Disney Has Already Lost the Streaming Wars

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 11, 7:44PM EST · Published Aug 8, 6:50AM EDT

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Disney Has Already Lost the Streaming Wars — © Courtesy of Marvel

Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) CEO Robert Iger topped off the company’s earnings announcement with a long exposition about how his company would become a dominant force in video streaming. He has some of the assets to do so, but none of the streaming media customers. His established rivals have tens upon tens of millions. Most people who want a streaming service already have one, or more.

Iger’s theory is that Disney’s brands like Mickey Mouse and Pixar will help it get streaming customers. As it adds many Fox assets, it will pick up a large number of others. These will be the foundation of the Disney streaming business. Consumers will turn to the Disney subscriber package because many of the studio’s films will not be available elsewhere.

Disney has to deal with huge competitors, and that means it has to deal with the issue of how many streaming services any household wants. Netflix Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX) has over 130 million customers. Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) has over 100 million Prime subscribers, each of whom has access to is streaming media service. Then there is Hulu, AT&T Watch TV and a number of streaming options from Time Warner, including an HBO streaming service HBO Go. And that is a short list.

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Iger’s dream is that Disney will become a dominant force in streaming and perhaps match the quarterly revenue of $2.9 billion posted by its Studio Entertainment business. It includes franchises like the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Star Wars. It won’t happen, the sector is already too crowded, and it is unlikely people will want three, four or five streaming media services, with the Disney services as the fourth or fifth.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.