Mediagazer: Disney lowers its Disney+ subscriber forecast to between 135M and 165M by 2024, and separates its Disney+ Hotstar subscriber guidance, aiming to hit 80M by 2024 (Erik Hayden/The Hollywood Reporter)

9:10 AM ET, August 11, 2022

Top News:

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Disney announces Disney+ Basic, its ads tier for $7.99 per month, launching in the US on December 8, and raises the ad-free price from $7.99 to $10.99 per month — Disney has set pricing and date for the U.S. launch of the version of Disney+ with ads, while also hiking the monthly price of the Disney+ tier with no ads.

Sarah Whitten / CNBC:

Disney beats with Q3 revenue up 26% YoY to $21.5B, vs. $20.96B est., 14.4M new Disney+ subscribers, and 221M total streaming subscribers; stock jumps 8%+ — - Analysts anticipate the company added around 10 million new Disney+ subscribers during the period between April and June, bringing the total number of users to 147 million.

Discussion: The Wrap, @loudmouthjulia, @lucas_shaw, Junghoon's Direct Media …, @loudmouthjulia, @loudmouthjulia, @sarahwhit10, @tvgrimreaper, @thewrap, @kaplansportsbiz, The Wrap, Awful Announcing and Axios

Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:

Disney hit 221.1M global streaming subscribers in Q3, surpassing Netflix's 220.7M in Q3; Disney+ had 152.1M subscribers, Hulu had 46.2M, and ESPN+ had 22.8M — The Walt Disney Company reported on Wednesday that total Disney+ subscriptions rose to 152.1 million during the company's third-quarter, posting better-than-expected results.

Discussion: The Walt Disney Company, Fortune, Boing Boing, Deadline, Too Much TV Newsletter, CBS News, The Streamable, IndieWire and Decider, more at Techmeme »

Erik Hayden / The Hollywood Reporter:

Disney lowers its Disney+ subscriber forecast to between 135M and 165M by 2024, and separates its Disney+ Hotstar subscriber guidance, aiming to hit 80M by 2024 — The Hollywood giant's flagship streaming platform had earlier set guidance of 230 million to 260 million subscribers by 2024 …

Discussion: Variety, Wall Street Journal, The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline and CNBC

Oliver Darcy / CNN:

Memo: The Washington Post media critic Margaret Sullivan is retiring her column at the end of August 2022 and will join Duke University as a visiting professor — New York (CNN Business)Media critic Margaret Sullivan is retiring her column and departing The Washington Post this month.

Sara Guaglione / Digiday:

Fortune, Bloomberg, Forbes, Gizmodo, and Money are growing dedicated blockchain and crypto teams, even amid a bear market, to better explain the tech to readers — The week the cryptocurrency market crashed in mid-June, Fortune sent Jeff Roberts an offer to become its crypto editor and oversee building a team of reporters.

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:

Spotify quietly tests Spotify Tickets, directly selling live music tickets to users in the US, instead of redirecting buyers to Ticketmaster or Eventbrite — Spotify has launched a new site to sell fans tickets to live gigs directly from its platform instead of redirecting users to partners like Ticketmaster and Eventbrite.

Discussion: Music Ally, @indianidle, @musically, @emmaswiftsings, Tubefilter, Music Business Worldwide, Forbes, CNET, Billboard, Gizmodo, The Verge, Engadget and Complete Music Update

Rasha Al Aqeedi / New Lines Magazine:

Veteran Iraqi actress Enas Taleb plans to sue The Economist for using her picture as an example of “fat” women in the Arab world in a July 28 story — The British newspaper ran a story about the epidemic of obesity among Arab women and used the photo of Enas Taleb to illustrate the phenomenon

Discussion: BBC, @leloveluck, VICE, Arab News, Daily Mail, Deadline, Newser, @amadfarouki, @rashaalaqeedi, New York Post, @newlinesmag and @_amroali

Mark Stenberg / Adweek:

Satirical feminist site Reductress announces it has been acquired by Phenomenal Media, a media company focused on women and historically excluded communities — The merger combines like-minded publishers with an eye toward entertainment — The satirical publisher Reductress …

Discussion: @katienotopoulos, @katienotopoulos, @markstenberg3, @lexandrapinel, Vulture, Insider, MediaPost and The Hollywood Reporter

Kristin Robinson / Billboard:

Docs and sources detail how two men in Phoenix, Arizona ran one of the largest known YouTube music royalty scams, leading to a wire fraud indictment and more — Inside the brazen but surprisingly simple scheme that took royalties from songs by artists like Daddy Yankee, Anuel AA, Julio Iglesias and more.

Discussion: @davidclowery, @wordsbykristin, @zoecello, @jasonlipshutz, @billboardpro, @edchristman and Music Technology Policy, more at Techmeme »

Whip Media:

Survey: 72% of Netflix subscribers say they are unlikely to switch to a lower cost tier with ads, 92% of HBO Max users with the ad tier are satisfied, and more — Spotlight on the Ad-Supported Experience whipmedia.com Introduction © 2022 Whip Media All product names, logos, and brands are property of their respective owners.

Discussion: MediaPost, The Streamable, The Streamable, Next TV, MediaPost, Next TV and MediaPost

Bloomberg:

Sources: Apple signed a Futuro Studios deal to fund podcast development and production in exchange for the first look to turn any podcast into a film or TV show — Apple Inc., stepping up its spending on original podcasts, signed an agreement with a Pulitzer Prize-winning studio …

Discussion: The Verge, @pabloreports, CNET, 9to5Mac and AppleInsider, more at Techmeme »

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