Some live sports and studio shows ESPN will begin to appear on Disney+ this year. Disney CEO Bob Iger told investors on the earnings call that it’s off to an encouraging start. Hulu programming on the company’s namesake streaming service.
“By the end of this calendar year, we will add an ESPN slate to Disney+, giving all US subscribers a choice of live games and studio programming within the Disney+ app.” Iger said. “We see this as the first step in bringing ESPN to Disney+ viewers as we prepare for our launch Enhanced stand-alone ESPN streaming service in fall 2025.” Iger also noted that ESPN+ subscribers will also be able to access content from that service through the new Disney+ tile, so Disney bundle subscribers will have more or less everything in one app.
Iger didn’t say exactly what sports Disney would bring to everyone on Disney+, but he did say it would bring only a “modest” amount of programming from ESPN. The company also has Fox Sports and Warner Bros. It is working with Discovery on another sports streaming service it is scheduled to arrive later this year and will cover NFL, MLB, NHL and NBA games.
Meanwhile, Disney+ had its first profitable quarter in four and a half years. The service was expected to lose $100 million in the first three months of 2024, but in fact it It made a profit of 47 million dollars — Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour concert film, which debuted on the platform in March, certainly helped.
However, Disney’s streaming business as a whole (which also includes Hulu and ESPN+) lost $18 million during the quarter. That’s a huge improvement from the $659 million the business lost a year ago, as Disney moves toward overall profitability on streaming.
