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The Story of Disney+

At the core of the current Disney proxy war is a battle to control the company’s streaming business. Herewith, a level-headed evaluation of the mistakes made, the lessons in success, and the most profitable path forward.

bob iger
Disney’s streaming platforms need to perform better on key metrics for the sake of growing ad revenue, and to reduce churn and justify higher pricing. Photo: Jesse Grant/Getty Images for Disney
Julia Alexander
April 2, 2024

A couple salient points emerge while poring over the dueling and far too long decks created by Nelson Peltz’s Trian and Bob Iger’s Disney in advance of tomorrow’s climactic proxy showdown. First, both Iger and Peltz agree that Disney’s direct-to-consumer unit is fundamental to the company’s long-term success. After all, Disney has more than 200 million global streaming customers across its various services—a critical ballast as the company increased D.T.C. revenue to $5.5 billion in the first quarter of 2024, up 15 percent from the prior quarter. (As a whole, Q1 was relatively flat quarter-over-quarter at $23.5 billion in revenue.) What’s also clear, however, is that neither Peltz nor his activist wingman Ike Perlmutter have any operating expertise in this space. And, of course, the strategies employed during the Iger I, Chapek, and Iger II eras have not been flawless, either.