Christine Maccarthy Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Cynthia Littleton Business EditorThe loss of streaming rights to Indian Premiere League cricket has spurred the Walt Disney Co. to lower its subscriber target for its Disney+ Hotstar service in India.Christine McCarthy, Disney’s chief financial officer, disclosed the new guidance Wednesday during the company’s fiscal third quarter earnings conference call with Wall Street analysts.

Hulu is offering new and select returning subscribers its basic, ad-supported tier for $1 a month for their first three months.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorDisney is anticipating that over the long term, the majority of Disney+ customers will pick the lower-cost, ad-supported plan, which is set to launch later this year.“Based on our Hulu experience, we actually have more AVOD [ad-supported video-on-demand] than SVOD [subscription VOD] subscribers,” Disney CFO Christine McCarthy said, speaking Wednesday at the 9th Annual MoffettNathanson Media and Communications Summit. “We expect about the same percentage for both Disney+ and Hulu, just based on the experience curve we’ve witnessed.”A few years ago, Hulu revealed that 70% of its viewers were on ad-supported plans with the remainder on the pricier ad-free version.Since announcing plans to roll out Disney+ with ads in March, the company has mostly been mum on details about Disney+ with ads, saying only that it will be less expensive than the ad-free version (currently $7.99/month in the U.S.) and will debut first in the U.S.

Rita Ferra, president of ad sales for Disney, said the forthcoming ad-supported tier of Disney+ will have a less “robust” amount of ads compared with Hulu. That disparity, at least initially, will mainly be because about 65% of viewing on the streaming service is for movies, which don’t lend themselves to commercial interruption.

Walt Disney chief financial officer Christine McCarthy said the company could record a $350 million squeeze on operating income in the current quarter – it’s fiscal third — from its Hong Kong and Shanghai theme parks, tempering the parks division’s upbeat narrative a bit.

Walt Disney CFO Christine McCarthy said the entertainment giant’s total exposure to Russia and Ukraine combined is about 2% of its total operating income — with Ukraine about 10% of that 2%.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorDisney CFO Christine McCarthy insisted that media giant’s move to introduce a cheaper, ad-supported version of Disney Plus later this year is not a “hail Mary” to try to hit aggressive streaming-acquisition goals with a lower entry price.The goal of Disney Plus with ads is to provide consumers an additional choice for how they want to subscribe to the service, according to McCarthy, speaking Monday at Morgan Stanley’s 2022 Technology, Media & Telecom Conference.“We had some preconceived notions of what consumers wanted” before the company launched Disney Plus, she said — in other words, the assumption was that people generally wanted zero advertising. McCarthy said Disney did some additional research and found that some consumers viewed ad-supported streaming services more favorably than ad-free services.

Disney CFO Christine McCarthy warned that carriage costs for pay-TV bundle Hulu + Live TV would drive an $800 million to $1 billion increase in streaming costs during the current quarter.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterDisney plans to increase spending on Disney Media and Entertainment Distribution (DMED) programming by more than $1 billion this quarter versus the same period last year.For the current quarter, the company plans to up its spending on direct-to-consumer programming by between $800 million and $1 billion versus the comparable fiscal 2021 quarter, CFO Christine McCarthy said during Disney’s fiscal Q1 2022 earnings call Wednesday. On the linear network side, content spend is expected to go up by approximately $500 million.“It’s all about content, content, content,” CEO Bob Chapek said on the call, which followed Disney’s announcement that Disney Plus had reached nearly 130 million subscribers by the end of 2021.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterThe Walt Disney Co. has named longtime J.P.

Longtime Wall Street analyst Alexia Quadrani is moving across the aisle to lead investor relations for Disney. Quadrani served as managing director and senior analyst for U.S. Media Equity Research at J.P.

Alexia Quadrani, a veteran media analyst most recently with J.P. Morgan, has been tapped by the Walt Disney Co. to lead its investor relations efforts.

Trisha Husson has been promoted a Disney General Entertainment.

Disney CEO Bob Chapek saw his total compensation more than double in fiscal 2021 compared with 2020, to $34.5 million, according to a new SEC filing.

Disney is keeping another one of its senior executives, extending CFO Christine McCarthy’s contract through June 30, 2024.McCarthy is a 22-year veteran of Disney and has served as senior vice president and chief financial officer since 2015. Prior to being CFO, McCarthy was executive vice president, Corporate Real Estate, Alliances and Treasurer.

Walt Disney Co. has extended Christine McCarthy’s contract as senior executive vice president and chief financial officer by two years through June 30, 2024. The 22-year Disney veteran, one of the top women executives in entertainment finance, has served as CFO since 2015.

Ahead of the big presentation at Disney+ Day this Friday, a new earnings webcast from Disney has revealed that a bunch of new content is heading to the growing streaming service by Fiscal Q4 of 2022 (which technically means July 2022 to September 2022). Projects mentioned by Disney CFO Christine McCarthy for that release window include Diego Luna‘s “Rogue One” prequel spy series “Andor,” the Iman Vellani-led Marvel Studios show “Ms.

Disney CEO Bob Chapek anticipates Disneyland and other parks in 2022 may be mask free and without onerous social distancing for a Covid free, vaccinated populace.

Walt Disney said it will be forking out $14-$16 billion in content spending in fiscal 20204 on streaming serices Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ as it ramps up original series and films to the tune of 100 a year.

Christine McCarthy, executive vp and CFO of The Walt Disney Co., has signed a contract extension that will see her overseeing the entertainment giant's finances through 2022. The extension was disclosed in a regulatory filing Monday.

Christine McCarthy, the Senior EVP and Chief Financial Officer at Disney, has extended her contract with the company until the end of 2022, Disney said in a regulatory filing Monday. It comes as she has been a key communicator with Wall Street about Disney’s streaming pivot and efforts to manage through the Covid-19 crisis.

Elaine Low Senior TV WriterDisneyland is expected to remain closed until the end of the entertainment and media conglomerate’s fiscal first quarter, which falls on Dec.

Rebecca Davis editorDisney’s chief financial officer Christine McCarthy acknowledged Thursday that the company’s choice to shoot parts of “Mulan” in China’s Xinjiang region has “generated a lot of issues for us.” The corporation has come under fire for shooting portions of the live action epic in the northwestern region where an estimated one million members of the mostly Muslim Uighur ethnic minority have been placed against their will in internment camps as part of an effort to forcibly

Dade Hayes Finance EditorDisney CFO Christine McCarthy addressed the controversy over Mulan, which critics accuse of indirectly favoring the oppression of Uighur Muslims in China, noting the uproar has created “a lot of issues.”Authorities in the Xinjiang province, an area where Uighurs have been detained in mass internment camps, authorized filming in the region and a government agency is acknowledged in the film’s credits. Critics, including politicians like U.S.

Dade Hayes Finance EditorSettling on the release pattern for Mulan was “not an easy decision,” Disney CFO Christine McCarthy freely acknowledges. “There were so many factors at play here.”Ultimately, the $200 million tentpole was released on September 4 as a “premier access” title costing $30 to subscribers to Disney+, with some select theatrical engagements in parts of the world.

will each close an hour earlier, while Epcot will cut back by two hours each day. The changes take place Sept.

Jill Goldsmith Co-Business EditorWalt Disney’s chief executive and its CFO said the dramatic spike in Florida COVID-19 infections last month right when Walt Disney World reopened have resulted in higher cancellations at the park than they’d first anticipated  – and their expectations weren’t all that high to begin with.CEO Bob Chapek and chief financial officer Christine McCarthy said, however, that the park is meeting the financial criteria set by Disney to sustain a reopening.

The Walt Disney Co. on Wednesday named Carlos A. Gomez as the company’s new treasurer to take over from Jonathan Headley, who announced his retirement in February after 24 years.

By Jill Goldsmith

By Jill Goldsmith

By Cynthia Littleton