Disney is open to potentially selling an equity stake in ESPN and is looking for a strategic partner in the business as it prepares to transition the sports network to streaming, CEO Bob Iger said Thursday.
The linear TV business has degraded over the past year more than Iger expected, the Disney CEO told CNBC’s David Faber Thursday in an interview at Sun Valley, Idaho. Disney announced yesterday Iger has extended his contract to 2026 as CEO. He returned to run Disney last year after stepping down as CEO in 2020.
Disney has held early conversations with potential partners that could improve an ESPN streaming service by extending its distribution and adding content, Iger said. He declined to name specific partners. Disney currently owns 80% of ESPN. Hearst Communications owns the other 20%.
Disney has held off from putting its prime ESPN content on its ESPN+ streaming service as it continues to make billions of dollars in revenue each year through traditional cable TV. Still, millions of Americans cancel their cable subscriptions each year, and that number has accelerated in recent years.
“The challenges are greater than I had anticipated,” Iger said. “The disruption of the traditional TV business is most notable. If anything, the disruption of that business has happened to a greater extent than even I was aware.”
A broader streaming offering
Iger said he had become more certain in his thinking about when ESPN will launch its complete direct-to-consumer offering. He declined to say when that will happen.
Iger’s comments about finding a strategic partner suggest he believes ESPN may function better in a streaming environment if paired with other companies’ sports content. CNBC reported earlier this year that ESPN wants to be a hub for all live sports programming if it can agree to partnerships with other media companies.
ESPN became the crown jewel of Disney’s asset portfolio in the early 2000s by charging increasingly exorbitant amounts to pay-TV providers for the right to carry the network.The popularity of its sports programming, including “Monday Night Football,” allowed it to this.
But in the traditional cable TV business model, ESPN made money per cable subscriber — whether a person watched or not.In a streaming world, only intentional sports fans would buy a service.That increases the importance of putting as much quality programming on the platform as possible — especially if it’s priced more higher than entertainment streaming services.
In addition to finding a strategic partner for ESPN, Iger said he was open to selling or spinning off Disney’s legacy cable networks, including FX and NatGeo, and its broadcast group, ABC Networks. Iger said Disney would be “expansive” in its thinking about the legacy cable and broadcast assets, outside of ESPN.
Iger also said Disney plans to acquire Comcast’s minority stake in Hulu as planned. The two companies struck a deal in 2019 that would give Disney the option to buy Comcast’s minority stake at a fair market value.
CNBC reported earlier this year that Comcast CEO Brian Roberts had floated the idea of Disney selling it ESPN as part of Hulu negotiations when prior Disney CEO Bob Chapek was still running the company. Disney declined those overtures at the time.
Other potential partners for Disney could theoretically include Apple, Google or Amazon, three companies with large balance sheets that have global streaming aspirations and already own sports content. Amazon owns the exclusive rights to the National Football League’s “Thursday Night Football.” Google’s YouTube TV will be the new home for the NFL’s “Sunday Ticket” beginning this season. Apple currently owns the streaming rights to “Friday Night Baseball” and all Major League Soccer games.
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal, which includes CNBC.
Lyft shares shed about 6% after the ride-sharing app reported lackluster fourth-quarter results and offered weak bookings guidance as it lowers prices to keep up with competition.
The company reported revenues of $1.55 billion, versus the $1.56 billion expected by analysts polled by LSEG. Revenues grew 27% from $1.22 billion a year ago. Bookings, which measures the charges posed to customers for rides and services, came in at $4.28 billion, behind a $4.32 billion FactSet estimate.
“I think what the future holds is great, because it’s a huge market, and we’re doing a great job,” CEO David Risher told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Wednesday. “We got to figure out how to get the traders on the bus.”
The company did beat expectations on fourth-quarter earnings, reporting an adjusted 29 cents per share compared to the LSEG expectation of 22 cents per share. The figure excluded certain amortization and compensation charges, and a gain from terminating a lease.
Lyft also said it anticipates a slowdown in gross bookings as it grapples with a lower pricing environment. The company expects bookings to range between $4.05 billion and $4.20 billion, versus a $4.24 billion FactSet forecast.
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During the earnings call, Chief Financial Officer Erin Brewer said the company lowered prices and used discounts in the end of the year to keep up with the market. Ongoing pricing headwinds could lead to a low single-digit percentage point impact on gross bookings, she added.
Brewer also said that the end of its partnership with Delta Air Lines will weigh on rides and gross bookings in the 1% to 2% range during the second quarter.
Last week, Uber shares also declined on mixed fourth-quarter results and soft guidance. The ridesharing competitor also signaled that it may take years to build out and commercialize autonomous vehicles.
Lyft reported net income of $62.8 million for the period, or 15 cents per share. That’s compared to a loss of $26.3 million a year ago, a loss of 7 cents per share.
During the fourth quarter, Lyft also recorded 24.7 million active riders, ahead of the 24.6 million StreetAccount estimate.
Alongside the results, the company announced a $500-million share repurchase plan and said it aims to roll out its Mobileye-powered taxis as soon as 2026 in Dallas.
Texas-based neurotech startup Paradromics on Wednesday announced a strategic partnership with Saudi Arabia’s Neom and said it will establish a Brain-Computer Interface Center of Excellence in the region.
Neom is a developing area within northwest Saudi Arabia that’s touted as “a hub for innovation,” according to its website. The area’s strategic investment arm, the Neom Investment Fund, led the partnership. Paradromics declined to disclose the investment amount.
Paradromics is building a brain-computer interface, or a BCI, which is a system that deciphers brain signals and translates them into commands for external technologies. The company will work with Neom to “advance the development of BCI-based therapies” and set up the “premier center for BCI-based healthcare” in the Middle East and North Africa, it said in a release.
“Working together, we can accelerate the rate of innovation in BCI and expand access to impactful BCI-based therapies.” Paradromics CEO Matt Angle said in a statement.
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Paradromics is one of several companies racing to commercialize BCIs, including Elon Musk’s startup Neuralink. Earlier this month, Neuralink announced it has implanted three human patients with its technology, according to a blog post. Precision Neuroscience and Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates-backed Synchron have also implanted their systems in humans.
None of these companies have secured the FDA’s final stamp of approval.
Paradromics’ BCI, the Connexus Direct Data Interface, is an array of tiny electrodes designed to be implanted directly into the brain tissue. The system could eventually help patients with severe paralysis regain their ability to communicate by deciphering their neural signals.
The company is gearing up to launch its first human trial this year, and announced its official patient registry in July. Paradromics’ technology has not yet been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and it still has a long way to go before commercialization. In 2023, the company received the FDA’s Breakthrough Device designation, which aims to help accelerate the go-to-market process.
Watch: Inside Paradromics, the Neuralink competitor hoping to commercialize brain implants before the end of the decade
Apple CEO Tim Cook delivers remarks before the start of an Apple event at the Apple headquarters in Cupertino, California, on Sept. 9, 2024.
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images
Apple is deepening its investment in health-care research by launching a new, years-long project called the Apple Health Study, the company announced on Wednesday.
The study will analyze how data from devices like iPhones, AirPods and Apple Watches can monitor, manage and predict changes in users’ health. It will also explore connections between different components of health, like how mental health affects heart rate, for instance.
The Apple Health Study is the first major health research project the company has announced since it unveiled the Apple Women’s Health Study, the Apple Hearing Study and the Apple Heart and Movement Study in 2019. Those projects are ongoing, and they’ve inspired many of the health features that Apple has introduced in recent years.
Apple rolled out a hearing test in the fall, for instance, which was developed using insights from the Apple Hearing Study, the company said.
The new study will likely influence future product development. Apple CEO Tim Cook previously said he believes health features will be the company’s “most important contribution to mankind.”
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“We’re thrilled to bring forward the Apple Health Study, which will only accelerate our understanding of health and technology across the human body, both physically and mentally,” Dr. Sumbul Desai, Apple’s vice president of health, said in a statement.
The Apple Health Study will be available through the company’s Research app, and participation is voluntary. Users will select each data type they’re willing to share with researchers, and they can stop sharing or completely discontinue their participation at any time.
Apple has no access to participants’ identifiable information, the company said.
Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School and a research hospital, is collaborating with Apple on the study. The project will last at least five years and may expand past that.
“We’ve only just begun to scratch the surface of how technology can improve our understanding of human health,” Dr. Calum MacRae, the principal investigator of the study at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, said in a statement.