Disney - McGraw-Hill Introduction to Business

Disney Faces Movie Star Lawsuits for Streaming Premieres

August 3, 2021

For decades, Hollywood’s top movie stars have brokered contracts that grant them a percentage of a film’s box office earnings in addition to their multi-million dollar salaries. Then the pandemic hit last year and completely upended the industry’s long-established practice of premiering movies in theaters. Instead, studios like Disney and Warner Bros. released new titles through the streaming platforms Disney+ and HBO Max as $30 single-viewing rentals.

Once theaters began to reopen in 2021, studios combined both of these Continue reading →

Movie theaters, Entertainment, Streaming, Disney, Ethics, Product Distribution, Compensation, Movies, Marvel

Chapter 1: Taking Risks and Making Profits, Chapter 4: Ethics and Social Responsibility, Chapter 11: Human Resource Management, Chapter 12: Labor Management and Unions, Chapter 15: Distribution, Bonus Chapter B: Technology and New Media

Disney CEO Bob Iger Abruptly Steps Down

February 27, 2020

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On Tuesday, Disney CEO Bob Iger surprised the business world by announcing that he would immediately step down from the top job. After 15 years in charge of the entertainment giant, Iger passed the reins to a company veteran named Bob Chapek who had been overseeing Disney’s theme parks division. Although the news caught many observers off-guard, Iger insists that this plan has been in the works for some time. “It’s only abrupt in other people’s eyes because we haven’t Continue reading →

Product Development, Entertainment, Disney, Product Distribution, Management, CEO, Mergers & Acquisitions, Streaming Video

Chapter 1: Taking Risks and Making Profits, Chapter 5: Forms of Business Ownership, Chapter 7: Management & Leadership, Chapter 14: Product and Price, Chapter 15: Distribution, Bonus Chapter B: Technology and New Media

More than 500 TV And Streaming Shows Aired Last Year

January 17, 2020

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2019 was the year that the so-called “streaming wars” got serious. Disney+ and Apple TV+ launched in an effort to compete against Netflix while established broadcasters like NBC and HBO announced that their streaming services would go live in mid-2020. As the streaming marketplace grew increasingly crowded, industry insiders worried that media companies were offering too much content to consumers. According to research by the cable network FX, these fears could prove to be true: last year a total of Continue reading →

Streaming, Disney, Marketing, Product Distribution, TV, Product Development, Entertainment, Netflix

Chapter 1: Taking Risks and Making Profits, Chapter 13: Marketing, Chapter 14: Product and Price, Chapter 15: Distribution, Bonus Chapter B: Technology and New Media

Disney Completes Merger with 21st Century Fox

March 22, 2019

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On Wednesday, the Walt Disney Company purchased all of the film and TV assets owned by the historic movie studio 21st Century Fox for $71.3 billion. Along with taking hold of successful film franchises like the Alien movies and Marvel’s X-Men, Disney also now controls the rights to TV shows like The Simpsons, This Is Us, and Modern Family. All told, the entertainment giant has gained thousands of new titles to join its other legendary properties such Continue reading →

Layoffs, Mergers & Acquisitions, Entertainment, Streaming, Ethics, Television, Disney, Product Distribution, Movies

Chapter 1: Taking Risks and Making Profits, Chapter 3: Globalization, Chapter 5: Forms of Business Ownership, Chapter 12: Labor Management and Unions, Chapter 13: Marketing, Chapter 14: Product and Price, Chapter 15: Distribution, Bonus Chapter B: Technology and New Media

How Streaming Apps Could Backfire Against TV Networks

March 29, 2018

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The runaway success of Netflix has proved to many media companies that the future of entertainment lies with streaming content. After all, why pay around $75 a month for cable when you can instantly access thousands of titles on Netflix for a fraction of the cost? This thinking has led to the creation of dozens of streaming services, ranging from big players like Hulu and YouTube TV to more specialized operations like the apps for Food Network or the WWE. Continue reading →

Innovation, Netflix, Streaming, Television, Disney, Product Distribution, Product Development, Entertainment

Chapter 1: Taking Risks and Making Profits, Chapter 13: Marketing, Chapter 14: Product and Price, Chapter 15: Distribution, Bonus Chapter B: Technology and New Media

Drop in ESPN Viewership Has Disney Worried

December 9, 2016

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While a major entertainment conglomerate like Disney has many sources of income, the iconic brand earns the bulk of its revenue from TV networks like ESPN and ABC. This year these channels have brought in nearly $24 billion, exceeding the company’s theme park earnings by 40 percent. But this enormous payout doesn’t tell the whole story about Disney’s TV holdings. For the past few years, subscriptions to its premium channels have dropped significantly, leading to a similar dip in the Continue reading →

Product Distribution, ESPN, Cable, Cord Cutting, Sports, Entertainment, Television, Disney

Chapter 1: Taking Risks and Making Profits, Chapter 13: Marketing, Chapter 14: Product and Price, Chapter 15: Distribution, Chapter 16: Place and Promotion, Bonus Chapter B: Technology and New Media

Disney Faces Investigation for Forcing Out American Workers

January 27, 2016

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For years, skilled workers from around the world have used H-1B visas as their tickets into the U.S. These visas are intended to provide companies with a pool of specialized foreign labor in case they can’t find any qualified domestic candidates. According to a recent lawsuit, however, one of the world’s biggest brands may have been abusing the H-1B system in order to boost their own bottom line. Rather than filling open positions with outsourced labor, The Walt Disney Company Continue reading →

Human Resources, Labor Relations, Immigration, Global, Regulation, Ethics, Disney

Chapter 3: Globalization, Chapter 4: Ethics and Social Responsibility, Chapter 6: Entrepreneurship, Chapter 11: Human Resource Management, Chapter 12: Labor Management and Unions, Bonus Chapter A: Business Law

Disney Switches from Rereleasing to Reimagining

April 18, 2015

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For years Walt Disney Studios thrived by strategically reissuing its catalogue of animated classics on home video. Starting out on VHS and continuing with DVD and Blu-ray, the company rereleased a movie every seven years, updating the special features and packaging into something new for consumers to purchase. With digital downloads rising and DVD sales on the downturn, however, Disney’s longtime cash cow is starting to run dry. As a result, the Mouse has switched focus to reimagining its past Continue reading →

Product Development, Entertainment, Disney, Product Distribution, Marketing

Chapter 1: Taking Risks and Making Profits, Chapter 13: Marketing, Chapter 14: Product and Price, Chapter 15: Distribution, Chapter 16: Place and Promotion

Doing Business with a Proactive Legal Strategy

December 6, 2014

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The sheer size of today’s corporations virtually ensures that companies will have to wrangle with lots of legal red tape. Most top executives spend as little time as possible dealing with law, choosing either to avoid it or grudgingly comply with the restrictions they face. In the former case, a company may try to move some operations into another country to dodge certain taxes, while in the latter executives simply do the bare minimum necessary to make it through the Continue reading →

Management, Copyright, Regulation, Disney, Legal

Chapter 1: Taking Risks and Making Profits, Chapter 7: Management & Leadership, Chapter 20: Money and Financial Institutions, Bonus Chapter A: Business Law

Disney Bets $1 Billion on Wristbands

April 24, 2014

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The “Happiest Place on Earth” may also be one of the priciest: last year Walt Disney increased the cost of a one-day pass for its Magic Kingdom theme park to $99. The $4 uptick came just eight months after Disney’s previous price hike, but customers don’t appear to mind. In 2013 theme park income rose by 17 percent to $2.2 billion as crowds continued to pack the company’s $14.1 billion entertainment empire.

It’s possible that the lofty costs required Continue reading →

Operations Management, Entertainment, Innovation, Disney

Chapter 4: Ethics and Social Responsibility, Chapter 9: Production and Operations Management, Chapter 14: Product and Price, Chapter 15: Distribution, Chapter 16: Place and Promotion, Bonus Chapter B: Technology and New Media