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Heads Up! Disney Junior And National Geographic Wild Go Dark In France By January 2025 As Orange Secures Rights To The Disney Channel

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The Disney Channel and National Geographic channels will survive in France through Orange boxes. Disney films will also be available 4 months after their theatrical release on Orange's VOD service. The historic operator unveils a reassuring distribution agreement with the American giant.

Following the divorce between Canal+ and Disney, Orange took advantage of the situation and announced, against all expectations, on December 20, a distribution agreement with The Walt Disney Company which strengthens access to Disney content in France and enriches the entertainment offering for Orange TV subscribers.

This partnership allows Livebox subscribers to fully access Disney content through three offers:

Included access for all TV customers to Disney's iconic channels : Disney Channel, the reference channel for young people, and National Geographic will be included from January 2, 2025 for all Orange TV customers, from their decoder and the Orange TV application on smartphones and a wide selection of connected TVs.

The possibility of subscribing to the Disney + streaming service under special conditions. Customers of the Orange Livebox Max offer benefit from a €5 discount for life by subscribing to Disney +, this offer has already been in place since last October. Other TV customers will benefit from a promotion with the first month free to discover the Disney + service. Orange subscribers will continue to be able to watch the platform's programs on their decoder.

Access to Disney films 4 months after their theatrical release on the Orange VOD service : Orange will offer, through its transactional VOD offer, the latest cinema releases from the Disney group studios (Disney, Walt Disney Animation Studios, Pixar Animation, Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, 20th Century Studios, and Searchlight Pictures) via the Orange VOD service.

Hélène Etzi, President of The Walt Disney Company France, said, “ We are very pleased to partner with Orange to make our iconic content and stories accessible to as many households as possible,” or 12.4 million French people. It remains to be seen whether other operators such as Free, SFR and Bouygues Telecom will try to reach an agreement with Disney.

The article was originally published by Univers Freebox

Disney Branded Television Could Be Put Up For Sale

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Disney CEO Bob Iger sat down with CNBC's David Faber at Allen & Co.'s annual conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, on Thursday.

Disney announced Wednesday that it was extending Iger's contract by two years through 2026. Iger returned to the helm of Disney late last year. The company has since undergone thousands of layoffs and cut billions of dollars in spending, including from content.

Disney CEO Bob Iger on media landscape: Challenges are greater than I had anticipated

DisneynhhCEO Bob Iger opened the door to selling the company's linear TV assets as the business struggles during the media industry's transition to streaming and digital offerings.

Iger appeared Thursday on, the morning after the company announced it would extend his contract by two years through 2026. He returned to the helm of the company in November after Disney's board ousted Bob Chapek with a two-year contract through 2024 and plans to find a next successor.

"After coming back, I realized the company is facing a lot of challenges, some of them self-inflicted," Iger told David Faber at Allen & Co.'s annual conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, noting he's accomplished a lot of work in seven months but there's more to be done.

At the top of the list is assessing the traditional TV business, Iger said. Disney owns a portfolio of TV networks, from broadcast station ABC to cable TV channels like ESPN.

Disney is going to be "expansive" in its thinking about the traditional TV business, leaving the door open to a possible sale of the networks. "They may not be core to Disney," Iger said, adding the creativity that has come from those networks has been key for Disney.

On Thursday, ABC News President Kim Godwin to employees expressed support for Iger's contract extension, according to a person familiar with the matter. Godwin encouraged ABC staffers to focus on their work and audience, the person added.

Cable TV channel ESPN is in a different bucket, however. On that front, Iger said Disney is open to finding a strategic partner, which could take the form of a joint venture or offloading an ownership stake.

Iger said when he had left the company he had predicted the future of traditional TV and had been "very pessimistic," and has found since his return that he was right in his thinking, adding it's worse than he expected.

When Iger last spoke with Faber in February, soon after announcing a major restructuring at the company, he said that he felt "a sense of obligation" to return to Disney and that his preference was to stay for his two-year contract.

"We've gotten a lot done very quickly, significant cost reductions and significant realignment of the company," Iger said. "But dealing head on with some of our biggest challenges."

The appearance in February came shortly after Disney announced a sweeping restructuring that included thousands of layoffs and billions of dollars cut in spending.

The reorganization warded off a potential proxy fight with activist investor Nelson Peltz.

Disney reorganized into three segments: Disney Entertainment, which includes most of its streaming and media operations; an ESPN division; and a parks, experiences and product unit.

These were some of Iger's most significant actions in the months after his return. Disney revealed it would cut $5.5 billion in costs, consisting of $3 billion from content, excluding sports, and the remaining amount from noncontent costs. The company earmarked 7,000 layoffs.

In addition to looking for his next successor, Iger has been tasked with bringing Disney's streaming business to profitability. In the last year, media executives across all companies have focused on how to make streaming profitable, particularly after behemoth Netflix lost subscribers early last year and since instituted an ad-supported tier and a crackdown on password sharing to drive revenue.

While the company posted revenue and profit in line with Wall Street estimates last quarter, it saw a loss of 4 million subscribers at its flagship streamer Disney+.

Those subscriber losses were offset by price increases, which Iger said in May weren't to blame for the lower numbers. Instead, he said it showed room for further increases when it comes to streaming, and pushing customers toward the ad-supported tier, with the aim of reaching profitability.

In an effort to bulk up Disney+ and attract more subscribers to its cheaper, ad-supported tier – which it launched last year – the company announced last quarter it would add Hulu content to Disney+.

Disney has been weighing whether it should buy all of Hulu, as it owns 66% and Comcast

owns the rest. It's likely Comcast will sell its Hulu stake to Disney at the beginning of 2024, CNBC previously reported.

Iger said Thursday that since he returned to Disney, he ultimately concluded the company is "better off having Hulu."

He added the combined Hulu and Disney+ offering would be available by the end of the calendar year, and the upcoming negotiations with Comcast over valuation wouldn't prevent that.

"The combination of those apps is designed to obviously help the [streaming] business become profitable," Iger said.

The Walt Disney Company To Close 11 Channels In Taiwan, Could Africa Follow Perhaps?

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In 2021, The Walt Disney Company unveiled plans to close 100 international channels so there was a lot of fear for the Disney Channels in Africa following the closure of Disney XD and FOX but MultiChoice managed to secure rights for these brands through 2024.

Fast forward to 2023, The Walt Disney Company had confirmed the closure of more channels with consumers in Taiwan set to lose out on a number of brands including National Geographic, National Geographic Wild, Baby TV, Star Entertainment and Star World.

Disney+ launched in 2019 and has since then become a top priority for the blue brand. Not much investment is going onto Disney Channel or National Geographic as the brands being used to promote the bulk of content seen on the streaming service.

Following the demise of these channels in Taiwan, there's now a lot of fear for these channels in Africa and I know MultiChoice had managed to carry Disney Channel, Disney Junior, National Geographic and National Geographic Wild through 2024.

But for all we know these channels could go dark by the 31st December 2023 at 23:59 which rounds up to 2024 as seen in Taiwan. It had been speculated that most of The Walt Disney Company"s linear offering won't leave past 2025 in European territories.

Disney XD was terminated in Africa alongside the United Kingdom's Disney Channels in 2020 followed by FOX which saw the brand exit Germany, Asia and Africa by 2021. Now there's rumours swirling that the brand would be closing channels across Africa by early 2024.

International: Disney To Close A Further 3 Channels This Month

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Last year, The Walt Disney Company unveiled plans to close a further 100 channels globally as more content goes onto the streaming service, Disney+. With MultiChoice carrying parts of these channels through 2024 means viewers have more time to unwind until the same occurs as seen in these regions.

Later in the year, it was reported that FOX in Turkey the only International feed to offer original content part of which has been supplied to e.tv such as Dokter Ali (Mucize Doctor), Doodsondes (Yasak Elma) and DisComplicated (Sen Çal Kapımı) will go off air by 2023.

Ahead of its demise, FOX Crime will suffer the chop by the end of this month which kind of coincides with FOX and FOX Life's termination in Africa as both were shuttered within the same period just years apart from each other.

In Italy, Sky was able to confirm that both National Geographic and National Geographic Wild will also go dark by the end of the month not only on their platforms but the whole region. This comes as the operator in that region just like DStv has seen a loss in channels.

Although it's not the distributor's fault when a supplier stops supplying a certain product. It is however their job to keep viewers entertained although the sad part about that is the alternatives will be nothing like these channels and viewers only hope at this point is Disney+.

With several households struggling to get fibre even a platform like DStv and Sky. Viewers will have to make due with what's already available to them.

The Walt Disney Company Investing More Than 500 Series For Regional Content For Disney+, This Includes More Regional European Animation and Anime For The Animation Catalog

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Disney has previously revealed it has 500 shows in the pipeline outside of the U.S., but on Wednesday, the company broke down for the first time how those planned local-language programs are being dispersed throughout global regions.

According to Christine M. McCarthy, senior executive vice president and chief financial officer, 140 of those shows are in the works in the Asia/Pacific region, including Southeast Asia; 150 are in markets in Europe, West Asia and Africa; 100 are set up in India, and another 200 are being developed for Latin America audiences.

Elsewhere on the call, CEO Bob Chapek was pressed by analysts on another international topic: Disney’s lack of traction in recent months with getting its movies approved for release in China. Noting that the latest MCU release — “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” — reached nearly $500 million worldwide in its opening weekend without a berth in China, the world’s most populous country, Chapek said the box office split in China is not as generous for distributors as it is in other overseas markets.

‘It doesn’t really preclude our success, given the relatively lower take rate that we get in the box office in China compared to the rest of the world,” Chapek said.

Ahead of Disney’s quarterly earnings call on Wednesday, the company reported Disney+ gained 7.9 million customers in the first three months of 2022 to reach 137.7 million subscribers total. That new figure is up 33% year over year. The stat beat analysts expectations, as Wall Street had forecast Disney+ would net 5.2 million new subscribers for the quarter that ended on March 31, per FactSet.

Disney+ is currently available in 64 countries across North America, Europe, Asia/Pacific and Latin America. Disney+ Hotstar is offered by Disney in India.

Disney’s trio of streaming services reached 205.6 million globally (a quarterly net increase of 9.2 million, driven by Disney+). As of the end of the quarter, that included 45.6 million for Hulu (up 10% year over year) and 22.3 million for ESPN+ (up 62% year over year). Disney+ subs in the U.S./Canada region netted 1.5 million in the March 2022 quarter, to 44.4 million.

Also during the call, McCarthy said, while Disney had previously expected fiscal ’22 content spending to be as much as $33 billion, it now projects about $32 billion because of a “slightly slower cadence of spending than anticipated” during the first half of 2022.

Disney Will Cease Broadcast Of Disney XD, Nat Geo Wild, Nat Geo Kids, FX Movies And Star Life In Latin America With Disney Junior In Brazil

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With the arrival of Disney+, the mouse company was highly motivated in the last couple of years to exterminate its existing pay television channels around the world in order to benefit its subscription streaming platform.

With the announcement given in mid-2021 by the CEO of the company Bob Chapek in which 100 international casualties were promised, it was a matter of time for this mass murder to affect Latin America and it seems that Disney will finally play its cards in the region.

Initially, the company did not make major changes in the television field than to change the name of the Fox channels, replacing it with the Star brand for legal reasons, drastically modify the content broadcast on its main children's channels (to enhance the one that is already on demand on Disney+), and reducing the signals available in the territory (the so-called 'feeds'), in addition to a notable lack of interest in their maintenance and promotion.

These last three events were enough evidence to begin to think that Disney was already planning the worst for many of these channels that suffered these dreaded consequences, especially since, certainly, they became useless signals by having taken a good portion of their programming for to make it exclusive to Disney+, and what was left on broadcast was already distributed on said platform.

It should also be remembered that, in August 2021, Disney launched the Star+ service, in an attempt to earn more money with two different platforms, significantly affecting the channels of a more mature audience, such as the Star Channel itself, than during Its advertising strategy promised to maintain the same programming as always, but only half a year later it aggressively reduced the daily broadcasts of The Simpsons, its star series, among other changes that made the star's service not to the liking of consumers.

This also hurt Star Premium channels (i.e., Star Hits, Star Series, Star Action, Star Comedy, Star Fun, Star Cinema, and Star Classics ), whose programming became repetitive and not at all innovative as for a premium television package., a market quite obsolete today but that HBO manages to keep current with premieres and original productions, which ended up digging Star Premium's own grave after so many years on the air.

And that is how it can be confirmed that the company will also end Disney XD, Nat Geo Wild, Nat Geo Kids, FX Movies and Star Life in Latin America and Disney Junior in Brazil at the moment. All these channels, whose course could already be foreseen for months, will be discontinued as of March 31 2022, thus adding to the aforementioned signals belonging to the Star Premium group, which will say goodbye at the end of this month : January 31st.

In the case of Disney XD, its end in Latin America was something that viewers were rumored for 2 years, after the announcement of the channel ceasing its broadcasts in India to be replaced by a Marvel-themed signal (the famous ' Marvel HQ ' , which in any case was already discontinued on December 1 with almost 2 years on the air), added to several international versions of the channel that said goodbye during this time without having any kind of substitute.

This information initially came from a letter from Disney sent to a cable operator last Wednesday, December 22, but which came to light on the morning of this Monday, January 10, in a portal post, remaining as a rumor until hours later. it was finally confirmed and it is already a true fact. All the channels already officially named have their days numbered.

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International Educational And Entertainment Programme National Geographic Kids Coming To Africa In 2022

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Geographic Kids Africa, which focuses on developing local content surrounding the environment, conservation, and associated topics important to children and their communities. The project aims to inspire and promote behaviour change in its audiences. To protect the world in which they live through engendering a deeper understanding of the natural environment.

The undertaking includes a 26-part television series to be shot primarily in East Africa but with additional filming in West and Southern Africa. The series will be produced by The Walt Disney Company, in association with Kenya-based WildlifeDirect. WildlifeDirect will collaborate on research and creative approaches. National Geographic Kids Africa will air across the continent on National Geographic Wild. It will extend into engaging digital platforms that further explore biodiversity, wildlife and the natural world, and the threats and challenges experienced.

Extending the reach of the National Geographic Kids Africa initiative further, a community outreach project will be launched by implementation partner WildlifeDirect across East Africa, aiming to encourage learners from 200 schools to make a lasting impact on the conservation of species-rich landscapes. By investing in knowledge and skills, through tools such as conservation hubs, educational resources, bespoke educator training and more, the outreach program aims to develop a passionate community of young explorers with the fascination and desire to protect their continent and their world.

National Geographic Kids Africa will be produced entirely in Africa by African storytellers. The stories, leadership and expertise of African conservationists and communities will be prominently featured.

The US Department of State, US Embassies, and local partners in Africa will enhance this initiative through multiple academic, cultural, and professional exchanges. The Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs’ people-to-people exchange programs will support professional development and skills sharing across sectors, including conservation, the creative industries, tourism and sustainable practices. Exchange programs create lasting connections and harness attention on conservation and the importance of protecting the natural world. The Department’s Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs will continue to lead diplomatic efforts to expand and strengthen policy and programs to conserve and protect nature.

Christine Service, General Manager of The Walt Disney Company Africa, adds:

“For over 133 years, the core mission of National Geographic has been to ignite the explorer in everyone through thought-provoking, fact-based storytelling from scientists, explorers, photographers and filmmakers. This initiative will bring children from across the continent into the conversation and, in doing so, energize the next generation of environmental advocates through this innovative and engaging programme.”

Says Dr Paula Kahumbu, CEO of WildlifeDirect:

“We are deeply humbled and proud to be working with some of the world’s greatest institutions, the US Department of State, USAID, Disney and National Geographic, to transform conservation outcomes in Africa by inspiring people in Africa and around the world through the authentic voices of Africa's young heroes. This series is a first in so many ways, not least the unique partnership but also because of outreach efforts which will deliver a positive impact on nature across the region.”

In addition to amplifying local voices around conservation, the National Geographic Kids Africa initiative supports vital policy goals in addressing the twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss. US climate and conservation diplomacy aspires to realize economic growth, energy security, and a healthy planet. The loss of nature and her gifts affect all people, and bold action to tackle these twin crises is more urgent than ever.
By engaging the next generation, National Geographic Kids Africa is a critical part of this effort. The series will tell the story of forward-thinking climate and conservation action in inspiring ways. It will highlight the work of African children across the continent and encourage others in Africa to make a difference in their way.

Says Matthew Lussenhop, Acting Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, US Department of State:

“A key element of our charge is to address the environmental, social, political, and economic challenges we all face. We look forward to enhancing this important initiative with people-to-people exchanges to inspire and connect the next generation of conservationists, filmmakers and leaders in Africa who will create lasting change to protect their natural environment. This partnership represents an innovative way forward to address some of the most pressing issues of our time.”

USAID’s conservation programming plays a critical role in ensuring the world’s most vulnerable people can secure their health and well-being while managing and conserving their natural wealth. Through partnerships with governments, communities, and the private sector in 60 countries, USAID works to protect biological systems and improve the lives of people who depend on them. These conservation activities also reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase carbon storage. USAID’s nature-based solutions are building people’s resilience, priority ecosystems, and economies to climate change.

Says Karl Fickenscher, Acting Assistant Administrator of the Bureau for Development, Democracy, and Innovation (DDI), USAID:

“National Geographic Kids Africa embodies USAID's new vision for global development that combines working together with our US State Department colleagues, our private sector partner, The Walt Disney Company, and our local Kenyan partner WildlifeDirect. We could not be prouder to stand alongside them, and perhaps most importantly, alongside the students, young environmentalists, and kids from communities across Africa, who will work to protect and conserve the world around them— today and in the future.”

The goal is partnering with African filmmakers to tell African stories around conservation and environmental themes to reach African and global audiences. In addition, National Geographic Kids Africa will further advance The Walt Disney Company’s longstanding commitment to environmental stewardship, which goes back to its founding more than 90 years ago. Walt Disney himself said that: “conservation isn’t just the business of a few people. It’s a matter that concerns all of us.” National Geographic Kids Africa is another way The Walt Disney Company focuses on helping to protect the planet.
Currently, in pre-production, the National Geographic Kids Africa programme is set for a mid-to-late 2022 rollout across Africa.

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