Disney’s main streaming service is now making money for the first time.
The year 2019 will see the debut of a number of live sports and studio shows from ESPN that will be available on Disney+. The Chief Executive Officer of Disney, Bob Iger, stated to investors during an earnings call that this comes after an auspicious beginning for Hulu programming on the streaming service that bears the company’s name.
“By the end of this calendar year, we will be adding an ESPN tile to Disney+, giving all US subscribers access to select live games and studio programming within the Disney+ app,” Iger explained to reporters. “We see this as a first step to bringing ESPN to Disney+ viewers, as we ready the launch of our enhanced standalone ESPN streaming service in the fall of 2025.” Iger also mentioned that customers to ESPN+ will be able to access material from that service through the new Disney+ tile. This means that subscribers to Disney bundles will have all they need in a single app.
Despite the fact that Iger did not disclose the specific sports that Disney would make accessible to all users on Disney+, he did make it very obvious that the company would only bring a “modest” amount of programming over from ESPN. Another sports streaming service is currently being developed by the firm in collaboration with Fox Sports and Warner Bros. Discovery. This service is expected to launch later this year and will feature games from the National Football League, Major League Baseball, National Hockey League, and National Basketball Association.
In the meantime, Disney+ has recently finished its first profitable quarter in its four and a half years of operation. During the first three months of 2024, it was anticipated that the service would incur a loss of $100 million; however, it actually reported a profit of $47 million. This was most likely due to the fact that Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour concert film was made available on the platform in March.
On the other hand, Disney’s streaming business as a whole, which also includes Hulu and ESPN+, saw a loss of $18 million during the quarter. Despite this, it is still a significant improvement over the $659 million that was lost by that division of the company the previous year, as Disney is getting closer and closer to achieving total profitability in streaming.