The number of subscribers to Disney’s streaming service is once again declining, and the company on Wednesday revealed a loss for the most recent quarter. However, a promise to crack down on password sharing caused shares to rise in after-market dealings.
The third straight quarter of declining Disney+ subscription numbers coincided with a crippling writers’ and actors’ strike that threatened the company’s capacity to create the kind of popular material that makes the streaming service so popular.
“It is my fervent hope that we quickly find solutions to the issues that have kept us apart these past few months,” chief executive Bob Iger, whose contract has been extended through 2026, said of negotiations with striking actors and writers.
“I am personally committed to working to achieve this result.”
In May, Hollywood television and film writers went on strike for the first time in 15 years, only for actors to join them in the middle of July.
The most recent strike by Hollywood writers took place in 2007, lasting 100 days and costing the city of Los Angeles’s entertainment industry over $2 billion.
This time, the two sides are at odds as writers demand increased salary, minimum security of employment, and a larger cut of the earnings from the booming streaming industry, while studios assert that they must reduce expenses due to financial concerns.
For the first time since the 1960s, actors and authors are currently in a double whammy.
Better pay and residuals, as well as the potential use of artificial intelligence—which they worry the studios will use to replace them—are the main points of contention for both labor groups in the era of streaming.
Currently, neither the unions nor the organization that speaks for the studios, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), are willing to compromise.
