Hollywood is a mess.

Nobody was affected this more than Disney which, under the leadership of Bob Iger, is sinking parts of the company. Overall, it is still strong simply because it was such a dominant force. That said, a major step backwards took place.

The Golden Goose was to be streaming. No company jumped on the bandwagon bigger than Iger. Disney was going to dominate, stealing away market share from Netflix. Many thought it was easy pickings.

Sadly for the House of Mouse, it was not to be. There was another major player that stepped in, causing even more destruction. This is incredible when you consider that Disney has one of the strongest libraries out there.

It also has some of the most popular franchises including Star Wars.

Alas, the shift to streaming has altered the game completely. This is now moving the power away from Disney to other entities.

Disney+ Taking A Hit - Streaming Changing The Game

Let us start with the financial.

Disney stock is a dog, at least over the last 5 years. This is absolute carnage.

Here is the chart from Yahoo Finance:

As we can see, the stock lost 33% over that time. Losing money is bad enough but, on a relative basis, it is even worse. Over that time, the S&P has gained 86%. That is a difference of near 120%.

There are many aspects to this company. For this reason, it is difficult to simply claim it is one area.

However, no bigger bet was placed than on streaming. Many of the franchises and acquisitions that Iger made were done to feed this trough.

The Fox deal cost $71 billion. There was another $4 billion for LucasFilms.

While these deals enhanced the library, the fact that Disney stopped licensing to the likes of Netflix meant the reliance was on Disney+ .

If it was the dominant player in the world of streaming, then the money was well spent. This simply is not the case.

As we can see from The Gauge, Disney is #3 on the list (not including other streaming).

The Demise Is Underway

This focus of this article is on streaming. We are ignoring the issue with traditional broadcast television, a sector in major decline. Disney is a major player in that market also with assets such as ABC.

To illustrate the decline, I pulled a couple of older charts by doing a simply web search. These were part of the first few images to appear, so they are random dates.

Here is March 2025:

Then we have May of 2024:

On the last chart, we notice that Disney+ and Hulu are listed separately. The Disney takeover of Hulu occurred after this. But notice the combined was 4.9% as compared to the 4.7%. This is a decrease over the last 20 months.

The two big winners are YouTube and Netflix.

One thing to keep in mind about this is the fact that these numbers are only based upon hours of streaming through a television. It does not include mobile devices or laptops. While some of the other streaming services would see their numbers affected, it is safe to say that more people are watching YouTube videos on a PC than any other service.

One interesting aspect to this is Tubi. This was purchased by Rupert Murdoch in 2020. While it is lower in the ranks, and not seeing a major change over time, it is a story of vast importance.

Whereas the acquisition of Hulu cost $9 billion, Tubi was bought for $440 million. It does not offer the library Disney or Netflix which will cap its potential. However, from a cost/benefit perspective, this is likely a money maker. The same is not true for Disney which is still likely losing money on streaming.

The situation is worsened for Disney due to the fact that ESPN is also contained in the numbers. Sports is a major driver of viewers for the company.

Will things turn around? This is what the next CEO is going to be tasked with. Right now the fight is who will replace Iger at the top.

It is a decision that will have profound consequences on the company going forward.

Posted Using INLEO