Look, “Mute/Unmute” has gotten us all at one time or another. On Thursday, Disney CEO Bob Iger messed up during his company’s fiscal Q4 earnings conference call. Fortunately, what Iger said on a hot mic was not nearly as bad as it could have been — but it did highlight the secrecy of some information he gave out moments earlier.
When asked by a media analyst about the growth in streaming margins and how it breaks down between subscriber growth and pricing increases, Disney CFO Hugh Johnston said it’s both, though probably a bit more pricing than subs.
“It’s not just about raising pricing, it’s about moving consumers to the advertiser-supported side of the streaming platform,” Iger added. “So right now in the United States, about 60 percent of all new subs are buying our streaming services’ advertising-supported or AVOD. I think right now it’s 37 percent of the subs in the U.S. are AVOD subs… and 30 percent globally.”
He continued, “The pricing that we recently put into place, which is increased pricing, was actually designed to move more people in the AVOD direction because we know that the ARPU — and interest in it from advertisers in streaming — has grown.”
It turns out that may not have been intended for the public.
“I don’t know if I was supposed to disclose those AVOD numbers,” Iger said into an un-muted mic.
More to come…
