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Charter is locked in a distribution battle with Disney as the second-largest US cable company negotiates with the media conglomerate over how much its channels are worth and how to package them.“I apologize that our consumers have been put in the middle here, but we felt it was worth it,” Winfrey said at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology conference. “It was the right time and that we had to say ‘enough is enough’ or else we’re going to have to move on to a different model.”ESPN, ABC and other Disney channels disappeared from Charter’s Spectrum cable service on Aug.

Charter CEO Chris Winfrey indicated that little progress has been made in the week-long carriage fight with Disney and he said a leaner, ESPN-free TV bundle “could stick” with price-sensitive Spectrum customers.

Paramount Global CEO Bob Bakish said the Disney-Charter carriage dispute took a “notable” financial toll on many pay-TV stakeholders, but he touted his efforts to “modernize” the company’s distribution relationships for the streaming era.

Comcast CEO Brian Roberts kicked off an appearance Wednesday at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia & Technology Conference by saying he’s “not completely surprised” by the Disney-Charter carriage battle.

Netflix Co-CEO Greg Peters, who oversaw the launch of Netflix in Japan in a previous exec role, said the strong debut of the series One Piece cleared “a very high bar” and attests to the company’s “evolving” content approach.

Skydance Media CEO David Ellison called the creative process a “community” where “both sides of this disagreement actually need one another to move forward. So, my hope is that we can find a path to compromise so that everybody can get back to work and we can position ourselves for success going forward.”

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Netflix just kicked off its big crackdown on illicit password-sharing users this spring — but co-CEO Greg Peters says there’s still a long road ahead of the company on this front. “We’ll be in the password-sharing business for some time,” Peters said, speaking Tuesday at the 2023 Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference. According to Peters, Netflix “built an elegant solution” to address the issue of informing users who were piggybacking on someone else’s account that they would need to pay for their own plan (or get added as an “extra member” for an additional fee).

With a bit more than a year left before Disney can buy out Comcast’s financial stake in Hulu, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts pushed back on Disney CEO Bob Chapek’s suggestion that Hulu’s value has declined amid public market skepticism about streaming.

Disney CEO Bob Chapek, coming off a promotional blitz at the company’s D23 conference last weekend, reiterated many of those messages for a Wall Street audience but struck a more confident tone than ever before in outlining the future of Hulu.

The layoffs of about 30% of ad sales employees at Warner Bros Discovery started today and will likely proceed over the next few weeks.

Sean Gamble says he still sees benefits for cinema exhibition from the ongoing push for shorter theatrical exclusivity windows.Though movie theaters still face plenty of hurdles in their effort to fully recover from the pandemic, Gamble said at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia and Technology Conference that cinemas can serve as a risk-management tool. For years, theaters passionately defended the 90-day exclusivity window for films playing on their screens as necessary to the financial health of the film industry, with the National Association of Theater Owners releasing commissioned studies arguing that shortening the window would harm home entertainment revenue.

Endeavor Group Holdings CEO Ari Emanuel says the pledges by many media execs to rein in content spending amid a broader streaming rethink have yet to have an impact on his company.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorSnapchat’s entertainment business, including its original short-form series, is the area where the company faces the biggest battle to win consumers’ attention, CEO Evan Spiegel said.Spiegel, who spoke Wednesday at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia conference, was asked to identify Snap competitors. He responded that at a high level, Snapchat’s entertainment business competes with “everything in the umbrella of entertainment,” including games.

Bob Chapek is speaking out.

Comcast CEO Brian Roberts was in confident form during the Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference today.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorDisney Plus global paid subscribers will increase by “low single-digit millions of subscribers” for the quarter ending September 2021, Disney CEO Bob Chapek said.The Disney Plus core market sub growth (excluding Hotstar) will continue both domestically and internationally, “but we hit some headwinds,” Chapek said at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia conference Tuesday.Chapek’s signal that Disney Plus will slow down in the current quarter, which is Disney’s FY Q4

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorAT&T CEO John Stankey said the decision to spin off WarnerMedia — and merge it with Discovery — came down to his belief that investors have undervalued the media division under the telco’s ownership.About WarnerMedia, he said, “It’s trading right now like a cable network asset,” speaking Tuesday at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference.

Dave McNary Film ReporterLionsgate and Starz are ready to ramp up production in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.“This is going to be a sellers’ market for some time to come because a lot of new content has not been made,” said Lionsgate vice chairman Michael Burns on Wednesday at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference. “We’re ramping up very, very quickly.”“As long as we can shoot product safely, we are going to shoot as much good product as possible,” Burns added.

Dade Hayes Finance EditorImax CEO Rich Gelfond rejects the popular notion that premium video on demand is the future for blockbuster movie releases.“PVOD is a failed experiment,” Gelfond said during an online appearance Wednesday at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia conference. “The numbers haven’t worked in a pandemic, so how would they work in a non-pandemic?”Results from PVOD releases — viewership, revenue, etc.

Cable operator Charter Communications, in which John Malone's Liberty Broadband owns a big stake, sees its pay TV future in the role of a "video store," chairman and CEO Tom Rutledge said during a virtual investor conference Wednesday. Speaking during a session at theGoldman Sachs Communacopia Conference, which was webcast, he noted that Charter posted a video subscriber gain in the second quarter, a rarity for the sector.

ViacomCBS CEO Bob Bakish says better-than-expected customer growth for CBS All Access and his studio's other streaming platforms has been helped by consumers cocooning in front of video screens during the novel coronavirus pandemic. "COVID has been a tailwind for streaming," Bakish told the Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference during a virtual appearance on Tuesday.

Cable giant Altice USA remains "committed" to the pursuit of Cogeco's Atlantic Broadband, CEO Dexter Goei told the virtual Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference on Tuesday. "We remain committed to the process," and look forward to hearing back from the board, he said during a session at the investor conference, adding that Altice USA had received "supportive" feedback from shareholders of the takeover target.

AT&T CEO John Stankey says the telecom and media conglomerate is using HBO Max and its fast-growing streaming strategy to weather the novel coronavirus pandemic. "Had we not done that and been in this situation, I feel we'd be real flat-footed," Stankey told the Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference during a virtual appearance on Tuesday as he discussed the recent HBO Max launch.

Audio entertainment giant SiriusXM is disciplined in its content spending, but willing to pay for attractive programming, CEO Jim Meyer said during a virtual investor conference on Tuesday. Appearing at the virtual Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference, he was asked about the firm's roughly $460 million content spend in 2019, or 6 percent of revenue, in addition to $1.7 billion in music royalties.

NBCUniversal streaming service Peacock has reached more than 15 million sign-ups, Comcast chairman and CEO Brian Roberts told a virtual conference on Tuesday. And Comcast Cable is trending to add more than 500,000 broadband subscribers in the current third quarter, which would be a new record, he also said during an appearance at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference.

Verizon's decision to expand its deal to offer the Disney+ streaming service free to certain subscribers by offering Disney's bundle of streaming services came due to the strong Disney brand, CEO Hans Vestberg signaled on Tuesday. "Our strategy in this area" of teaming with content brands has worked well in the case of Apple Music and Disney+, which had a "great start" when it launched late last year, he saidduring an appearance at the virtual Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference.

Dade Hayes Finance EditorAT&T CEO John Stankey says he “couldn’t be more pleased” with the progress of HBO Max since it launched in May.Appearing online Tuesday at the annual Goldman Sachs Communacopia conference, Stankey acknowledged the initial numbers are not sky-high.