WASHINGTON — Walt Disney Co. has the potential to shake up the television sector with its plan to offer direct-to-consumer streaming services and take on Netflix on its own turf.
But analysts say the move is likely to have only limited impact on the Netflix juggernaut and represents an effort by Disney to keep pace with the industry shift to online television services.
Disney announced Tuesday it would launch a “multi-sport” streaming service under its ESPN brand in early 2018 and a Disney branded direct-to-consumer service in 2019.
At the same time, Disney said it would end its distribution agreement with Netflix for subscription streaming of new releases starting in 2019, including popular film franchises like Lion King and Frozen.
The shift is likely a positive move “because Disney is a destination brand,” said Rebecca Lieb, an independent media analyst and former television executive.
“Of all the content providers, Disney is in the best position. Parents take their kids to see the next Disney movie, and sports fans will follow ESPN.”
MISSING PIECES
But a closer look at the Disney announcement suggests it is not as dramatic as it appeared initially.
Disney chief Robert Iger said the company had not yet decided on whether its Star Wars and Marvel films would be on the Disney-owned service or on third parties such as Netflix.
And its ESPN service may be limited to sports such as baseball and ice hockey, without the more popular professional basketball and National Football League games.
“I don’t think the threat to Netflix is that great,” said Alan Wolk, an independent consultant who follows the television industry.
“Netflix is very well entrenched especially since they are international.”
Wolk noted that streaming-only viewers without cable subscriptions are interested in live sports but that it’s not clear if the ESPN package will be attractive.
“This is not full-fledged and I wonder if it will have trouble attracting viewers since it doesn’t have NBA and NFL.”
Disney’s move comes with many US television viewers abandoning expensive cable TV “bundles” in favor of on-demand online services like Netflix and Hulu.
The availability of standalone streaming from channels like HBO and CBS is likely to accelerate that trend, as will the new services from Disney.
GETTING VIEWER DATA
Wolk said one advantage for Disney of moving online is getting better data on viewers without relying on third-parties.
“Traditional broadcasters have no relationship with their consumers, they have no idea who they are,” Wolk said.
“One of the advantages (of streaming) for Disney is they get e-mail addresses and credit card numbers. For advertising they can do addressable and cross-screen advertising.”
Tuesday’s announcement coincided with Disney’s boosting its stake in the streaming technology group BAMTech LLC. Disney said it would pay $1.58 billion to acquire an additional 42% stake in BAMTech to bring its ownership to 75%.
But Richard Greenfield at BTIG Research argued that Disney’s actions were “too little, too late” in a sector that is rapidly shifting to a Netflix model.
“When historians look back on who is to blame for the rise of Netflix, we believe they will focus their attention on Disney, under the leadership of Iger,” Greenfield said in a note to clients.
“Disney has sold Netflix more content across film and television than any other company, with Netflix now ‘a monster’ that we believe has achieved escape velocity.”
Greenfield said Disney could have built its own direct-to-consumer system but is now playing a costly catch-up game that is likely to be “painful” for revenues.
“Disney simply waited too long to make this critical decision,” Greenfield said.
Jan Dawson at Jackdaw Research agreed that Disney is late to the game.
The company “has been suffering as ESPN subscriber numbers and ratings go downhill, and so is coming at this direct-to-consumer shift from a position of weakness rather than strength, making it more urgent and critical for the company’s future,” Dawson said in a blog post.
“But those services won’t launch until next year (ESPN) or the year after (Disney), meaning that the company won’t see any meaningful positive impact until it’s seen several more quarters of declines in the ESPN business.” — AFP
By Richard Roeper
Movie Review
Rough Night
Directed by Lucia Aniello
“ROUGH NIGHT” doesn’t begin to cover it.
It’s also “Painfully Unfunny Night,” “Contrived Night,” “Unsurprising Plot Twist Night” and also, “How Do These Dimwits Ever Make It Through Any Night?”
This R-rated dark comedy is essentially a female-starring take on Very Bad Things, the Peter Berg film from 1998 starring Jon Favreau, Christian Slater, Daniel Stern, and Jeremy Piven as friends who gather for a bachelor party in Las Vegas that takes a deadly turn when a stripper is accidentally killed.
From that point forward, things go from bad to really bad to unspeakable to worse.
In Rough Night, Scarlett Johansson, Zoe Kravitz, Kate McKinnon, Jillian Bell, and Ilana Glazer are friends who gather for a bachelorette party in Miami that takes a deadly turn when a stripper is accidentally killed.
From that point forward, things go from sitcom stupid to off-putting to bizarre to tapping our toes waiting for the proceedings to wobble to a halt.
As we’ve noted in previous reviews of not-good films, when we get the oh-so-tired, allegedly funny group slo-mo walk in a movie, it’s almost always an indicator we’re watching a lazy comedy.
Rough Night has two such moments. Wait, I think there were actually three. Sigh.
Scarlett Johansson plays the bride-to-be, Jess, a buttoned-down type running for the state Senate in South Carolina. Paul W. Downs is her fiance, Peter, a sensitive wimp who can’t believe he’s landed Jess. (As one of Peter’s friends puts it, Peter is a six, while Jess is a 20.)
Neither Jess nor Peter nor any of the other characters we see in the South Carolina scenes sound like they’re from South Carolina. (And speaking of inexplicable accents, remind me to tell you about Kate McKinnon’s stab at sounding Australian.)
In Miami Beach, Jess is reunited with her best friends from college: the successful, beautiful and elegant Blair (Zoe Kravitz), who now lives in Manhattan; Frankie (Ilana Glazer), a far-left activist; the surly and needy schoolteacher Alice (Jillian Bell); and Jess’s pal Pippa (Kate McKinnon), with whom she bonded when Jess spent a semester in Australia.
The ladies set up camp in a multimillion-dollar house in Miami Beach, loaned to them for the weekend courtesy of a wealthy donor to Jess’s campaign. They meet the neighbors, Pietro (Ty Burrell) and Lea (Demi Moore), a swinging couple who seem to think they’re in a 1970s porno movie.
After some tedious party scenes in which the women snort cocaine and pound down shots and snort more cocaine and pound down more drinks, they return to the fabulous beach house and order up some pizza and a stripper (Ryan Cooper), who winds up dead about 90 seconds into the routine.
The stripper’s death is an accident, but there are drugs in the house, and Jess has a political campaign to think about, and Frankie has two previous convictions and is worried she’ll get hit with a 20-year prison sentence, and besides, we need the movie to continue, so instead of calling the police, these inebriated, babbling, squabbling, not terribly bright friends make one bad decision after another.
One minute Rough Night plays like Weekend at Bernie’s. Then it feels like Bridesmaids. Then it’s as if we’re seeing a spin-off of The Hangover.
Almost none of it feels original or fresh or spirited.
At times the attempts at outrageous comedy are flat-out off-putting. Blair basically prostitutes herself in an ill-conceived plan to recover some incriminating security tapes. Peter decides to drive down to Miami to find out what’s going on, and his plan includes strapping on an adult diaper so he won’t have to make bathroom pit stops, guzzling Red Bulls and ingesting drugs to keep him hyper alert. What a guy.
Rough Night is all the more disappointing given the director and co-writer is the talented Lucia Aniello from Comedy Central’s excellent Broad City. (Co-writer Downs, who plays the hapless Peter, is also a Broad City vet.)
Despite a wobbly Australian accent, McKinnon scores a few laughs as the strange but endearing Pippa. Johansson gamely throws herself into the mix, but she’s stuck playing an uninteresting, not particularly likable character. Just about everyone else, including Ty Burrell and Demi Moore as those skeevy sex-door neighbors, gets swept away by the tides of banal setups and forgettable punch lines.
Rough night for all of us. — Chicago Sun-Times/Andrews McMeel Syndication
Rating: One star and a half
MTRCB Rating: R-16
