1210pm ET: Jay Rasulo, senior executive vice president and chief financial officer, The Walt Disney Company, will participate in a question-and-answer session at the Goldman Sachs 23rd Annual Communacopia Conference. You never know what he will reveal, so we will be live blogging his session. Keep refreshing for updates.
1228pm ET: Jay says that Disney achieves scale by focusing on franchises instead of traditional media consolidation. While the year has been tough for the box office, but Disney has had a record year.
1231pm ET: The next question is about what Disney has learned about new technologies as an early adopter of putting their content on new devices. Jay said that they have to view technology as a friend and not an enemy. He continues to say that brands still matter and give you entree into new devices. He also said it is not worth sacrificing quality to be first in the market. That is why they spent a lot of time developing their WATCH apps before rolling them out. They also like their deals to be non-exclusive and short-term, but there are exceptions to this rule.
1234pm ET: Now Jay is asked about their acquisitions in the new media space. Jay said there are two types of acquisitions. One is IP (Lucasfilm, Marvel) and the other is enhancing their distribution system. He feels Maker is a little bit of both with Maker’s strong presence on YouTube. He expects Disney’s business units to use Maker Studios to get short form content out in the marketplace. He also expects Maker to be a big studio for the company like Marvel and Lucasfilm and a driver of content for the company.
1239pm ET: When Disney acquired Maker Studios they had 6% of the monthly view on YouTube.
1241pm ET: 2/3 of the cash generated from operations is reinvest in the company. 15% is spent on mergers of acquisition. The rest is spent on share buyback and dividends. Jay does not expect to see a major change in that strategy.
1243pm ET: The first media networks question is about Dish Network’s personal subscription video service. This lower priced video service will be for one screen at a time. Disney was one of the first channel providers that Dish signed up for the service. The concern investor’s have is that people will select the lower priced option. Disney views this service as something folks without service, especially millennials, will be interested and that could lead to subscriptions into a bigger package. They do not expect people to ramp down to the lower service.
1258pm ET: Now Jay is asked about MyMagic+ contributing to earning’s growth. He says one of the goals was to have Disney World guests to pre-plan so they aren’t “distracted” by other Orlando offerings. He says that is where a lot of the value of MyMagic+ will live. He says 50% of guests are now pre-planning their visit. Jay also mentioned that the service improves guest satisfaction measurements as well. He also mentions that the hand-holding of guests using MyMagic+ will go away as well, helping to reduce the service’s cost.
103pm ET: Jay is asked about Shanghai Disneyland. He mentions that Disney and Shanghai have decided to invest more in the park with more capacity and offerings. Jay says anticipation is high so they felt that having a bigger park was the way to go. He says there are over 10,000 construction currently working on the project.
110pm ET: With that the presentation is over. Join our next live blog on September 23 as we celebrate the return of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.