Disney’s Downfall: The Rise and Fall of an Entertainment Giant

Disney’s Downfall: The Rise and Fall of an Entertainment Giant

Hollywood has been decimated by the rise of streaming. At Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount, and Sony, profits on TV, film, and streaming went from $23 billion in 2013 to about zero in 2023. Nothing tells this story more clearly than a brief history of Disney. In the early 2000s, Disney under CEO Bob Iger went on one of the most extraordinary runs in modern business history. ESPN was the most valuable network in the cable bundle. They acquired Pixar, Marvel, LucasFilms, and Fox. As the company shifted to streaming, it seemed set up to lap Netflix and eat the box office at the same time. But today, Disney’s stock is at a nine-year low. Operating margins are down 75 percent. Disney+ lost $4 billion last year. What happened to America’s greatest entertainment company? To discuss, we have two great guests: Julia Alexander, director of strategy for Parrot Analytics and a writer with Puck News, and Matthew Ball, a writer and investor and author of the book ‘The Metaverse.’ If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. Host: Derek Thompson Guests: Matthew Ball & Julia Alexander Producer: Devon Manze Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Episoder(352)

What Americans Get Wrong About ADHD

What Americans Get Wrong About ADHD

In 1937, a Rhode Island psychiatrist named Charles Bradley ran an experiment on 30 child patients who had complained of headaches. He gave them an amphetamine, that is a stimulant, called Benzedrine, ...

25 Apr 20251h 7min

An Astrophysicist Explains the "Strongest Evidence Yet" of Alien Life

An Astrophysicist Explains the "Strongest Evidence Yet" of Alien Life

Last week, a team of astrophysicists from the University of Cambridge announced that they had discovered the “strongest indication” ever of extraterrestrial life. The source did not come from Mars or ...

22 Apr 20251h 4min

A Toy Manufacturer Explains How Trump’s Tariffs Could Crush His Industry

A Toy Manufacturer Explains How Trump’s Tariffs Could Crush His Industry

In the past three weeks, we've spoken to economists about the tariffs. We’ve spoken to a historian about the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act and the 100-year legacy of American protectionism. We've spoken to ...

17 Apr 202533min

Why America Will Lose Its Trade War With China

Why America Will Lose Its Trade War With China

The U.S. is in the opening innings of a full-blown trade war with China. What does that actually mean? What do we sell to China? What does China sell to us? How is each country dependent on the other ...

16 Apr 202543min

Plain History: The Smoot-Hawley Tariff and the Great Depression

Plain History: The Smoot-Hawley Tariff and the Great Depression

The 1920s and the 2020s share a special kinship. One hundred years ago, the U.S. was grappling with a mix of growth, technological splendor, and generational anxiety—a familiar cocktail (albeit, from ...

11 Apr 202550min

Trump’s Trade War Is Like Nothing America’s Ever Seen

Trump’s Trade War Is Like Nothing America’s Ever Seen

Donald Trump's tariff plan has set global markets on fire. What are they for? What are they trying to accomplish? Fresh off his black-out-rage session on CNBC, Derek talks to Matthew Klein, the autho...

8 Apr 202557min

Trump’s Plan to Smash the Global Economic Order

Trump’s Plan to Smash the Global Economic Order

Donald Trump's second term has been a breakneck whirlwind: tariffs announced, tariffs unannounced, tariffs reannounced, allies threatened, and global coalitions ripped apart. What sort of a world are ...

31 Mar 202554min

Plain History: The Gilded Age

Plain History: The Gilded Age

Corruption. Class wars. Technological splendor. The dawn of a new age of business and government. Rockefeller and Carnegie. The Gilded Age in America—roughly the 1870s through the early 1900s—was one ...

24 Mar 202559min

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