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Tag: direct-to-consumer business

  • Zee5’s Tushar Singh joins Discovery as product director

    Zee5’s Tushar Singh joins Discovery as product director

    Mumbai: Zee5 former executive Tushar Singh has joined the global product team at Discovery Inc, he announced on LinkedIn. 

    In this new role, Singh will be leading its direct-to-consumer expansion as a director of product in new markets of Asia Pacific region.

    Singh was previously associated with Zee5 as associate director of product since November 2019. Prior to that, he worked with companies such as Tata Sky, Idea Cellular and Nokia Siemens Networks.

    He has over 11 years of experience in product management, subscriber marketing, growth marketing, product marketing and strategic partnership and alliance experience in the entertainment media, broadcast and telecom industries.

  • Disney+ Hotstar crosses 45.9 million paid subscribers

    Disney+ Hotstar crosses 45.9 million paid subscribers

    Mumbai: The Walt Disney Company on Thursday reported its earnings for the quarter ended 1 January 2022. The media company’s direct-to-home revenues increased by 34 per cent to reach $4.6 billion. This increase was driven by higher subscriber growth and increases in retail pricing.

    Disney+ added 11.7 million subscribers during the quarter taking its total base from 118.1 million to 129.8 million. The company also revealed that it had 45.9 million Disney+ Hotstar subscribers. In comparison, Disney+ domestic subscribers (US+Canada) stood at 42.9 million and international subscribers excluding Hotstar stood at 41.1 million at the end of the quarter.

    The average monthly revenue per user (ARPU) for Disney+ stood at $4.41. The ARPUs for Disney+ Hotstar increased from $0.98 to $1.03 due to launches in new territories with higher average prices, partially offset by a higher mix of wholesale subscribers.

    However, the DTC business also saw a higher operating loss at $0.6 billion (27 per cent increase) driven by higher programming, production, marketing and technology costs at Disney+.

    Overall, Disney posted revenues of $21.8 billion registering a growth of 34 per cent year-on-year. The company’s media and entertainment distribution business brought in about $14.58 billion in revenues registering a growth of 15 per cent YoY. Its operating income was $808 million a decrease of 40 per cent over the same quarter in the previous year.

    Disney’s linear network business posted revenues of $7.7 billion and content sales and licensing revenues stood at $2.4 billion. Disney’s linear network business remained essentially flat over last year.

    International channel revenues for the quarter decreased by four per cent to $1.6 billion reflecting the closure of channels across its markets. The growth in channels that continued to operate in the current and prior year quarters was due to an increase in advertising revenue driven by higher rates.

    “We’ve had a very strong start to the fiscal year, with the launch of a new franchise with Encanto, and a significant increase in total subscriptions across our streaming portfolio to 196.4 million, including 11.8 million Disney+ subscribers added in the first quarter,” The Walt Disney Company chief executive officer Bob Chapek. “This marks the final year of The Walt Disney Company’s first century, and performance like this coupled with our unmatched collection of assets and platforms, creative capabilities, and unique place in the culture give me great confidence we will continue to define entertainment for the next 100 years.”

  • Discovery acquires assets of ad-tech company Zedo

    Discovery acquires assets of ad-tech company Zedo

    Mumbai: Discovery Inc on Wednesday announced that it has acquired the assets, technology and intellectual property of Zedo, an advertising technology company based in both the United States and India.

    The acquisition will bring Zedo’s technology in-house and enable faster innovation across Discovery’s ad solutions. This acquisition brings key ad technology platform capabilities, including a supply-side platform (SSP) and real-time bidding (RTB) capabilities, which enhances Discovery’s global direct-to-consumer (DTC) platforms, improves the consumer experience and drives monetisation, said the media company in a statement. 

    As part of the acquisition, Discovery will also onboard employees of Zedo based in India and the United States, it added.

    “This deal will bring the Discovery and Zedo teams together to enhance the overall consumer ad experience, as well as help push new innovation by integrating Zedo’s capabilities with our global direct-to-consumer platform,” said Discovery Inc executive vice president DTC – global technology Sudheer Sirivara. “We are excited to welcome the Zedo team to the rapidly growing technology presence in our India development center, which is a strategic priority for us to build talent and expertise across the country to help scale globally.”

    “Discovery entered the streaming space with the launch of discovery+ and quickly became an industry leader,” said Zedo co-founder and chief executive officer Roy de Souza. “With the acquisition of Zedo’s assets, Discovery will have its own proprietary real-time bidding (RTB) platform and SSP to sell advertising programmatically. Discovery’s advertisers will soon have one place to buy advertising on a high-quality set of streaming platforms and reach Discovery’s vast global audiences.”

    The Zedo asset acquisition builds on Discovery’s acquisition of AdSparx’s assets in 2020, which brought server-side-ad-insertion (SSAI) capability to Discovery’s global tech platform. The combination of Zedo’s technology with Discovery’s SSAI and global video platform will deliver unparalleled video and ad experiences to our consumers worldwide.

  • Disney Plus subscriber growth decelerates with 2.1 mn additions in Q4 2021

    Disney Plus subscriber growth decelerates with 2.1 mn additions in Q4 2021

    Mumbai: Disney Plus added 2.1 million subscribers in the fourth quarter 2021 much lower compared to the previous quarter where it added over 12 million subscribers. The streaming service saw subscriber growth in domestic and international markets except in India (Disney Plus Hotstar) where the number of total subscriptions decreased.

    The Walt Disney Company’s total subscriptions for its direct-to-consumer (DTC) business stood at 179 million including Disney Plus at 118.1 million, Hulu at 43.8 million and ESPN+ at 17.1 million subscribers.

    The overall subscriber growth stood at 48 per cent on a year-on-year basis whereas for Disney Plus it was 60 per cent. The Walt Disney Company chief executive officer Bob Chapek affirmed that the company would reach its target of 230-260 million subscribers by 2024 and achieve profitability for its streaming service Disney Plus by then.

    Beginning next year, Disney Plus will be doubling its slate of original content from its tentpole brands including Disney, Marvel, Pixar, Star Wars and Nat Geo. The company has 340+ local original titles in various stages of development and production and expects its total content expense to be about $ 8 to 9 billion by 2024.

    While the company is not expecting linear subscriber growth on a quarter-on-quarter basis, it does expect to see an increase in subscriptions based on two factors – its expansion into new markets and increasing cadence of content during the third and fourth quarters of the year.

    In two years, Disney Plus expanded across 60 countries in 20 languages. The streaming service expects a further expansion into 50 additional countries by the end of next year and reach a total of 160 countries by 2023. It recently launched in Japan and will launch in South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong on 12 November which is also Disney+ Day. It will continue to expand into markets like Central Eastern Europe, Middle East and South Africa in the future.

    The direct-to-consumer business revenues increased by 38 per cent to $4.6 billion. The average monthly revenue per paid subscriber for Disney+ decreased from $4.52 to $4.12 due to a higher mix of Disney+ Hotstar subscribers in the current quarter compared to the prior year quarter. Disney Plus Hotstar subscribers account for 37 per cent of Disney+ paid subscriber base.

    “As we celebrate the two-year anniversary of Disney Plus, we’re extremely pleased with the success of our streaming business, with 179 million total subscriptions across our DTC portfolio at the end of fiscal 2021 and 60 per cent subscriber growth year-over-year for Disney Plus,” said Bob Chapek. “We continue to manage our DTC business for the long-term, and are confident that our high-quality entertainment and expansion into additional markets worldwide will enable us to further grow our streaming platforms globally.”

  • Disney reports 174 million paid subscribers at the end of third quarter 2021

    Disney reports 174 million paid subscribers at the end of third quarter 2021

    Mumbai: The Walt Disney Company reported 174 million paid subscribers across Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+ at the end of the third quarter 2021. Direct-to-consumer revenues for the quarter increased 57 per cent to $4.3 billion, the entertainment conglomerate said.

    The company noted that the average monthly revenue per paid subscriber for Disney+ decreased from $4.62 to $4.16 due to a higher mix of Disney+ Hotstar subscribers in the current quarter compared to the same quarter last year.

    Disney+ reported a higher operating loss due to programming, production, marketing and technology costs which was offset by the increase in subscription revenue. The higher subscription revenue reflected subscriber growth and increases in retail pricing. The increases in costs and subscribers reflected the ongoing expansion of Disney+ including launches in additional markets.

    The international channel revenues for the quarter increased by 29 per cent to $1.4 billion and operating income decreased 23 per cent to $169 million. The decrease in operating income was due to higher programming and production costs which were offset by advertising revenue growth due to increases in average viewership and rates. The return of live sports events, primarily Indian Premier League cricket matches, drove increases in average viewership, programming, and production costs.

    “We ended the third quarter in a strong position, and are pleased with the company’s trajectory as we grow our businesses amidst the ongoing challenges of the pandemic,” said The Walt Disney Company, chief executive officer, Bob Chapek. “Our direct-to-consumer business is performing very well, with a total of nearly 174 million subscriptions across Disney+, ESPN+ and Hulu at the end of the quarter, and a host of new content coming to the platforms.”

    “Although most film and television production resumed beginning in the fourth quarter of 2020, we continue to see disruption of film and television production,” Chapek added.