Disney’s Streaming Profit Hopes Rest on More Price Increases

We got some good news from the poor old entertainment companies this earnings season. Video streaming is finally becoming a money-making business! Disney, for instance, reported today that its Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ streaming operations made a profit of $321 million in the September quarter, quite the turnaround from losing a slightly bigger amount than that a year earlier. 

And it’s not just Disney: Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery reported their own streaming profits for the quarter last week. Disney, though, went one better by forecasting that Disney+ and Hulu would between them earn about $1 billion in fiscal 2025 and would achieve a 10% profit margin in 2026. Had they managed to eke out such a margin in fiscal 2024, it would have translated to a profit of $2.3 billion. Wowee! Just two years ago Disney’s streaming business was bleeding billions!