Disney CEO Bob Iger said on Thursday that the company’s streaming service will begin cracking down on password-sharing starting June, reported CNBC.
The move is a step forward in the company’s plans to increase subscriber counts and make the streaming business profitable.
When rival platform Netflix cracked down on password sharing, it gained nearly 22 million subscribers as a result, in the second half of 2023.
Storyboard18 on Thursday reported, activist investor Nelson Peltz and former Marvel Entertainment chairman Ike Perlmutter suffered a second defeat in their bid to join Disney’s board. Shareholders overwhelmingly voted to support the company’s current board nominees, rejecting Peltz’s Trian Partners’ campaign for two seats. This vote signifies shareholder confidence in 73 year old CEO Bob Iger’s strategic direction for the entertainment giant.
While Iger has won the shareholder battle, Disney’s challenges still remain. Some of these would be reviving the movie business, finding Iger’s successor, and navigating the complexities of streaming profitability and ESPN’s online transformation.
“We’re eager to focus 100 percent of our attention on our most important priorities, growth and value creation for our shareholders and creative excellence,” Iger was quoted by Bloomberg.
Meanwhile, Disney is awaiting a revenue boost from their film releases this summer which incudes the Deadpool & Wolverine from Marvel Studios and Inside Out 2 from Pixar. However in the recent past, movies have not been able to perform as expected.
Even big budget releases like including Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, The Marvels and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania failed to leave a mark at the box office. One of Iger’s plan to make up for these losses has been to delay new releases and save on production cost. According to reports, some of the new releases have been pushed to as late as 2031.