The Mouse House plans another multimillion-dollar investment.
With information revealed by CFO Hugh Johnston, during the Wells Fargo Technology, Media and Telecommunications Summit in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, he announced that Disney foresees invest $24 billion dollars in entertainment and sports content in fiscal year 2026.
The above represents an increase of approximately $1 billion dollars compared to the $23 billion dollars for fiscal year 2025, which ended on September 27.
Johnston expects the total content budget to continue to rise, although it is not expected to reach the levels of recent years, when the company overproduced original content. That was fiscal year 2022, with an investment of $33 billion. The entertainment industry was coping with the pandemic by overproducing content.
The investment of $24 billion for fiscal year 2026 will be divided equally between sports for ESPN and entertainment.
These were Johnston's words (via Variety):
“I think this distribution will continue” although entertainment spending “could grow a little faster than sports.”
Disney plans to invest more in local content in certain markets, he added:
“We have the rights to succeed with Disney content, but we need to complement it with local content. Therefore, our strategy focuses precisely on that.”
The main goal regarding the initial launch strategy for Disney+, “was to achieve large scale, and we achieved that,” Johnston said. The company had 195.7 million Disney+ and Hulu subscribers worldwide at the end of September. In Disney's eyes, “there is still an opportunity to expand that subscriber base.”
And regarding the recent merger of Hulu with Disney+, the aim is to offer a “unified experience” that increases user retention and reduces churn.
Source: https://cine3.com/disney-invertira-24-mil-millones-contenido-2026/
