Okay. We are ready to go. Hi everybody. I'm Ben Swinburne, Morgan Stanley's Media and Entertainment Analyst, and we are incredibly excited to welcome as our keynote speaker, today at Morgan Stanley's TMT Conference, Bob Iger, the Chief Executive Officer of The Walt Disney Company. Bob, it's great to have you back. Thanks for being here.
Thank you, Ben. Thank you. Nice to be here.
So it's been about 15 months since you came back as the CEO of Disney. I wonder if you could start by stepping back and assessing, you know, the overall health of the company today relative to when you returned back in November of 2022.
Well, big difference, actually, in 15 months. I came back, and discovered right away that it was a company in need of a lot of fixing. We were dealing with a lot of issues, not just the disruptive forces of technology in our businesses, but we'd entered the streaming business and in our zeal to attract global subs, took our losses down considerably, and definitely needed to create a robust path to profitability. The company had been restructured, and creativity wasn't really put at the center and needed to be. But more importantly, there wasn't enough accountability, particularly in the creative side. You know, creatives make the product, spend the money that it costs to produce the product, and they need to be held accountable for how it's monetized. And that was a big issue.
Clearly, the studio had met with some hard times or harder times. As a studio, by the way, they'd been number one in the global box office seven of the eight prior years. And if you look at their track record in terms of the top movies ever, you know, it's rather impressive. But they had hit on hard times, so that needed addressing. Obviously, all of that affected the balance sheet, which needed to be stronger and had been a lot stronger before I left. Oops. What happened? Hello.
Yes, sir.
Mine's on.
I was on a roll. Hello.
Apologies. Morgan Stanley AV difficulties for those on the webcast.
Hello? Sorry. Where was I?
Studio.
Yeah. I mentioned that, you know, the balance sheet needed addressing. I, you know, generally speaking, I would say that the task at hand was a little bit more significant or more challenging than I expected it would be. 15 months later, I feel great about where we are. I mentioned streaming. We are on a path to profitability. I think the results these last two quarters clearly demonstrate that. We're extremely confident we're gonna get there by the fourth fiscal quarter of this year. I've spent a tremendous amount of time on the studio. Feel very excited about the slate.
I don't know if you wanna get into that now or later, but if you look at the films that we've got coming out this year, starting with in May, we've got Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, one of the better films in the franchise, actually. I've seen it a number of times. That's followed by a sequel to Inside Out, which is a great Oscar-winning film from Pixar that comes in June. And then in July, we've got Deadpool & Wolverine, which I think will be one of the more successful Marvel movies we've had in a long time. And then we finished the calendar year with Moana, which had been a TV series.
We decided to convert it into a film when we saw that the 2016 version of Moana was the most streamed film of the year in the United States in 2023 on, on all streaming platforms. It gave us reason to think, well, maybe it shouldn't be a TV series, but a movie. And so it will be. And then, of course, in, in December, we've got Mufasa, which is obviously in the Lion King family. And then if you look into 2025, I feel great about the slate. The year will end with Avatar, but we've got Zootopia, and we have Fantastic Four. So I feel really good about the trajectory of the studio. I also feel good about our balance sheet. We talked, we gave guidance about cash flow generation, in fiscal 2024 in our last earnings call.
We're actually, right now, trending to exceed that guidance, as, for instance. And then I didn't even mention ESPN or Parks and Resorts, but if you look at ESPN, they've had growth in terms of OI and ratings in 2022, 2023, and first fiscal quarter of 2024. Our goal there is to basically put them on a path to going digital, and we feel great about the steps they've taken. And Parks and Resorts is just a wonderful story, not just in terms of their current performance, but where they're headed. And we'll talk more later about the investments we're making there. But, you know, they're off some they've had some record quarters, and we delivered great numbers in that segment this last quarter.
I'm pleased to say that the trends for the quarter that we're in right now look like our domestic and our international parks and experiences business will probably deliver in the neighborhood of low- to mid-teens in terms of OI growth. So great trajectory. And I, I just feel right now, looking back at all the things that needed to be fixed that I and I talked about this publicly, we've really entered into a phase where we can start building again. And when you think about this company and the importance of that and the ability to do so with a balance sheet that will support it, that's a great position to be in.
And some of the steps that we've taken that are building steps, I think, are exciting to us, whether it was the Epic Games investment or the steps we've taken with ESPN or what we've talked about in terms of investments in Parks and Resorts. And when I talk about building, I'm not just talking about building things bigger. I'm talking about growing the company, turning building into real growth. What I mean by that is growth in our organic businesses, looking for growth outside of those businesses, other opportunities, and, of course, growing the capital that we return to shareholders in the form of dividends or stock buybacks. And as we announced the last quarter's earnings, we increased our dividend, and we announced a significant buyback plan for this fiscal year.
I feel good, a lot of momentum, and I certainly have reason to be optimistic.
Absolutely. That's great. It's great news on the free cash flow that you're pacing ahead of your guidance and great news on the parks segment OI growth. Bob, you talked a lot over the last couple quarters about sort of four main priorities, you know, for the company, over the next year and years. I'd like to organize this conversation around those, if that works from here. Number one is streaming, which you just talked a lot about. Number two is ESPN. Three is the studios. And then four, kind of, turbocharging parks. And we should also touch on efficiency initiatives along the way. So maybe starting, Bob, with streaming. You mentioned, you know, profitability is a few quarters away, Q4, for D2C. And that's gonna be a really important driver for the company long term.
Give us some insight into what the path is to creating not just a profitable business, but a large, growing, and substantially profitable business over the long term?
Well, the path begins with, I talked about restructuring earlier, but putting streaming under a completely new management structure. And in Alan Bergman and Dana Walden, we now have two executives who are managing streaming globally. They also happen to manage all of our content creation on the TV and on the film side. And that's really important when it comes to streaming because, obviously, streaming is a path to them monetizing what they make in a much more efficient, much more effective way. But it starts with that. It also starts with really examining the cost structure. We took $7.5 billion of costs out of the company. Some of that came out of streaming. But we also believe we're on pace to exceed the $7.5 billion, which will be a great thing. And that's clearly having an impact on the bottom line.
But also, when it comes to streaming, it's a variety of different things. When we launched Disney+ in 2019, our goal was to have basically robust video protection, projection or video experiences at scale. And we needed that because we signed up 10 million subs in the first 24 hours, and, you know, we got to 100 million very fast. What we didn't have was the technology that we needed to basically lower customer acquisition and retention costs to increase engagement, to essentially grow our margins by reducing marketing expenses. We're now in the process of creating and developing all of that technology. And obviously, the gold standard there is Netflix. We need to be at their level in terms of technology capability. And one of the reasons why their margins are so much more significant than ours is because they have that technology.
So our marketing expenses are significantly higher. Our churn rates are higher than they need to be. Obviously, to improve churn rates, it's not just about technology. It's about increasing engagement. And that's where Hulu comes in. And we call Hulu Star outside the United States. But putting, basically, Hulu into a Disney+ app experience, which we launched in beta in December, comes out of beta at the end of the month, we are not only increasing the volume of content that we have on the platform, but with that comes significantly more engagement. And in bundling Hulu with Disney+, we're finding wherever we bundle, churn rates are down significantly. So that's a path to profitability. Additionally, we have to look at the entire go-to-market strategy, really, meaning to the consumer of the business.
One is we have significant distribution costs as well that we're gonna take a look at longer term. We think we can improve that too. And of course, you have to look at your content. And in our case, we benefit greatly from the power of those great films. They drive so much engagement and so much, obviously, interest in our platforms that when they are great - and Moana's a perfect example of that - the platform, obviously, benefits tremendously. So simply, it's not just about improving the movie slate, but with, you know, great Pixar films and Marvel films and Disney films and, of course, Star Wars and Avatar - we haven't even really talked much about Star Wars yet - but, those will all help in terms of the path to profitability.
I think, to your question, for us, I should emphasize, it's not just about profitability. It's about turning this into a real growth engine for the company. I believe that with all the things that we've just discussed, all the steps that we're taking, it will become a real growth business for us.
You guys signed a really interesting deal with Charter last year to bundle Disney+ into the Charter sort of system. I'm a Spectrum customer. Just got my notice that I'm now provisioned for. I think I've got Disney+ four or five times. So you're in good shape with this what you've done.
As long as you're paying both ways or multiple ways.
Right. It works. I guess the question for you is, what are the pros and cons of those kinds of deals? And do you think you'll do more of those in the future, at least in the U.S. market?
Well, there's really no con, although I guess some people would suggest that a wholesale rate is not as strong as a retail rate. But I want to point out that we are infusing the platform with advertising. And so, if you can by a basically wholesale agreement, you can increase your subscribers, that obviously helps generate more revenue on the advertising front. There are no other cons to it at all. It's a win-win proposition for Charter and for Disney. We obviously get the Charter subscribers. All will get Disney+. That's a good thing, particularly as it relates to what I just discussed. The wholesale sale or distribution of our apps will always be some component of what we do. Obviously, we prefer retail, but wholesale is fine too as we seek to grow subs.
One thing we have to look at carefully is in wholesale, whether the churn rates are higher than they would be in retail sales. We need to have access to consumers. We need to know when they might be potentially a consumer that's about to lapse. We need to have the ability to engage with them directly, to basically keep them as subscribers and essentially not lean into churn. That would be the only negative. But we feel good about that deal overall, not just for Disney+ and for Hulu, but also for ESPN.
Can you talk a little bit about your long-term vision for Hulu, within the streaming strategy? You mentioned you have Star integrated into Disney+, in a lot of the international markets. What role does Hulu play long term, in your domestic streaming strategy?
We've built a good brand, certainly domestically. That's clear. They've got great content, recent successes like The Bear, Only Murders in the Building. I don't know how many of you have had a chance to see Shōgun. We've, I guess, the third episode hits today. It's a hell of a series. It's doing quite well on the service. So we clearly have demonstrated that Hulu is a home for great content. That's great. It also gives the ability to put that content into a Disney+ experience without putting the brand at risk. It gives us the wall that we need, and it gives us the ability to give the consumer basically choice in terms of parental guide parental controls. That is really working. That beta that we're seeing of the Hulu on Disney+ is really encouraging for us.
When it comes out of beta, it'll be a much more integrated experience. With that comes, obviously, you know, I think improved business results too. It's interesting about 50% or more of the new subscribers to Hulu are now bundling with Disney+. Wherever we have a bundled subscriber, we have lower churn. So Hulu, I think, is, long-term fits really well into our global streaming plans, even though we may not turn it into a global brand 'cause the Star brand is actually working in EMEA and certainly in Latin America and parts of APAC. But the content will basically mirror one another longer term, save, obviously, for localization.
Okay. That's great. Let's pivot to, sort of the second priority that I wanted to talk to you about, which is sports and ESPN. A couple quarters ago, you talked about transitioning ESPN into the preeminent digital sports platform. Can you walk us through how you plan to do that? What is the strategy to take ESPN to sort of a new level for the business?
Well, I think, by the way, I think almost everything has to be turned into a digital platform these days. And while, you know, linear isn't going away immediately, we know that linear is suffering from the effects of disruption and is just, generally speaking, not a growth business for the industry. And so our plan is to continue to take advantage of linear in terms of the obviously, the revenue and the profits that it generates, but at the same time, making the transition. So we're trying to create, essentially, a smooth transition. The Charter deal provides for some of that as a, for instance. What we're doing with ESPN and, we should stop for a minute and pause to say sports, by the way, in today's media environment is incredibly attractive.
You look at, obviously, how robust the ratings have been and the interest in live in general, but in sports overall. It's a great business to be in. We're very well positioned in terms of menu of sports we have. We have a wonderful brand. And we have also great programming that's not live sports but about live sports. SportsCenter is a good example. And the ratings for these programs continue to grow, which is very interesting in light of the fact that there's erosion of the basic business model that forms the underpinning of the service. So I think it says a lot about sports. What we're trying to do is be very, very pro-consumer, consumers of all ages, by the way. And that basically means make ESPN available in multiple ways so the consumer can enjoy the sports that they wanna watch.
The joint venture that we created with Fox and with Warner Bros. Discovery is an example of that. You've got a lot of people, young people, who have not subscribed to the multichannel fat bundle. You have a lot of people that used to be subscribers that lapsed. We want them in. They wanna watch sports. We're trying to provide them a less expensive, more focused opportunity for them. So it's. I know a lot of folks claimed it was disruptive to the bundle. It's. I'm not sure, by the way, the bundle was ever gonna get some of those consumers back or the generation that our kids are part of get them into it. This is a way to do that.
Additionally, ESPN will launch their call we're calling it Flagship, but it will launch its primary service as an app-based service available on an à la carte basis. That too is just an augmented way for people to access ESPN that will be made available to both linear subscribers and ultimately will be made available to people who are part of the joint venture, where if you want the ESPN app and you're already a subscriber to the JV, there'll be a way to do that, whether it'll be an upsell. We haven't really determined that. And then I think, ultimately, way down the road, ESPN, you know, will be a fully digital a full digital platform.
That and the Flagship service, the true, I'll call it, rich app that will become ESPN will also have far more integration of, essentially, other features like sports betting, for instance.
Interesting. And we should expect the JV product, I think, this fall and Flagship next year. Is that right?
We've said 2025. I'm not sure. I can't remember whether we specified a month, but sometime in 2025.
Okay. Any update on the strategic partnership conversations that you guys have talked about at this point?
No. No updates. You know, we've been engaged in conversations. Not much to add right now. We thought, as we think about a direct-to-consumer, ESPN-only proposition, figuring out a way to bring in partners either on the tech side or the distribution side or on the content side might be smart. We're engaged in conversations, but nothing more to add.
Okay. Maybe just lastly on ESPN, you know, every time you guys sign a rights deal, these are long-term, you know, obligations. How does Jim, Jimmy, and the team sort of approach rights renewals, just given all of the dynamism around the business model underneath ESPN?
Well, obviously, we look at them all very carefully. And we look at them not just in terms of their impact on the bottom line and the potential risk, but we look at them in terms of the value of the sport. And we look at them in terms of how what place they occupy in the overall menu of programming that ESPN offers. We've made decisions, in some cases, to extend and buy up. In some cases, we've made decisions to exit. NASCAR is an example of that. Some college football Pac-12, Big Ten as a for instance. We were in golf pretty significantly. On the other hand, we're leaning more into the college football that we have, a long-term deal with the ACC and the SEC. Obviously, we love our relationship with the NBA. That negotiation is unfolding.
It's our goal to stay in that relationship because we love the sport. We have a long-term relationship with the NFL that has really been firing on all cylinders. The ratings have been great. And you look at, basically, the new deal that we have, which includes more postseason inventory and the Super Bowl in 2027, early 2027, and extra postseason; that's really working. So I'd say if you look at ESPN's menu of sports today, it's about right in terms of what we feel we need to continue to basically grow the business, but also to make the transition to a digital platform.
Yeah. Great. Okay. Let's shift to the studio. And you talked about some of the films you're excited about. But I just wanted to step back. I mean, I think we both agree, the movie performance at Disney matters a lot to the stock, even more than necessarily the earnings contribution. And there's certainly investor concern over sort of the strength of Marvel, Disney Animation, and Pixar. Those studios probably come to mind first. What are you doing at the management level, and with, with Alan and the team to address performance of the tentpole films?
We're doing a lot. When we talk about improving our film slate, there are really three approaches. One is you have to kill things you no longer believe in. That's not easy in this business because either you've gotten started, you have some sunk costs, or it's a relationship with either your employees or with the creative community. And it's not an easy thing. But you gotta make those tough calls. We've actually made those tough calls. We've not been that public about it, but we've killed a few projects already that we just didn't feel were strong enough. That's very, very important. Second, you have to look at everything you're making that you do believe in, and you have to take a position that good is not good enough. You have to basically strive for perfection. And I know I talk about the relentless pursuit of perfection.
It's really important in the movie business. Hard to achieve because creativity, obviously, is a lot of unknowns and a lot of variables. But look, I mentioned earlier, it's a studio that was number one at the box office for seven out of eight years. That was not an accident. That's a combination of both the, obviously, the IP that we have, but also the execution, both the management execution, the execution from the creative side. And it's important. And that basically means spending a lot of time with the creators, watching these films, giving detailed notes in these films, engaging in a respectful process that results in improvement. And actually, when I talk about being relentless, it's not letting certain things get in the way of making something great. Whether it's more resources that have to be thrown at it or more time, it's really important.
The third thing is you have to put into the pipeline things you really do believe in. And, you know, we're working on that as well. We also did make some management changes at the studio. I feel good about those. We're also managing our costs more aggressively. Most importantly in all of this discussion is focus. And that's not just focus of management. It's focus of your creative team. And in Marvel's case and I should pause by saying, Marvel's released 33 films. The total box office of those films is, I think, $50 million under $30 billion. So just about $30 billion in box office for 33 films. That is not an accident.
We got spoiled.
Well, I'd like to say we're gonna return to something akin to that. And I actually am confident that we will. But one of the things you have to do is, and I talk about focus, is you can't make too much. And a lot of people think it's audience fatigue. It's not audience fatigue. They want great films. And if you build it, great, they will come. And there are countless examples of that. Some are ours, and some are others. I mean, Oppenheimer's a perfect example of that, just a fantastic film, enough of the commercial message for our competitors. But so it's focus is really important. We've reduced the output of Marvel, both number of films they make and number of TV shows. And that really becomes critical. But I feel good about the team.
I feel good about the IP we're making. I talked about a lot of the projects. We look years ahead, really. It's iterative. It doesn't—you don't say, "Well, here's our menu of movies from now until 2029." You keep looking, and you keep looking. Not only do you look at the films you're making, you look at every part of that process, who are the directors, who's being cast, reading the scripts. I personally watch films three to five times with the team and just create a culture of excellence and respect, which is really important with the creative community. And again, the track record speaks for itself. We need to get back to that. But with Apes and with Inside Out and with Deadpool and clearly, I'm excited about Moana, and I'm excited about Mufasa.
I look into the next year. And then after that, we're making a Toy Story film. And we're making Mandalorian into a feature film and Star Wars. So if you look at the Disney slate between now and, let's call it, 2026, it's really strong. And I, and I feel that we will return the studio to not only excellence creatively, but excellence in terms of the bottom line. And what that the impact of that on our streaming globally is significant. But you said something interesting earlier, and I'm very mindful of this. Perception of Disney is, is incredibly linked to the quality and the success of our films. And that's true, by the way, in through decades. It's fascinating. I'm a student of the company, obviously.
But you look at Walt's day, and you look at Michael Eisner's day and whether it was Snow White through Cinderella and Peter Pan of Walt, Michael Eisner's Beauty and the Beast and Little Mermaid and Lion King, for instance. Then years later that we had Moana and Zootopia, and we haven't even talked about Frozen and Tangled and all of those great films. It's not quite as animation and movies go. So goes the company. But it's extraordinary when you think about it, its bottom line, and its brand perception.
Yeah. If there's one film this group should see this year from The Walt Disney Company, which one?
I would hope it would be more than one. I think Deadpool is gonna be really big. I'm a big Moana fan, great music, great characters. Bringing Dwayne Johnson back, for instance, is the voice of Maui.
You can't pick one.
They're all my kids. I get excited about it. If you ask me who's my favorite kid, I have four.
Right. I wanna ask you that. All right. Let's, let's keep moving on to, to the parks business. Turbocharging growth. That's really how you guys have been talking about it. Your, your CFO, Hugh, on the call talked about your $60 billion 10-year investment plans at the parks and 70% of that capital going to expanding capacity and really around the world. So give us a sense of what the big opportunities are for expanding the parks business and when we might see that investment ramp begin.
Well, I think the whole thing starts with how do you allocate capital as a company. If you look at the return on invested capital of that business over the last 20 years, particularly over the last 10, the track record's extraordinary. We have thousands of acres of land still to develop. We could actually build seven new full lands if we wanted to around the world, including the ability to increase the size of Disneyland in California, which everybody thinks is kind of landlocked, by 50%. So you look at the returns and where you're gonna place your bets in terms of capital to deliver value to shareholders. That's the business to do it. It's not the only business, but it's a business, not just on land but on sea because the return on invested capital of our cruise ships has also been excellent. We have five.
We're building three more. I'm very excited about the expansion there, including one which will carry 7,000 passengers and will be based in Singapore 'cause we'd like to open the family cruise ship business in Asia. Going back to your question, you can look at every single location that we've got, and there's land opportunity. But most importantly, we have so much IP to mine that there's opportunity there to create experiences that we know people will love to have in our parks. So many examples. We have one Avatar-based land, Pandora, in Florida. We're gonna put a second one in California. That doesn't mean we can't put one in somewhere in Asia and somewhere in Europe, as a for instance. We opened up a Frozen land in Hong Kong in November. Tremendous response to that.
Good investment, big investment, but build it right, build it with excellence, and they will come. We opened up a Zootopia land, which maybe, you know, people might find strange, in Shanghai. But Zootopia is one of the most successful animated films we've ever released in China. And it's phenomenal there. And success in terms of visitation is tremendous. So when you look across and we look at the two Star Wars lands that we opened up in the United States, in Florida and in California, also tremendous. So you look at our IP, you look at the land that we have, you look at the demand that exists in the marketplace, and you look at the return on invested capital, it's a no-brainer to invest that way. So going all the way back, when I talk about growth, it's growing ESPN into a digital platform.
It's growing streaming as a business. It's growing the studio again into a great generation of IP. And the bottom line, it's growing parks and resorts beyond where it already is. We, you know, I talked earlier about the results this quarter that we're in, where I talked about it growing low- to mid-teens in OI, over the second quarter a year ago, that's with some pretty tough comps. The second quarter a year ago, we had a 50th anniversary in Florida. And we've had continued increase in labor expenses there. And we're growing by double digits in this quarter. So I think it, it says a lot about, in terms of, you know, why we should be investing in that business long term.
Makes sense. I wanna just, ask one more on the experiences front. You guys made a really interesting announcement and investment into Epic Games, $1.5 billion, on your last earnings call. How does that translate, in your mind, over time to sort of value for the company and for shareholders?
Well, it started with really looking at demographic trends. Young kids, Gen Z and Gen Alpha, are spending just as much time playing games as they are on movies and television, about 30% of their screen time. I saw that number, and it was stunning to me because we have to think long term when we run these businesses too. You know, I always talk about you need a foot in the present to operate your company well. You need a foot in the future to see where the business is going. When I looked into the future, I realized we're underrepresented in games. We've had a decent licensing business, the Spider-Man game and Sony, for instance, one of the most successful games of 2023. I thought we could do more.
And as we studied it, we were really impressed with what Epic had been able to accomplish with Fortnite. We knew them well. They were part of an incubator program at Disney years back, and we knew Tim. So we engaged with Tim, and we talked about, like, basically, it was a what if. And the result was an agreement that is really twofold in nature, a commercial agreement where we build a universe, a Disney universe, which essentially will enable consumers to engage with all of our IP, Marvel and Pixar and Star Wars and Disney, both in terms of creating their own games from the IP, playing games that we create, watching, particularly short form, buying digital goods. And Epic will build that at their expense.
In addition to that, in order to do that, we agreed to take an equity position in Epic that we also feel quite good about. This will launch in a few years. We haven't said specifically when. And I know that the use of the word metaverse was thrown around almost too much to the point where maybe it became a cliché. I'm not gonna. We're calling this a universe, I think, just so that we don't use the word metaverse. But this will be a deep, rich, fully immersive, engaging experience for consumers. And I think not only does it speak to how young consumers are spending their time, but it speaks to basically how much more we can leverage our IP in a completely different medium. And I think, again, it's a unique position that we're in as a company. And we know it already.
Disney has a presence in Fortnite. So this universe will live side by side to Fortnite, but there will be an interoperability to it. If you buy digital goods in one, you can port it into the other and so on. And we feel we're excited about this. It came at a time when we had great earnings, and we had a number of other announcements. Unto itself, this would have been a big announcement and should have been.
Definitely. One other piece of news recently was, I think a week or so ago, you announced plans to sort of contribute your assets in India into a new joint venture. I'm wondering if you could just quickly touch on the rationale behind that.
We wanted to stay in India. We made a big investment in India when we purchased the assets of 21st Century Fox, one of the biggest media companies in India. Even though it's the most populous country in the world, and we felt we want to be there because of that, we also know that there are challenges in that market. We had an opportunity to align with Reliance, which is obviously a company that has done very well there and one that we respect, and in doing so, end up owning part of a bigger media company. We believe that that not only should benefit us in terms of the bottom line, but de-risk us as well there. It's kind of a best of both worlds. We stay in the market at a significant level.
We have a very good partner in Reliance, and we get to have a chance of growing a business and lowering the risk of doing so.
Got it. That makes sense. Okay. So I think, as everyone here knows and obviously is focused on, you know, Disney's in the middle of a contested proxy season with two activist investors in trying to gain board seats. What would you say to shareholders who are sort of debating the merits of their claims, Bob?
I think this discussion demonstrates or illustrates that this is a very complex company to run. There are many moving parts. There are different markets. There are different industries that we're in, cruise ships and streaming and movies and TV and theme parks and you name it. There are different dynamics. It's obviously many of the businesses are experiencing the effect of disruption, as for instance. It's one that takes not only a significant amount of knowledge, but a tremendous amount of time and focus. And I'm not talking about, you know, just me. I'm talking about me and the entire senior management team of the company. We're at this hard every day.
When you go from fixing, which was significant and heavy lifting, to building, to really creating meaningful growth for our shareholders, the only way you achieve that is by focus. This campaign is, in a way, designed to distract us, to take our eye off all of those balls that we talked about that are necessary at time and focus is necessary to generate what we need to generate for the shareholders. It's that simple. I am working really hard to not let this distract me because when I get distracted, everybody who works for me gets distracted, and that's not a good thing. I'll leave it at that.
Got it. That's helpful. Thank you. So listen, to wrap up here in our last couple minutes, you often talk about being an optimist but being a realist as well. I sort of shamelessly used that in my note over the weekend. Hope you don't mind. And you've been running this.
Did you quote me?
I'm, I'm.
What did you plagiarize?
In retrospect, quoting you. Hopefully, everyone picked up on it at the time, so it was obvious. But you've been running the company, you know, for the better part of two decades. As you think about putting the company on a path to be successful for the next, you know, couple of decades, how are you feeling about the prospects for Disney as you think about what you and the team are doing and working on every day?
Well, yeah, I do believe, by the way, it's important when you lead any organization, you need to be an optimist. But I also think it's important that that optimism is based on factual reality. And I think I've cited a number of reasons why I should be optimistic. So I am very optimistic. I feel the momentum, but it really starts with a great team. We have great people running our four key businesses, and we've strengthened our executive team significantly. You mentioned Hugh earlier. It's great to have him aboard, a very experienced CFO, admittedly in a different business. But he's hit the ground running and been one of the best students I've ever seen in entertainment. I think it's a lot of fun too, by the way. We have a new person running HR. We've got a Chief Brand Officer.
We have a great senior management team. We do have great assets. I think we have an enviable collection of those assets. We've got a stronger balance sheet, the wherewithal to invest in our businesses to create growth, and a market. I think one of the things that we're so fortunate to have is this is a world that needs to be entertained. We're in a business that is serving a global population in a very, very important, in a very, very, I think, valuable way. So I love where we're how we're positioned. I don't get daunted by disruption. I believe, basically, the best way to contend with disruption is to embrace it, actually become a disruptor. There are multiple examples of how we did that. The first one's to put programming on iTunes. We were the first traditional media company to go into the streaming business.
One could argue that, you know, we might have done it earlier, but we had to be mindful of the impact that was going to have. We're, you know, we're willing to take chances. We're willing to make big bets. We know fundamentally that the most important thing is to create great things. And, you know, I sitting here today, whatever how many years I've been in this job with, with a, I guess, an 11-month interruption of sorts for what was a pleasant retirement, I feel great.
Well, I really appreciate you being here with us, Bob. I hope you come back next year.
Thanks, guys.
Thanks, everybody.
Thank you all.