and bob Iger entering his second week after being reinstated as the top dog,
Disney quickly making his Mark reorganizing Disney's content distribution
unit And today he is holding a town hall
with Disney employees where he's signaled that the hiring
freeze is announced by the ousted ceo bob chapek
will remain in place for now.
Shares of Disney on the move today,
that stock is down about 3% underperforming the market
and joining me now is Jim Warden,
chief investment officer at wealth consulting group.
Jim thanks for coming on the show.
And as this transition happens,
what are tigers priorities as he does to take the helm now for a second time?
Thanks for having me Kristin.
Yeah, I would say his priorities right now are to, to have a clear strategy there,
there's a lot going on to Disney,
there's a lot going on in Disney Plus even with the parks,
I think there's some confusion with pricing,
so I think just creating some clear priorities
in terms of what are the most important
strategies to get Disney back to where it is, where it needs to be.
Well, let's talk about Disney plus the streaming service.
It actually has done quite well. Jim.
Oftentimes,
I think if people are gonna have one streaming service in their household,
Disney plus kind of hits on all the Marks,
It has family friendly content for the kids, but stuff that adults would like
as well that units are not expected to be profitable until 2020
for what kind of focus do you think on the streaming service?
Disney plus gets under Iger's leadership?
Yeah, I think it's gonna be a lot more strategic,
there's gonna be a lot more focus on quality of content
as opposed to quantity we've seen.
Well our our household uses Disney plus we have Disney plus,
I have a 14 year old son who loves Disney.
So, anecdotally, I can say that there's been a lot of content.
Not all of that content has been very good
or well received and so I think if he he can improve
the level of quality of that content that helps out tremendously. Mhm.
So there's been some conversation that Disney Plus might actually
add hulu into one streaming service instead
of having these still as separate units,
even though they are under the same overarching company.
Do you think that that would be a win for Disney,
merging the hulu streaming service with Disney Plus,
it's a good question.
I'm not so sure that would be a great strategy
because it might be a little bit confusing for for the
people that are using hulu might also be a little
bit confusing for the people that are using Disney Plus,
so they may want to just keep them to separate brands.
Okay, two separate brands. Obviously, leadership at this company does matter. Jim
Iger was beloved, very successful as the top dog for a long time.
Uh
came in just around the start of the pandemic.
And now the board reinstating Iger amid
continued challenges that we've seen at Disney here throughout the pandemic.
What do you see as the biggest challenges ahead for Iger now,
as he takes the helm for a second time?
Yeah, certainly the biggest challenge is gonna be competition. Right?
So he was able to do a lot and,
and I would say that he really helped reinstate some of the magic back to Disney,
bringing that magic in terms of the user experience.
Uh, you know, content, it's gonna be more challenging this time around,
more competition from online streaming.
The Parks. Uh, there's there's always been some competition there, but
I think they really need to hone in on what does Disney do best? What is their legacy?
And again, trying to create that magical experience for for for people that,
you know, go to the Parks or people that use the Disney Plus.
Yeah, well, certainly higher prices,
I think hurting maybe some of this viewership or
rather visits that we would see to the park.
Jim, that would be a better word.
But strange world, for instance, that was a recent uh,
silver screen release in the box office, but kind of bombed.
In fact,
as I think people did get used to watching tv
on streaming services and actually new releases during the pandemic.
Do you think that it would be wise for Disney Plus,
just to take some of these releases that it had intended for the silver screen?
Straight to the streaming platform.
Yeah, it reminds me of Disney a long, long time ago,
back and kind of the early to mid nineties,
there were a lot of straight to straight to VHS type of releases.
I again think that they need to focus on quality instead of quantity.
Uh, make make these things better and, and try to vet a little bit better.
They've had some great releases what the
black panther movie was very well received.
Uh, they've had other, very good movies.
But yeah, they, I think that they need to be really,
really strategic in terms of what goes straight to Disney Plus and even the shows,
some of the shows have been great shows, others have not been so good.
Uh, you know, and, and just have a very clear strategy,
what's going to go to the big screen,
what's not and even some of those things that aren't doing
as well.
Uh, and Disney Plus, I think they need to kind of re look at that and say, okay,
you know, what are we missing?
What is that magic that we're missing to bring this
back because I think at the end of the day,
they need to create stickiness with their subscribers.
Not everyone can subscribe to Disney Plus and hulu
and netflix
and amazon prime.
So a lot of people are going to be choosy in there and they're gonna say, well,
which one
is the best, exactly that
it does matter. It comes down to content. We'll see what changes Iger has in store.
Jim Warden.
Thank you for joining gyms,
the chief investment officer at wealth consulting group.