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    Warner Bros Discovery expects earnings hit of up to $500 million as strikes drag on

    Warner Bros. Discovery adjusted its full-year 2023 expectations as the writers’ and actors’ strikes keep production halted.
    The company is expecting its adjusted earnings to take a hit of $300 million to $500 million.
    The owner of TV and movie studios, Warner Bros. Discovery said it is assuming the financial impact will impact Warner Bros. Discovery through year-end.

    Timothee Chalamet and Rebecca Ferguson star in Denis Villeneuve’s remake of “Dune.”
    Warner Bros.

    Warner Bros. Discovery is preparing investors for the effects of the writers’ and actors’ strikes if they continue through the end of this year.
    The company, in a Tuesday securities filing, said it adjusted its expectations, assuming the financial impact of the strikes will persist through the end of the year. It noted this isn’t a prediction of when the strikes will end, but instead shows the financial impact on its TV and movie studios as production is halted.

    Warner Bros. Discovery is expecting its adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization will take a hit of $300 million to $500 million, putting it in the full-year range of $10.5 billion to $11 billion.
    Members of the Writers Guild of America union have been on strike for more than 100 days, and the actors joined picket lines in July. The work stoppage has come at a moment when media companies are trying to make streaming businesses profitable and pushing theaters back into theaters.
    Warner Bros. Discovery is not only an owner of a movie and TV studio, but also has the largest portfolio of pay-TV networks.
    “While [Warner Bros. Discovery] is hopeful these strikes will be resolved soon, it cannot predict when the strikes will ultimately end,” the company said in a Tuesday securities filing.
    Negotiations between the studios and writers have been heated recently, and Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav has been part of the discussions.

    Last month, Warner Bros. Discovery’s “Dune: Part Two” was knocked off the 2023 box office slate due to the labor strikes that threaten its marketing abilities. The film moved from this fall to March 15, 2024, taking the calendar spot from “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire,” which moved to April 12, 2024. The shuffle also saw the animated movie “Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim” move to Dec. 13, 2024.
    In addition to earnings showing the impact, the strikes have some effect on Warner Bros. Discovery free cash flow. However, raising its free cash flow expectations for this year to at least $5 billion is also in part thanks to the box office hit “Barbie,” which is now Warner Bros.’ top-grossing release.
    The company said it expects to still hit its net leverage target. Warner Bros. Discovery has been paying down the hefty debt load that stems from the 2022 merger of Warner Bros. and Discovery.
    Previously, Warner Bros. Discovery’s expectations were based on the assumption that the strikes would end in early September, CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels said during the August earnings call. He noted at that time that if the strikes were to run through the end of the year adjusted EBITDA and cash flow guidance would be affected.
    The revised expectations come ahead of Zaslav’s appearance on Wednesday at Goldman Sachs’ Communacopia + Technology conference. More

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    Why auto worker strikes against GM, Ford and Stellantis seem inevitable

    Contracts between the United Auto Workers union and General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis expire at 11:59 p.m. on Sept 14.
    Harsh rhetoric from UAW President Shawn Fain, plus the revelation of NLRB complaints against GM and Stellantis, make an auto workers’ strike increasingly likely.
    Once a tentative agreement is reached between the union and the automakers, workers have to ratify the contracts, posing another hurdle.

    Members of the United Auto Workers union hold a rally and practice picket near a Stellantis plant in Detroit, Aug. 23, 2023.
    Michael Wayland / CNBC

    DETROIT – United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain appears ready to fire up the picket lines.
    The union’s bulldog new leader has repeatedly vowed to drive a hard bargain with Detroit automakers General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis in contract negotiations ahead of an expiration at 11:59 p.m. on Sept 14.

    He’s maintained it’s a hard deadline that his leadership team does not plan to extend, like the union has in the past, and that he’s not afraid to take roughly 150,000 auto workers out of factories if necessary.
    That — plus the revelation late Thursday that Fain and the union filed unfair labor practice charges against GM and Stellantis with the National Labor Relations Board, claiming the companies weren’t bargaining in good faith — makes a strike against one, if not all three of the automakers, increasingly inevitable.
    Unlike prior union leaders, Fain is attempting to negotiate with all three automakers at once, refusing to select a “target” company to focus on while extending deals at the others. He’s also been far more confrontational with the automakers compared to previous union leaders, at times launching personal attacks on executives.
    There’s a belief among some industry analysts and experts that a strike, or several, may be necessary to convince UAW members that the union leaders fought as hard as they could to reach the demands.
    “I expect there to be a strike,” said Art Wheaton, a labor professor at the Worker Institute at Cornell University. “I think there’s a reasonable chance they strike Stellantis first and then give a couple more days for Ford and GM to give a better offer.”

    Wheaton believes that a strike at Stellantis is nearly guaranteed with the sides as far apart as they are now. The union could use that work stoppage as a warning to GM and Ford to finalize their deals, he said.
    “I think a strike is almost essential at Stellantis or they will never get a deal ratified,” Wheaton said. “Stellantis is picking a fight, saying, ‘Try me if you dare.'”
    Strikes could take various forms, including a national strike, where all workers under the contract cease working, or targeted work stoppages at certain plants over local contract issues.

    During a Facebook Live on Aug. 8, 2023, UAW President Shawn Fain
    Screenshot

    Prolonged strikes against all three of the automakers would be unprecedented and quickly impact the automotive supply chain, U.S. economy and domestic production.
    The Biden administration has taken particular interest in the talks, including the appointment of longtime Democratic adviser Gene Sperling to monitor the situation for the White House.

    Wall Street watching

    Wall Street has warned of a potential work stoppage for several months, and investors have taken heed.
    A brief survey of 99 investors by Morgan Stanley found 58% believe a strike is “extremely likely.” That’s followed by 24% who said it’s “somewhat likely.” Just 16% said a strike was unlikely, while 2% said it was “neither likely not unlikely.”
    Industry and labor experts agree, and for good reason.
    The impending contract deadline follows combative rhetoric by Fain and other union leaders; a years-long labor movement involving work stoppages, including the UAW; and ambitious demands by the union for 40% or more pay increases, retention of platinum healthcare and a 32-hour workweek.
    Such demands aren’t typically made public or even fully reported until close to the end of the negotiations, in part as an effort to bargain in good faith but also to avoid setting expectations — either too high or too low — for UAW members, who need to ratify the contracts after the sides announce a tentative agreement.
    “I’ve always said that the best way to reach agreements is to be negotiating with each other and not in the newspapers, TV or anywhere else,” said Dennis Devaney, senior counsel at Clark Hill who formerly served as a NLRB board member and attorney for GM and Ford. “I don’t think the public negotiation … is really going to move things along.”

    United Auto Workers members on strike picket outside General Motors’ Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly plant on Sept. 25, 2019 in Detroit.
    Michael Wayland / CNBC

    o be clear, it’s not exclusively up to Fain to call for strikes. It’s up to the UAW’s 14-member International Executive Board (IEB), which Fain leads as president. The leaders, based on weighted votes, must approve such a work stoppage by a two-thirds majority vote.
    Then there’s the question of how long a strike would last.
    Of its surveyed investors, Morgan Stanley found the vast majority of respondents (96%) expected a potential strike to last longer than a week. Over a third (34%) expect the strike to last longer than a month.
    A strike against GM in 2019 during the last round of contract negotiations lasted 40 days and cost the automaker $3.6 billion in earnings that year, GM reported at the time.
    The UAW has more than $825 million in its strike fund, which it uses to pay eligible members who are on strike. The strike pay is $500 per week for each member.
    Assuming 150,000 or so UAW members covered by the contracts, strike pay would cost the union about $75 million per week. A fund of $825 million, then, would cover about 11 weeks. One caveat: that doesn’t include health-care costs that the union would cover, such as temporary COBRA plans, that would likely drain the fund far more quickly.

    Ratification

    For much of the union’s history, it was largely expected that members would ultimately approve whatever deal was bargained and endorsed by UAW leaders.
    However, in recent negotiations, that hasn’t been the case and the sides have needed to return to the negotiating table.
    That was the situation two rounds of negotiations ago, in 2015, with then-Fiat Chrysler, now Stellantis, workers, who voted down a tentative agreement. That same year, GM skilled trade workers also voted against a tentative deal with the Detroit automaker, stalling ratification.
    Typically, once a tentative deal is reached between the union and an automaker, the members of that automaker will then vote by local organization on whether to accept the tentative agreement and make it a contract. The whole ratification process can take about two weeks for each company.
    “The UAW’s tentative agreement with an automaker is really a set of agreements—the main text, as well as appendixes for different aspects, such as pensions and retirement plans, health care benefits, supplemental unemployment benefits, profit sharing, personal savings plans, life and disability benefits, dependent care benefits, and salaried workers (for those who are also UAW-represented),” said Kristin Dziczek, automotive policy advisor for the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago’s Detroit branch, in a blog post.
    In 2019, it took eight additional weeks to negotiate and ratify all three agreements once the first tentative agreement was reached following GM’s strike. The negotiations and ratification voting ended in early December.
    Spokespeople for the automakers declined to comment directly for this article, but reiterated that their teams continue to bargain in good faith with the union in hopes of deals that benefit both sides.
    – CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed to this report. More

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    Hollywood sheds 17,000 jobs in August amid ongoing strikes

    U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data showed a monthly decrease of 17,000 jobs in the motion picture and sound recording industries, reflecting recent strikes by Hollywood writers and actors.
    The report comes as other industries spur overall job growth across the country.
    The monthly figure shows the effect the dual strikes, which began earlier in the summer, are having on employment as the writers and actors push for better compensation.

    Actor Karen Brown walks the picket line with fellow SAG-AFTRA actors and Writers Guild of America writers in front of Paramount Studios in Los Angeles, July 17, 2023.
    Mike Blake | Reuters

    Hollywood’s labor pool is taking a hit as the dual strikes by actors and writers drag on.
    The film, TV and music sectors shed a combined 17,000 jobs in August, “reflecting strike activity,” the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday morning.

    In contrast, the U.S. economy added 187,000 jobs during the month, spurred by growth in the health care, leisure and construction industries. It topped the 170,000 jobs forecast, according to Dow Jones.
    The job losses for the motion picture and sound recording industries underscore one effect of the Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA strikes, which began in May and mid-July, respectively. In the months since, several notable films and shows halted or wrapped production early.
    Hollywood’s massive work stoppage has also had a widespread effect on other sectors such as hospitality and real estate, costing California’s overall economy an estimated $3 billion so far. Hollywood’s striking writers and actors are negotiating with legacy studios for better pay as streaming and the threat of artificial intelligence affect their compensation.
    Last month, writers’ union WGA said it received a new proposal from the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the body representing major studios such as Netflix, Disney and Amazon, to resume talks.
    It came after weeks of stalemate and slow progress. More

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    Stocks making the biggest moves midday: PagerDuty, Dell, Tesla, Broadcom and more

    A sign is posted in front of a Broadcom office in San Jose, California, June 3, 2021.
    Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

    Check out the companies making headlines in midday trading:
    VMware — The cloud services company slid 2.8%, a day after giving a mixed second-quarter report. While VMware surpassed expectations for earnings per share, it missed on revenue.

    Lululemon Athletica — The stock popped 6% on Friday after the athletic apparel retailer reported an earnings beat following Thursday’s close. Fiscal second-quarter earnings per share came in at $2.68, versus the $2.54 expected from analysts polled by Refinitiv. Revenue was $2.21 billion, topping estimates of $2.17 billion. Lululemon also upped its guidance for the year.  
    Broadcom — The chip stock lost 5.5% after the company issued fiscal fourth-quarter revenue guidance that was slightly below Wall Street estimates amid concerns about competition in the networking chip space. Broadcom did report better-than-expected earnings and revenue for the latest quarter, however.
    Papa John’s — The pizza chain climbed 1.9% following a Wedbush upgrade to outperform from neutral. The firm said shares were too cheap.
    PagerDuty — The stock declined 7.7% after PagerDuty issued third-quarter earnings guidance that missed analysts’ expectations. The company expects earnings per share between 13 cents and 14 cents for the quarter, below a StreetAccount consensus of 15 cents per share. Baird also downgraded PagerDuty to neutral from outperform, saying its shares are in the “penalty box.”
    A-Mark Precious Metals — Shares of the precious metals trading company soared 10.9% during Friday’s trading session after the company posted its latest quarterly results and announced a $1 per share special dividend. Revenue totaled $3.16 billion, exceeding expectations of $2.31 billion. The company’s earnings per share came out at $1.71, however, which was lower than analysts’ expectations of $1.76, according to StreetAccount.

    Dell Technologies — Dell Technologies surged 21.3% Friday after exceeding analysts’ second-quarter expectations. The computer company reported adjusted earnings per share of $1.74 and revenue of $22.93 billion. Analysts polled by Refinitiv anticipated earnings per share of $1.14 and $20.85 billion. Morgan Stanley also named Dell a top pick in IT hardware.
    Walgreens Boots Alliance — The drugstore chain declined 7.4% after the company announced Roz Brewer had stepped down as the company’s chief executive and left the board.
    Tesla — Shares of Tesla dropped nearly 5.1% after the electric vehicle maker cut prices for some Model S and Model X vehicles in China.
    MongoDB — MongoDB gained just above 3% on Friday after topping Wall Street expectations in its latest quarter. The database software maker posted adjusted earnings of 93 cents per share on revenue totaling $423.8 million for the second quarter. Those results topped expectations of 46 cents in earnings per share and $393 million in revenue, according to a consensus estimate from Refinitiv.
    — CNBC’s Yun Li, Alex Harring and Michelle Fox Theobald contributed reporting. More

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    Charter puts media companies on notice in bid to save pay-TV bundle

    Charter Communications CEO Chris Winfrey put media companies on notice Friday with his push for a different pay-TV model as cord-cutting accelerates.
    Charter is pushing for more flexible terms and to offer ad-supported streaming services to its pay-TV customers at no additional cost.
    The call for changes came as Disney’s networks, including ESPN, went dark for Charter’s Spectrum TV customers.

    In this photo illustration, the Charter Communications logo is displayed on a smartphone screen.
    Rafael Henrique | SOPA Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images

    Charter Communications CEO Chris Winfrey wants the pay-TV bundle to live.
    He also thinks the industry should get on board with a new model.

    The CEO of one of the largest cable companies in the U.S. on Friday put media content companies on notice that negotiations would look different after Disney-owned networks went dark on Charter’s Spectrum service.
    The so-called blackouts have gone on for decades and usually stem from a battle over rising fees — when programmers like Disney want higher rates and pay-TV distributors like Charter balk at paying up. Usually, the demand for sports events like the U.S. Open, which is in full swing, or the upcoming NFL season, help to prevent channels going dark for customers.
    But this time it’s different, Winfrey said on a Friday call with investors.
    The pay-TV model is broken, said Winfrey, the CEO of a company that has 14.7 million customers subscribed to its bundle but sees that number drop every year.
    For Charter, a company that doesn’t produce content itself, the TV bundle is still a big part of its business, even as broadband grows. Charter is pushing to keep the bundle alive with new options — flexible packages and improved technology to tie streaming and traditional TV together — as high prices and streaming have driven customers to cut the cord.

    Pay-TV bundle as we know it is dead

    Streaming has upended the economics of television, as cheap memberships offer boatloads of content — a lot of which is already featured on pay-TV channels. Consumers are cutting pay-TV bundles and opting for streaming options at a rate that’s only intensified over the last five years.
    And while companies like Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount Global and Comcast’s NBCUniversal are trying to make streaming businesses profitable, they still rely on their TV networks for not only the lucrative fees they reap from pay-TV providers, but also for the content produced for the channels themselves, which often carries over to streaming.
    Media mogul Barry Diller said recently the legacy media companies should revert back to focusing on their broadcast and pay-TV networks, which are profitable, unlike streaming.
    Winfrey, as well as his predecessor Tom Rutledge, have often spoken publicly of the high fees pay-TV providers have to send the networks, which get passed down to customers as price increases. Those in turn often accelerate cord-cutting.
    The growth of streaming has made it less fruitful for Charter to pay those costs, even as the company loses fewer pay-TV customers than its peers each quarter.
    Often, series and movies that air on cable channels run on streaming services shortly after — sometimes just a day. Meanwhile, more and more live sports are making their way onto streaming.
    NBCUniversal airs Sunday Night Football, one of the top-rated programs on live TV, simultaneously on its streaming service Peacock. Paramount follows suit with its Sunday package of football games on Paramount+, while Disney offers some, but not all, Monday Night Football games on ESPN+.
    Charter said Friday it was willing to pay the rate increase that Disney was asking for in exchange for a lower minimum penetration term — meaning Charter guarantees fewer customers to stem costs. Some of Disney’s networks fetch the highest prices in the bundle, such as ESPN, which receives $9.42 per subscriber a month, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence.
    The company is also pushing to offer Disney’s ad-supported streaming services — Disney+, ESPN+ and Hulu — at no additional cost so its customers don’t have to pay twice for similar content.
    On Friday, Disney said in a statement that it had proposed “creative ways” to make Disney streaming services available to Spectrum customers without giving it away for free. It did not provide further details.
    Disney said on Friday its traditional TV channels and streaming services “are not one and the same, per Charter’s assertions, but rather complementary products.” It noted its investment in “original content that premieres exclusively” on traditional TV, such as live sports, news and other programming. Disney also noted its multi-billion dollar investments in exclusive content for Disney+, ESPN+ and Hulu.
    Charter also said it would be willing to market Disney streaming apps to its broadband-only customers, something it views as a way to help Disney move toward making ESPN’s live feed a direct-to-consumer streaming service. Disney has said it’s a matter of time before it offers ESPN outside of the pay-TV bundle. ESPN+ offers only limited content from the network.
    On a Friday call with investors, Winfrey said the talks with Disney are what negotiations with content providers would look like moving forward — a stark change for the pay-TV provider.

    Long live pay-TV

    During Charter’s second-quarter earnings call in July, Winfrey said that the company was “committed to trying to find a path forward” for traditional TV bundles.
    “And if we can have the flexibility to package and price it in the right way, we think it’s good for customers and it’s good for us. And ultimately, it’s much better for programmers over time as opposed to having the cord cutting continue to accelerate at the pace it’s going,” Winfrey said.
    Charter’s recent negotiations aren’t the only example of the company trying to find a new path for pay-TV.
    In July, the company announced it would soon offer a cheaper, sports-lite bundle option.
    Live sports often carry the highest ratings but come with the most costs for pay-TV companies. The sports-lite offering will remove regional sports networks from the equation, giving customers who don’t watch their local teams a cheaper option rather than cutting the bundle altogether.
    The pivotal move happened as the regional sports networks business has declined a faster speed. Diamond Sports Group, the largest owner of these channels, filed for bankruptcy protection this year. Other networks are offering streaming options, too.
    Still, major national sports networks like ESPN remained in both bundles. While Winfrey said he would “love” to put ESPN in a sports-only bundle, he knew it was “a stretch too far” for Disney.
    In another step to revamp the pay-TV model and stem losses, Charter entered into a joint venture with Comcast, the largest pay-TV provider in the U.S.
    The venture launches later this year and will give customers the option to take the pay-TV bundle without a cable box. Winfrey noted in July that two-thirds of Charter’s pay-TV sales come without a clunky cable box, meaning customers are using the Spectrum TV app on their own devices, like Roku or Apple’s Apple TV.
    Branded with Comcast’s Xumo, the product will mean Charter can provide a smaller streaming device that integrates the traditional TV bundle with streaming apps in one place, making it a more seamless transition between the two for consumers.
    The company is betting that service, plus cheaper and more flexible bundle rates, will keep pay-TV alive and kicking.
    Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal, which owns CNBC. More

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    Spectrum owner Charter calls pay-TV model broken as it battles Disney over blackout

    Millions of Charter Communications’ pay-TV customers lost Disney networks, including ESPN, amid a battle over contract fees.
    The blackout comes during the U.S. Open and a week ahead of the kickoff of the NFL season. ESPN, and sometimes ABC, air “Monday Night Football” games.
    Charter is calling the pay-tv model “broken,” saying programmers like Disney have helped to accelerate the rate of cord-cutting.

    Cable giant Charter Communications and Disney are in a battle over contract fees that has left millions of people without access to U.S. Open, college football and potentially “Monday Night Football,” with the NFL’s season starting in just days.
    On Thursday, Disney said that the two companies have been in ongoing negotiations but yet to agree to a new deal. That resulted in Charter’s customers losing access to its networks, including broadcaster ABC and pay-TV channels such as ESPN and FX. Charter and Disney’s stocks were each down more than 2% on Friday.

    Charter’s Spectrum TV service has roughly 14.7 million customers across 41 states, with some of its top TV markets being New York, Los Angeles, Dallas-Fort Worth and Atlanta.
    These sorts of battles, which can lead to so-called blackouts for pay-TV customers, are common in the industry. But, in the age of streaming, this one is different.
    “This is not a typical carriage dispute,” Charter CEO Chris Winfrey said Friday on a call with investors.
    Early Friday, Charter executives called the pay-TV ecosystem “broken.” They said they pushed for a revamped deal with Disney that would see Charter cable customers receive access to Disney’s ad-supported streaming services like Disney+ and ESPN+ at no additional cost.
    This seemed to be the sticking point as Charter said it accepted Disney’s request for higher fees, although Charter executives didn’t provide specifics on the negotiations as they remain hopeful to get a deal done.

    Disney shot back in a statement Friday that Charter refused to enter into a deal after it offered favorable terms and proposed “creative ways” to make Disney streaming services available to Spectrum customers, including “opportunities for new and flexible packages where those services become a focal point.” The company didn’t elaborate on specifics.
    ESPN is said to reap high fees. ESPN receives $9.42 per subscriber a month, while other Disney networks like ESPN2, FX and Disney Channel gets $1.21, $0.93 and $1.25, respectively, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence. A Disney representative didn’t immediately comment on the fees. The media giant has more than 20 networks.
    Winfrey noted that in the last five years the entire pay-TV ecosystem has lost nearly 25 million customers, or almost 25% of total industry customers. “It’s staggering,” he said.
    Between the high cost of the traditional bundle and the option to switch to more affordable streaming options – most of which are provided by the same companies behind the networks on pay-TV – the speed at which cord-cutting is only accelerating.
    Disney’s traditional TV channels and streaming services “are not one and the same, per Charter’s assertions, but rather complementary products,” the company said Friday, adding it has exclusive content on each platform, and Charter is “demanding these services for free” without anything in exchange.
    Disney said in its Friday statement that Charter rejected their offer to extend the contract amid the U.S. Open, and called it a disservice to customers also ahead of college football season on ABC and ESPN.
    In response, a Charter spokesperson said Friday, “Disney knows this is not the case. But we’ll leave it at that so we can get back to more productive conversations for the benefit of our mutual customers.”
    Live sports, particularly those shown on ESPN, have long been considered the glue holding the pay-TV bundle together, especially as customers flee for streaming services.
    The two companies renewed their contract in 2019, which also included Charter integrating Disney+ and ESPN+, as well as Hulu, into its set-top boxes to give customers more seamless access to those apps, CNBC previously reported.
    Charter, which also provides broadband and mobile services but is not in the content business, has said it values its pay-TV business and wants to see it thrive, even if it takes on a different form than the past.
    The company took a step toward that earlier this summer when it announced it will offer a sports-lite package – without regional sports networks, but would still include ESPN – to customers at a cheaper rate.
    Winfrey said on Friday that was not an option it presented to Disney, although he “would love that,” but believed it was “a stretch too far” for Disney.
    Instead, Winfrey said the company sees the option it presented to Disney as a “glidepath” forward to a new business model that keeps the cost of the traditional bundle down for customers who still want it, and puts more eyeballs on Disney’s ad-supported streaming services.
    Disney CEO Bob Iger recently said on CNBC that assessing its traditional TV business is at the top of his list, and opened the door to potentially unloading these assets in a sale. The CEO, who returned to the helm late last year, said he realized the company is facing a lot of challenges, many of which are “self-inflicted.”
    Iger did note that ESPN is in a different bucket and Disney was instead open to selling a stake in the network while also moving toward a direct-to-consumer streaming service of its live feed.
    Still, ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro said at a CNBC event this summer that while this is the future for ESPN, it wouldn’t be in a way that would leave pay-TV distributors behind and nix the traditional pay-TV model that has supported the business for so long.
    “The [traditional TV] model has been very good to Disney,” Pitaro said at CNBC x Boardroom’s inaugural Game Plan sports business summit.
    Despite the public feud, Disney said in a statement on Friday it was “ready to get back to the negotiation table to restore access to our unrivaled content to their customers as quickly as possible.” More

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    Taylor Swift Eras Tour concert film is already a blockbuster with historic first-day ticket sales

    In less than 24 hours on the market, ticket sales for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour concert film have already broken records.
    The singer’s film ranks in the top 10 all-time best first-day presellers for online ticket seller Fandango.
    Swift’s concert film also broke records at AMC, topping the highest single-day ticket sales record for a single film.

    Taylor Swift performs in Denver during her Eras Tour, July 14, 2023.
    Tom Cooper/tas23 | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images

    … Ready for it?
    In less than 24 hours on the market, ticket sales for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour concert film have already broken records.

    Fandango reported Friday that the singer’s film ranks in the top 10 all-time best first-day presellers, joining the likes of “Avengers: Endgame,” “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” and “Spider-Man: No Way Home.”
    “Taylor Swift is giving moviegoing fans and the entire industry the ultimate gift by bringing [the] Taylor Swift Eras Tour concert film to the big screen,” said Jerramy Hainline, senior vice president at Fandango Ticketing.
    AMC Entertainment reported that Thursday ticket sales for Swift’s film reached $26 million, a new record for the century-old company. Previously, the highest single-day ticket sales record was held by “Spider-Man: No Way Home” with $16.9 million.
    IMAX has already sold out more than 250 screenings and is over indexing on presales. The company told CNBC that it is pulling in the same percentage of presales that it would for a blockbuster tentpole feature.
    “Instead of launching an event through streaming, it’s being launched directly through the theatrical window,” IMAX CEO Richard Gelfond told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” on Friday. “It confirms what most of the studios have been saying … that a theatrical release enhances the value of later windows like streaming.”

    “While it’s fantastic, I don’t think there is going to be a lot of cookie cutters, because there’s just one Taylor Swift,” he said.
    Swift’s concert film documents the wildly popular tour that raked in millions and was on its way to hit a record-breaking $1 billion in sales earlier this summer.
    It displaced Universal’s “The Exorcist: Believer,” which announced it would move its release date a week earlier just hours after news broke of the pop star’s drop.
    Swift’s concert film was originally slated for just the nation’s largest theater chains, such as AMC, Regal and Cinemark.
    AMC, the largest movie chain in the world, has added additional domestic showtimes to increase capacity in response to demand. The nearly three-hour-long film, which arrives in theaters Oct. 13, will play at least four showtimes per day at AMC theaters on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays through early November.
    Wanda Gierhart Fearing, Cinemark chief marketing and content officer, said in a statement that the film drove “frenzied traffic to our website and app the moment tickets went on sale.”
    “We are ready for Swifties to be enchanted by this concert film in the unprecedented number of auditoriums we have booked to meet demand for the shared, musical experience,” she said.
    Smaller theater chains quickly requested access to the film, which is set to run through Nov. 5. Before the end of Thursday, most domestic theater chains were offering showtimes in their premium format theaters such as IMAX and Dolby.
    Cinema chains told CNBC that most of the Thursday ticket sales were for showings during the concert film’s opening weekend. Box office analysts speculate that Swift’s Eras Tour concert film could capture more than $100 million over its debut.
    The film release comes at a time when Hollywood is grappling with dual labor strikes and the departure of films such as Warner Bros. and Legendary Entertainment’s “Dune: Part Two” from the 2023 film slate.
    Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC. NBCUniversal owns Fandango. More