ratings of sports,” he added. Women's sports are becoming a big deal, he noted, pointing to the sky-high ratings for the women’s college basketball finals between LSU and Iowa.

“You're watching big, blue-chip adult advertisers migrating to sports,” Marianne Gambelli, president of sales at Fox, added. “L‘Oreal‘s in sports, so you are seeing the shift. It’s very interesting.”

Reality Is no longer a dirty word: While reality shows were once seen as cheap filler programming for the networks, shows like The Masked Singer, The Voice and Dancing with the Stars are big draws for audiences and advertisers. That’s going to be especially important if the Hollywood labor situation keeps scripted shows on the bench.

“You look at Masked Singer, you look at Gordon Ramsay, they're more valuable because they bring in a larger audience, they bring in a family audience, so they're actually more valuable” than some scripted shows, Fox’s Gambelli said.

“It used to be the reverse, but advertisers are paying for the size of that audience and quality of that viewer,” she said. “They’re actually more valuable.”

As cord-cutting erodes cable viewership, “it’s our job now to manage that transition but the good news is we're still making 4,000 hours of lifestyle content for our entertainment and lifestyle cable networks,” WBD’s Steinlauf said. “We haven't slowed down the amount of original programming and that allows us to be able to service, the streaming marketplace and Service the linear marketplace.”

Steinlauf said that what’s holding up the pay-TV ecosystem are “the wealthy, the sports fan and the people who see the value in the bundle relative to cobbling together seven or eight streaming services.”

Viewers also stay with cable for news. “Don't underestimate the power of the news channels, CNN, Fox News Channel, MSNBC and CNBC, in keeping the bundle healthy because not everybody wants to watch news on their phones,” he said.

Measurement is a mess: Just before the start of the upfront, Nielsen declared that its old panel-based viewing data is what buyers and sellers should use as currency in the upfront. But it also said they could use its unaccredited big data stream if they wanted.

That added another layer of complexity to the measurement mess, where alternatives to Nielsen are being offered to upfront buyers.

“We are working with everyone. VideoAmp, Samba TV, iSpot,“ Disney’s Ferro said. “We’re talking about measurement expansion. I think it's important to differentiate between measurement and currency. Nielsen will be the currency in this upfront. 

“We are going to be as flexible as possible to give our partners the best combination possible on the measurement side, but from a currency perspective, no one has been able to scale currency to take the place of Nielsen today,” she said.

Said Paramount’s Halley: “If you want to guarantee on Nielsen panel only, we can do that. If you want to guarantee on the Nielsen panel plus Big Data, we have it in the system and we can do that. If you want to guarantee on VideoAmp, we can do that. If you want to guarantee on Comscore, we can do that. So we're coming in with four different currencies for guarantee.” 

And at Fox, “we're already working with everyone. We’re working with VideoAmp, iSpot, Nielsen,“ Gambelli said. “You can bring in your own data. We're agnostic when it comes to that because we don't feel that one company has won the race.”

The Walt Disney Co. reported higher fiscal second-quarter profits as it cut its streaming losses and saw big gains at its parks and experiences unit.

Disney’s direct-to-consumer business — streamers Disney Plus, ESPN Plus and Hulu — lost $659 million, down from the $1.05 billion the company lost in the prior quarter. A year ago, the DTC business lost $887 million. 

Disney said DTC losses peaked in third quarter of fiscal 2022, but will increase by $100 million in the upcoming third quarter before continuing to decline.

Direct-to-consumer revenues increased 13% to $5.5 billion from $4.9 billion a year ago as total subscribers to Disney streaming services dipped to 231.3 million from 234.7 at the end of 2022.

On Disney’s previous earnings call, CEO Bob Iger announced a cost-cutting plan designed to reduce expenses by $5.5 billion and eliminate 7,000 jobs. Disney, like other big media companies, shifted its priorities in streaming from adding subscribers to reducing losses and eventually becoming profitable.

“We’re pleased with our accomplishments this quarter, including the improved financial performance of our streaming business, which reflect the strategic changes we’ve been making throughout the company to realign Disney for sustained growth and success,” Iger said. “From movies to television, to sports, news and our theme parks, we continue to deliver for consumers, while establishing a more efficient, coordinated, and streamlined approach to our operations.”

Iger said Disney will offer a one-app experience, letting domestic subscribers watch Hulu content through Disney Plus, by the end of the year. Hulu, ESPN Plus and Disney Plus will continue to be offered as stand-alone services.

“This is a logical projection of DTC offerings that will provide greater opportunities for advertisers while giving bundle subscribers access to more robust and streamlined content, resulting in greater audience engagement and ultimately leading to a more unified streaming experience,” Iger said.

Iger also said the ad-supported version of Disney Plus will be rolled out in Europe this year.

On Disney's earnings call, Iger said he expected to meet or exceed his target for cost-cutting.

Disney will also be removing content from its streaming services and expects to take an impairment charge of $1.5 billion to $1.8 billion in the third quarter, chief financial officer Christine McCarthy added.

Disney took a $150 million charge in the second quarter mainly related to severance costs of staff layoffs. There will be additional severance charges of about $180 million over the remainder of the year, she said.

At the end of the second quarter, Disney Plus had 157.8 million subscribers, down from 161.8 million at the end of the last quarter and down from 161.8 million a year ago.

Domestic Disney Plus subscribers fell to 46.3 million from 46.6 million at the end of the previous quarter and 46.6 million a year ago.

ESPN Plus had 25.3 million subscribers, up from 24.9 million in the previous quarter and 24.9 million a year ago

Hulu had 48.2 million subscribers, up from 48 million subscribers last quarter and up from 48 million a year ago. It had 43.7 million SVOD-only subscribers, up from 43.5 million last quarter. Hulu Plus Live TV had 4.4 million subscribers, down 100,000 from the previous quarter and down from 4.5 million a year ago.

Hulu ARPU declined 6% to $11.73 for its SVOD service because of softness in the addressable advertising market, McCarthy said. ARPU increased for Hulu Live TV by 5% to $92.32.

Iger said that Disney will be raising prices on the ad-free tier of Disney Plus in order to incent more subscribers to take the ad-supported tier, which should produce more revenue per user.

"We have only just begun to scratch the surface on what we can do with advertising on Disney plus and I'm incredibly bullish on our long-term advertising positioning," he said.

Disney is leaning into digital and addressable advertising, which now accounts for about 40% of the company's ad revenue.

"We are also focused on the growth opportunity in programmatic advertising, and we are well-positioned to scale if the market improves and audiences continue to grow," Iger said. "We have added more than 1,000 advertisers over the past year and now have 5,000 advertisers across our streaming platforms with over one-third buying advertising programmatically today."

For Disney, second-quarter net income was $1.27 billion, or 69 cents a share, up from $470 million, or 26 cents a share a year ago.

Revenue rose 13%, to $21.8 million

Operating income for Disney Media and Entertainment Distribution fell 42%, to $1.1 billion, as revenues rose 3% to $14 billion.

Operating income for Disney’s linear networks fell 35% to $1.8 billion as revenues dropped 7%. Both cable and broadcast networks saw declines. Cable was hurt by higher sports programming and production costs. Broadcast declines reflected decreases in advertising revenue across the ABC Network and the ABC owned TV stations, McCarthy said.

Second quarter domestic linear advertising revenue declined 10% year-over-year. ESPN ad revenue was up 2%.

"The sports advertising marketplace is currently stable with quarter to date ESPN domestic linear cash ad sales pacing up," McCarthy said. "However, the overall entertainment advertising marketplace has been challenging. While the weakness has moderated somewhat, we anticipate the some softness may continue into the back half of the fiscal year."

Operating income for Disney Parks, Experiences and Products rose 23 to $2.2 billion as revenues rose 17% to $7.8 billion.

Election data guru Nate Silver appears to have been caught up in the current wave of layoffs at The Walt Disney Co., telling members of the FiveThirtyEight research unit via Slack Tuesday that he'll be leaving when his contract expires — “soon.” 

ABC News will reportedly hang on to the research company Silver built, which will of course be useful for the 2024 national election. 

Disney’s ESPN unit acquired FiveThirtyEight back in 2013, and the asset was eventually moved to ABC News. 

“ABC News remains dedicated to data journalism with a core focus on politics, the economy and enterprise reporting — this streamlined structure will allow us to be more closely aligned with our priorities for the 2024 election and beyond,” ABC News said in a statement. “We are grateful for the invaluable contributions of the team members who will be departing the organization and know they will continue to make an important impact on the future of journalism.” 

The Walt Disney Co. reported sharply lower profits in the first quarter as the COVID-19 pandemic wiped out many of its most lucrative businesses.

On the company’s conference call executive chairman Bob Iger said he was confident the company would bounce back.

Disney’s theme parks, cruise lines and theatrical films were shut down and its advertising business was impacted by the virus. Disney estimates COVID-19’s cost about $1.4 billion operating income

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

“While the COVID-19 pandemic has had an appreciable financial impact on a number of our businesses, we are confident in our ability to withstand this disruption and emerge from it in a strong position,” said Disney CEO Bob Chapek. “Disney has repeatedly shown that it is exceptionally resilient, bolstered by the quality of our storytelling and the strong affinity consumers have for our brands, which is evident in the extraordinary response to Disney+ since its launch last November.”

Net income was $460 million, or 25 cents a share, compared to $5.5 billion a year ago, or $3.53 a share.

Revenue was up 21% to $18 billion. Revenue gains reflect the addition of businesses in the acquisition of 21st Century Fox last year.

Disney said in its quarterly report that its Disney+ streaming service had 33.5 million subscribers as of March 28. In April, the company said Disney+ had topped 50 million subs, including 8 million on Star in India. During Disney's earnings call, the number was updated to 54.5 million as of Monday.

The company said Disney Plus was generating $5.63 per subscriber per month, ESPN+ was generating $4.24, Hulu’s SVOD-only subscribers paid $12.06 and its Live TV plus SVOD subs paid $67.75.

The international rollout of Disney Plus will continue this year, starting with Japan in June, Chapek said.

Disney’s Direct-to-consumer and International unit posted a loss of $821 million, compared to a $385 million loss a year ago.

Media networks operating income rose by 7% to $2.4 billion as revenue rose 28% to $7.3 billion.

Cable network operating income was up 1% to $1.8 billion, with revenue rising 17% to $4.4 billion. ESPN’s operating income a lower due to higher programming and production costs and lower advertising revenue, partially offset by higher affiliate revenue.

After airing a virtual NFL draft last month, ESPN is planning a virtual version of its ESPY awards on June 21.

Broadcasting operating income rose 53% to $397 million as revenue rose 49% to $2.8 billion.

 The Walt Disney Co. said it is making Onward, the latest Pixar film, available early on digital platforms as the Coronavirus crisis keeps people out of theaters.

The movie can be bought digitally and on Movies Everywhere on Friday starting at 5 p.m. ET for $19.95. 

The Disney Plus subscription streaming service will get Onward on April 3.

Disney and Comcast’s Universal Pictures unit have been making films available for in-home viewing early, collapsing the traditional movie theater exhibition window.

“While we’re looking forward to audiences enjoying our films on the big screen again soon, given the current circumstances, we are pleased to release this fun, adventurous film to digital platforms early for audiences to enjoy from the comfort of their homes,” said Dan Scanlon, the director of Onward, and producer Kori Rae in a statement.

Onward stars the voices of Tom Holland and Chris Pratt as teenage elf brothers who get the unexpected opportunity to spend one more day with their late dad. The film also features Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Octavia Spencer.

With the NBA suspending its season, Disney’s ESPN and AT&T's TNT will be missing some of their most lucrative, highest-rated programming.

Analyst Michael Nathanson of MoffettNathanson Reserach has estimated that Disney will be losing about $481 million in ad revenue if the rest of the season and the playoffs are not played. For AT&T, the revenue effect is about $211 million.

Nathanson calculates that will translate into a drop in earnings of $306 million, 3% for Disney and $168 million in earnings before interest and taxes, or 2% for AT&T’s WarnerMedia unit.

Related: NBA Suspends Season, Impacting ESPN, TNT

Other revenues and costs are harder to determine, Nathanson said.

It is not clear whether or not the networks have to pay the NBA for games that are not paid.

“The answer to this question depends on each underlying contract and the definition of that contract. It is too soon to make a declarative statement as many of the networks appear to be reviewing their options. We also don’t know yet if networks have insurance to mitigate this risk,” Nathanson said.

Related: Everything You Need to Know About COVID-19

It’s also not clear whether or not networks get paid by distributors for games that are canceled.

“Again, this seems to come down to the underlying contracts between distributor and network. There definitely are rules in place that pay each network for a minimum number of games,” he said.

He added that the delay in the start of the Major League Baseball season could have a big impact on regional sports networks, many of which are owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group and Comcast.

The Walt Disney Co. has named veteran Hulu marketing executive Kelly Campbell as president of the streaming service.

Campbell, who had been CMO, will report to Kevin Mayer, chairman of Disney’s Direct-to-Consumer & International unit.

The move follows the departure of Hulu CEO Randy Freer, who announced his exit last month as Disney asserts more control over Hulu. Disney last year acquired a controlling interest in Hulu, which had been a joint venture between Fox, NBCUniversal and Time Warner Inc.

Also read: Freer Leaving Hulu as Disney Asserts Control

“Kelly is an immensely talented leader who has been a driving force in defining Hulu’s brand vision and strategy,” said Mayer. “She has built a tremendous multi-talented team and developed strategic campaigns that helped double Hulu’s subscriber base. Our senior leadership team is excited to welcome her aboard and can’t wait to work together to further grow Hulu’s footprint in the US and beyond.”

As CMO, Campbell was responsible for subscribers growth, brand content and business to business marketing, creative development, research and insights and viewer experience.

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

Before Hulu, Campbell was at Google, and JPMorgan Chase. 

“This is a time of tremendous growth and transformation for Hulu, and I am incredibly energized by the opportunity ahead as we enter into this next chapter,” said Campbell. “The Hulu team is among the brightest, most technologically and creatively audacious in the industry, and I know we are going to do great things as part of the pioneering and equally bold team Kevin has built at DTCI.”

Most virtual MVPDs blew past the $40-and-below price point two years ago, unable to hold the line against increasing program licensing costs. 

Atlanta-based Vidgo, however, just licensed the entire suite of Disney Media Networks, including ESPN, Disney Channel, Freeform, FX, National Geographic and ABC in several major markets. It’s now bundling 60 channels in a prepaid vMVPD service priced at $39.99 a month. 

Vidgo’s lineup also includes networks from ViacomCBS, including Comedy Central, MTV and Nickelodeon. Discovery and A+E Networks channels are also bundled in, as are regional sports channels, including the Pac 12 Network. Sports-wise, the NFL Network, Fox Sports, beIN Sports and Stadium are also included.

Related: Vidgo Finds Its Niche in the vMVPD Market

And in terms of talking heads, Vidgo also bundles in Fox News and Cheddar. There’s no CNN or WarnerMedia channels as of yet. 

Local broadcast access is limited. But the service, which is prepaid through local wireless stores, does carry local ABC stations in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Houston, Raleigh/Durham and Fresno through its just-announced Disney deal.  

“Vidgo has smartly devised a robust channel line-up at a competitive price point compared to the limited economy package choices that are currently in the marketplace,” said Sean Breen, senior VP of Disney Media Distribution, in a statement. 

Vidgo hasn’t released subscriber figures for its service. 

Amazon and The Walt Disney Company have ended what amounted to brinksmanship in the realm of next-generation television, with the latter’s Disney+ streaming service now set to be viewable on Amazon Fire TV devices when it debuts next week, Nov. 12.

“We’re excited to announce that the all-new Disney+ app will be available on Amazon devices including Fire TV streaming devices, Fire TV Edition smart TVs, and compatible Fire Tablets starting on Tuesday, November 12th,” read a press release sent out by Amazon reps this afternoon.

Related: Disney+ Still Lacks an Amazon Fire TV App a Week Away from Launch

Disney faced the prospect of its highly anticipated $6.99 new direct-to-consumer service being shut out on a dominant OTT platform. The company had already secured deals for distribution on Roku, iOS, Android and most other leading streaming devices.

Amazon had reportedly been pushing to sell a significant amount of ad inventory within Disney+. Terms of the deal weren't announced. 

Fire TV users will have the ability to use Alexa voice control to download the Disney+ app when it debuts next week.

“Just say, ‘Alexa, open Disney Plus’ into your Alexa Voice Remote, paired Echo device, or Fire TV Cube with Alexa built-in,” Amazon said in its statement. “Disney+ content will also be included in Fire TV’s universal search feature making it easy to find and discover content with your voice. Just say, ‘Alexa, play The Mandalorian’ to start streaming; or discover Disney+ content in search results such as, “Alexa, find Star Wars movies.”

Disney XD said Future-Worm!, a new short-form animated series from Emmy-winning director Ryan Quincy (South Park, Out There), is coming to the network in short form and as a newly-announced full-length series starting this fall. Quincy, who joined the Disney Television Animation team in 2013, is the executive producer.

Eric Coleman, senior vice president, original series, at Disney Television Animation said in a release: "When we first heard Ryan's pitch, we knew we had something unique. It's your classic 'Boy and His Worm' story, but this worm is from the future…and has a beard. We loved Ryan's original animated shorts so much we greenlit a full series."

To see a video of Future-Worm!, please follow this link.

Future-Worm! follows Danny, an optimistic 12-year-old who creates a time machine lunch box and befriends Future Worm, a fearless worm from the future. They navigate through "space, time and study hall, embarking on adventures and spontaneously making up new ones along the way," the Walt Disney Co. network said. 

Providing the voice of Danny is Andy Milonakis (Kroll Show). Future Worm is voiced by James Adomian (The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson).