Two weeks after Disneyland released new rates for tickets and annual passes, the Magic Kingdom has followed suit: Walt Disney World today announced pricing for its four-tier annual pass program, effective immediately. The average increase across the tiers is 6.25%. For comparison, the Consumer Price Index rose 2.5% in the year period ending in August 2024. That’s according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The CPI’s rate of increase is expected to fall further in 2025. The chief difference between the tie ...

Despite continued optimism among top management about the potential of video games, Netflix is shuttering its AAA game studio in Southern California. The move, first reported by GameFile, was confirmed to Deadline by a source familiar with the closure. AAA is one of a handful of small studios put under the corporate umbrella by Netflix over the past couple of years. It had yet to produce any titles by the time it was shuttered. A Netflix rep declined to comment when contacted by Deadline. The company has m ...

James Gorman, the former Morgan Stanley CEO who joined Disney‘s board earlier this year in a signal to investors about the company’s succession process, has been named chairman. He will succeed Mark Parker on January 2, 2025. Parker, executive chairman of Nike, is leaving the board after serving as a director for nine years. Gorman remains executive chairman at Morgan Stanley but will be relinquishing that position on December 31. He currently leads Disney’s succession planning committee and gained notice ...

After delivering a solid third-quarter earnings report, Netflix execs fielded the question top of mind for most investors (though definitely not for inflation-wracked subscribers): When will they raise prices in the U.S.? “Our approach to pricing has been remarkably consistent over many, many years,” Co-CEO Greg Peters said. “Our core theory is, we’ve got to work really, really hard to make sure we are delivering more value to members every quarter. Then, we assess based on how that’s going, through metric ...

Netflix delivered third-quarter results above Wall Street expectations in many categories, including a gain of 5.1 million subscribers from the previous quarter. Total revenue of $9.825 billion clipped analysts’ consensus expectation for $9.77 billion. Earnings per share of $5.40 and the total subscriber tally of 282.72 million beat the Street forecasts of $5.12 and 281.5 million, respectively. The release of quarterly Netflix subscriber numbers is about to come to an end, as Netflix told investors earlier ...

Verizon has acknowledged a widespread service outage affecting wireless customers Monday in several big markets. “We are aware of an issue impacting service for some customers,” the telco said in a statement. “Our engineers are engaged and we are working quickly to identify and solve the issue.” Customers in cities like New York, Atlanta, Chicago and Phoenix reported trouble on Verizon earlier Monday. Devices were reportedly displaying the “SOS” message indicating an inability to facilitate voice calls or ...

Amazon is on track to exceed the tech giant’s internal target of $1.8 billion in upfront video advertising commitments, a person familiar with the financials has confirmed to Deadline. The strong buy-in from advertisers follows a move last January by Prime Video to start running ads on all film and TV titles in the U.S. and nine other countries, except for subscribers willing to pay extra to avoid ads. The streaming service hosted its first upfront event in New York during the traditional mid-May corridor ...

Disney+ has laid out how its password sharing crackdown – or what streamers calls “paid sharing” – will unspool and what subscribers can expect. In a blog post today called Paid Sharing on Disney+: Here’s What You Need to Know, it said the “features and capabilities” are now available in the U.S., Canada, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region after launching in select markets over the summer and that it expanded the program this week. The streamer, as has Netflix with other platforms fo ...

Amazon workers will be expected to return to the office five days a week starting in January, CEO Andy Jassy has announced. In a message to employees posted on the company’s website, Jassy said he was implementing the change in order to help workers more effectively collaborate. The shift from a minimum threshold of three days a week imposed in May 2023 will take effect on January 2, 2025. Jassy wrote in the message that he felt the full-time in-person footing would benefit Amazon’s culture and help the co ...

Core Viewpoint - EchoStar's shares rose by 7% following reports of renewed merger discussions with DirecTV, highlighting ongoing industry consolidation efforts amid challenges from cord-cutting [1][2]. Group 1: Merger Discussions - EchoStar and DirecTV are reportedly in early discussions about a potential merger, which could create the largest pay-TV provider in the U.S. with a combined 19 million subscribers [2][3]. - Previous attempts at a merger were halted by the FCC in 2002, but the current market conditions may favor a deal [1][4]. Group 2: Industry Challenges - Both companies are facing significant financial challenges, particularly as they attempt to establish a wireless competitor to major players like AT&T and Verizon [2]. - DirecTV recently faced a 13-day outage due to a carriage dispute with Disney, underscoring the difficulties of operating as a standalone video provider [3]. Group 3: Analyst Insights - Citi Research indicates that there is still a strong industrial logic for a merger, as both companies seek to adapt to the decline in linear video subscriptions and enhance their streaming offerings [4]. - Analyst Craig Moffett believes that the likelihood of regulatory approval for a merger is higher now than in the past, but expresses skepticism about the potential synergies from such a deal [4].