Disney released its Q4 / Fiscal 2025 earnings report this morning. Overall, it exceeded analyst expectations for earnings, but revenue was a different story. Disney’s revenue dropped due to poor box office and the weight of linear TV.
This might be a hit to Disney Entertainment co-chair Dana Walden’s play for the CEO position. (But I’m still betting on co-CEOs being announced.)
What was reported?
Earnings per share hit $1.11, which was .06 more than the expected $1.05.
However, revenue missed with a reported $22.46 billion, down from the $22.75 billion that was estimated.
Overall, Q4 revenue in 2025 was below Q4 revenue in 2024.
Walt Disney Entertainment saw revenue fall 6% from 2024, hitting $10.21 billion for 2025, mostly due to poor box office performance of theatrical releases and linear TV. Now Disney is ini a carriage dispute with Google’s YouTube TV, costing them an estimated $4.7 million a day.
Disney’s films have hits and misses; unfortunately, the hits, like “Lilo and Stitch,” aren’t enough to offset the losses, like “Elio,” “Captain America: Brave New World,” “Snow White,” etc.
Linear TV was a loss with operating income dropping a whopping 21% to $391 million.
Operating income for the linear networks dropped 21% to $391 million, while it rose 39% to $352 million
Streaming did better.
Operating income for Disney’s streaming services rose 39% to $352 million, almost as much as linear TV lost.
Unfortunately, this arose from the price hikes that Disney placed on their streaming services in 2024. Now they have increased them again in Q1 of 2025. I expect them to continue raising prices to offset losses in other areas of Walt Disney Entertainment.
Subscribers were up at Disney+ and Hulu, partially due to Disney’s deal with Charter, which already gave ad-supported Disney+ to their customers and now added ad-supported Hulu and ESPN+.
Foreign markets were also a huge driver of subscriber growth.
Disney Parks and Experiences
Once again, the Disney Parks and Experiences segment (parks, resorts, cruise lines, and consumer products) hit $8.77 billion, which was a 6% increase. Operating income also rose to $1.88 billion, up 13%.
Spending for theme park guests went up 5%. However, it is important to note that Disney keeps raising prices on theme park food, merchandise, tickets, Lighting Lane, etc. The nickel-and-diming of guests will cause more spending per guest.
Revenue for Walt Disney World and Disneyland was up 6% to $5.86 billion. International theme park revenue also increased 10% to $1.74 billion, likely due to new attractions at Disneyland Paris.
Disney also credits the Disney Cruise Line branch and new ships for a lot of the increase as well.
The other person reportedly up for CEO is Josh D’Amaro, who runs this entire segment.
Disney stock is still plummeting.
The good could not outweigh the bad when it came to investors. Disney stock has dropped from over $117 last night to $106.08 as of the time of this article. I do think it might have something to do with comments made about YouTube TV.
What do you think? Comment and let us know.
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