Walt Disney Company (The)

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to Disney's Fiscal Full Year and Q4 2020 Earnings Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you require any further assistance, please press star 0. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker, Mr. Lowell Singer, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, and welcome to the Walt Disney Company's fourth quarter 2020 earnings call. Our press release was issued about 25 minutes ago and is available on our website at www.disney.com forward slash investors. Today's call is also being webcast. and a transcript of this call will be available on our website. We realize many of you are joining us today from your homes, and we are also hosting today's call remotely. So joining me from their homes are Bob Chapek, Disney's Chief Executive Officer, and Christine McCarthy, Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Following comments from Bob and Christine, we will, of course, be happy to take some questions. So with that, let me turn the call over to Bob to get started.

Thanks, Lowell, and good afternoon, everyone. As we close out the fourth quarter and reflect back on the year, I think we'd all agree it's been a year unlike any other in our lifetimes, and certainly in the history of the Walt Disney Company. Despite the many challenges and hardships, I'm proud to say we have been steadfast in effectively managing our businesses under enormously difficult circumstances. We haven't just persevered during these tough times. We've also taken a number of deliberate steps and smart risks that have positioned our company for greater long-term growth. And the impressive resilience Disney has demonstrated while looking past today's challenges to set the stage for an even brighter future is a direct reflection of our outstanding team. They've done and continue to do an admirable job balancing the needs of our cast, our shareholders, and our guests. Of course, the real bright spot amidst the pandemic has been our direct-to-consumer business. One year ago today, we launched Disney+, and it has quickly exceeded our highest expectations. We have since rolled out the service in more than 20 countries worldwide, and on Tuesday, we will launch in Latin America, including Brazil, Mexico, Chile, and Argentina, followed by more overseas markets in the coming year. The response from consumers has been overwhelmingly positive. Everywhere that we've launched Disney+, audiences have embraced the wide array of high-quality entertainment, both original and library content. And I'm pleased to report that as of the end of the fourth quarter, Disney+, had more than 73 million paid subscribers, far surpassing our expectations in just its first year. and we're continuing to see positive trends. During our Investor Day presentation on December 10th, we will provide an update of our global subscriber numbers. The growth of Disney Plus speaks volumes about the strength of our IP, our unparalleled brands and franchises, and our amazing content creators, all part of the Disney difference that sets us apart from everyone else. And when you look across our full suite of streaming services, we have exceeded 120 million paid subscriptions worldwide, with impressive subscriber gains for ESPN Plus and Hulu, including the rapidly growing Hulu Plus Live TV. We expect the international launch of our star-branded general entertainment offering will enable us to grow our business even further in the years ahead. Given that our DTC business is key to the future growth of our company, we've restructured our media and entertainment businesses. By separating content creation from distribution, we've been able to streamline our processes and better align the organization towards these important strategic objectives as we accelerate our pivot to a DTC first business model. We intend to build upon the success we've achieved thus far and look forward to sharing more of our plans with you at our upcoming investor day. While the pandemic continues to impact our company, resulting in an adjusted loss of 20 cents a share in the fourth quarter, the prolonged situation has prompted us to find new and innovative ways to deal with the difficult and often unpredictable challenges we're facing. We successfully made adjustments and have resumed many of our operations. clearly demonstrating the resiliency the Walt Disney Company is known for. While many of our productions were shut down beginning in March due to COVID, our animation teams were able to work remotely and have continued production uninterrupted during the pandemic. We were also fortunate to keep other parts of our creative pipeline active and to continue post-production work for our media networks, studios, and Disney+. We've been able to develop processes and institute health and safety measures that have made it possible to resume live action production as well. Of course, the unpredictability of COVID may result in unforeseen impacts to current and future productions. On the studio side, we have restarted or completed production on all of the projects previously impacted by COVID, including ones from our Marvel Studios, 20th Century Studios, Searchlight Pictures, Disney Live Action, and Lucasfilm. And we anticipate having eight new projects up and running by January. On the TV side, we now have more than 100 live action, scripted and unscripted projects in active production, with dozens more in various stages of pre or post production. Across all platforms, there's been a great response to our content. A couple of weeks ago, we rolled out the highly anticipated second season of The Mandalorian to rave reviews and incredible social buzz. There's been much excitement surrounding the announcement that Disney Pixar's Soul will be debuting on Disney Plus on Christmas Day. And on the broadcasting side, ABC is now ranked number one, delivering some of the most popular and most watched shows on television, including Dancing with the Stars and The Conners. I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge our incredible local and national ABC news teams for the outstanding work they continue to do under very difficult circumstances. They've been working around the clock, making sure viewers nationwide have access to the most important and accurate information, particularly as it pertains to the COVID pandemic. And they've also done an outstanding job reporting on the election in an informative and balanced way. From Good Morning America holding its spot as the number one morning newscast for the eighth straight year, to World News Tonight with David Muir consistently ranking as the number one evening newscast, as well as the number one program on all broadcast and cable television in the U.S. over the summer, there's no question ABC News is America's number one news source. On the park side, we've proven over many months that we're able to operate our parks responsibly, following strictly enforced guidelines provided by healthcare experts, successfully reopening our parks in Orlando, Shanghai, Tokyo, and Hong Kong. We've also reopened Disneyland Paris for several months, although the resort is now temporarily closed due to President Macron's recent lockdown order in response to a resurgence in COVID cases in Europe. People have shown a willingness to visit our parks, which I believe is a testament to the fact that they feel confident in the measures we've taken. And we are very encouraged by the positive news earlier this week on the progress of potential vaccines. Unfortunately, we're extremely disappointed that the state of California continues to keep Disneyland closed despite our proven track record. Our health and safety protocols are all science-based and have the support of labor unions representing 99% of our hourly cast members. Frankly, as we and other civic leaders have stated before, we believe state leadership should look objectively at what we've achieved successfully at our parks around the world, all based on science, as opposed to setting an arbitrary standard that is precluding our cast members from getting back to work while decimating small businesses in the local community. Our ability to operate responsibly in this pandemic environment extends beyond our theme parks. I'm proud to say that we were successfully able to host the NBA and MLS at Walt Disney World in Orlando. It's been a huge undertaking and a great achievement. Just consider the NBA, for example, 94 days, 22 teams, 172 games, players, broadcast partners, referees, media, support staff, and Disney employees all in the bubble. It was also a big win for ESPN, which broadcast the games, along with a packed schedule of other sports offerings, including the WNBA, college football, Major League Baseball, and the NFL. As you look at the most watched cable shows on TV this year, more than half have been live sports, proving that sports are a powerful draw. despite the disruption of the pandemic. ESPN Digital and ESPN Plus have also performed exceptionally well with September being the best month ever for ESPN streaming video. ESPN Plus continues its positive subscriber growth, reaching more than 10 million paid subscribers as of the end of the quarter, nearly tripling in size over the past year. As you can see, even during these most uncertain times, Here at the Walt Disney Company, we are finding ways to not only operate our businesses effectively, but also take the necessary bold steps for our future growth. And we are more committed than ever to investing in our businesses, in particular our DTC strategy, which we see as the key driver of significant long-term value for our company. We look forward to sharing details of our plans with you at our Investor Day next month. We also can't wait for you to see the extraordinary content that's being created for our full portfolio of streaming services, Disney+, ESPN+, Hulu, and Star. It's just fantastic. And with that, I'll turn it over to Christine.