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They're making money somewhere. A few billion dollars a year net income currently, on 80 billion a year revenue.
But that's not to say there's nothing for them to worry about. Going into 2019 they were topping $10B/y income, which had been smoothly climbing for a decade, on $60B/y revenue. They had a shock during the pandemic, but it doesn't seem to have been the initial problem and they don't seem to be recovering any further from it. They're making a fifth of what they'd have hoped for from a straight extrapolation of 2018 numbers, and they've got to be freaking out about whatever's gone awry.
I don't know if "money printers ... deliberately used in service of pushing the ideology" is the right explanation. I suppose it would fit the "revenues and gross profits are still fine; operating income tanked" data, if ideology-pushing-overhead metastasized somehow? But accounting is trickier than you'd think, especially at this scale. I'd be unsurprised to find out there was just something that went wonky in their depreciation/amortization numbers. The most interesting thing is the timing, I think.
Everything since the pandemic might be explained by the worldwide roller coaster of consumption and interest rate changes ... but Disney's operating income started to flatten out as early as 2016 and started to clearly decline in 2019...
Accounting can be tricky and if it comes from Hollywood it is Hollywood accounting where surprisingly many movies are booked as losses in the books. It is not as cut and dry that is why I use examples from headlines rather than the annual report, there is trouble brewing in the horizon... especially from the stuff that cost a lot of money that nobody watches! There is an accounting reason for pulling Willow of Disney+ so shortly after the premier, but the exact reason for it well... I'm not an accountant. Disneys troubles has been a constant in the headlines recent months and I'm trying to speculate on it.
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