Good afternoon!

The Medium delivers in-depth analyses of the media marketplace’s transformation as creators, tech companies and 10 million emerging advertisers revolutionize the business models for “premium content”.

On Tuesday Disney touted “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” as “the most watched music film in Disney+’s history.” But, the numbers are not great: the 3.5-hour movie achieved 4.6 million views and 16.2 million hours watched in its first three days on Disney+. As What’s On Netflix’s Kasey Moore noted on Twitter, the Netflix movie “Damsel” (starring Millie Bobbie Brown, Robin Wright and Angela Bassett) had 35.3 million views in its first three days. 

The views for both movies were global and not exclusive to the U.S.. Had they been, Disney would have a good story in Nielsen U.S. streaming ratings (which are measured by minutes): 972 million minutes watched would be over 10x the performance of its animated Pixar movie “Turning Red” for the week ending February 18, 2024. It would be 35x the musical “Hamilton” for that same week. Competitively, it would have more views than Netflix’s top series “Love Is Blind” (907 million minutes) and 2x Netflix’s movie “Lover, Stalker, Killer” (470 million minutes) that same week. And, that would be only for three days of viewing.

Streaming growth is driven by hits and both Swift’s movie and Eras Tour—which pulled in an estimated $1 billion in gross ticket sales in 2023 and through 2024 is expected to exceed $2 billion—have been hits outside of Disney+. But, on Disney+, it seems to have captured a much smaller—though highly engaged— audience base. 4.6 million views is not great optics for megastar Taylor Swift.

Disney reportedly paid more than $75 million to Taylor Swift or almost 30% of what $261.7 million the movie grossed at the box office. Iger had confidently sold this bet to investors on the FY Q1 2024 earnings call: “We know audiences are going to absolutely love the chance to relive the electrifying ‘Taylor Swift: Eras Tour (Taylor’s Version)’ whenever they want on Disney+.” In other words, the $75 million is expected to deliver both engagement—which advertisers especially value— and growth.

But, the initial data from Disney—and new data from Nielsen, Deloitte and Antenna—suggest engagement from cohorts of Taylor Swift fans may be the best outcome for Disney. "The Eras Tour" is one among many streaming options for consumers, despite Taylor Swift's megastar status. As former CEO Bob Chapek—Iger’s successor and predecessor—previously suggested to investors, streaming consumers increasingly need more from a subscription than content because they can increasingly find compelling content elsewhere, like on Tubi, for free. 

So what will this $75 million accomplish for Disney shareholders? The short answer is: Not enough.

Key Takeaway

Whatever Disney’s calculus for ROI on its $75 million investment may be for the “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” for Disney+, recent research suggests that calculus may be wrong. Gen Z and millenials—crucial audience segments for growth—seem unsentimental for what Disney used to be.

Total words: 1,400

Total time reading: 6 minutes