Bob Chapek
Chief Executive Officer at Walt Disney
Thank you, Alexia. And good afternoon, everyone. Fiscal 2022 was a strong year for our company as we continued our journey of telling incredible Disney stories utilizing groundbreaking technology in order to further develop our brands and franchises while customizing and personalizing experiences to make magical memories that last a lifetime. Those efforts resulted in truly phenomenal storytelling. Record annual results at our Parks, Experiences and Products segment. An outstanding growth at our direct-to-consumer services, which added nearly 57 million subscriptions this year to reach a total of more than 235 million.
We are particularly pleased with growth in the fourth-quarter which saw the addition of 14.6 million subscriptions across our suite of services, including 12 million Disney Plus subscriptions, over 9 million of which were core Disney Plus. It has taken just three short years for Disney Plus to transform from a nascent business to an industry-leader. That transformation is the direct result of the strategic decision we made at launch to heavily invest in our direct-to-consumer offering. A decision made knowing that achieving rapid growth would result in short-term losses. Building a streaming powerhouse has required significant investment, and now, with its scale, incredible content pipeline and global reach, Disney Plus is well situated to leverage our position for long-term profitability and success.
Our financial results this quarter represent a turning point as we reached peak DTC operating losses, which we expect to decline going-forward. That expectation is based on three factors. First, the benefit of both price increases and the launch of the Disney Plus ad tier next month. Second, a realignment of our cost, including meaningful rationalization of our marketing spend. And third, leveraging our learnings and experience in direct-to-consumer to optimize our content slate and distribution approach to deliver a steady-state of high-impact releases that efficiently drive engagement and subscriber acquisition.
With these factors, we believe we are on a path to profitable streaming business that generates shareholder value long into the future. And assuming we do not see a meaningful shift in the economic climate, we still expect Disney Plus to achieve profitability in fiscal 2024, as losses begin to shrink in the first-quarter of fiscal 2023. Christine will go into more detail on the drivers of our direct-to-consumer operating performance and provide more insight into our expectations going-forward and some of our key assumptions. But first, I'd like to share a few highlights from the quarter.
Q4 was another strong period for Parks, Experiences and Products, which continue to deliver phenomenal results despite the impact of Hurricane Ian. I want to thank the amazing cast members in Orlando who went above and beyond to help keep our guests safe and entertained during the storm. From protecting the many animals at Disney Animal Kingdom, to packing thousands of meal kits, to donating and delivering emergency supplies to the community. I am so proud of how our team came together to support our guests, our neighbors and each other.
Our Park's team is laser-focused on enhancing the guest experience in creating those magical memories I mentioned at the outset. This focus, along with the investments we made to bringing new attractions and experiences to our domestic parks is generating consistently strong demand, which on many days exceeds our current capacity. And we continue to manage attendance levels with a focus on providing guests with the highest-quality experience and enhancing our parks' overall financial performance.
One of the things that our guests love most is the opportunity to celebrate at our parks as evidenced by the postpandemic return and sell-out of special ticketed events like Oogie Boogie Bash and Mickey's Not So scary Halloween Party. I visited a Disneyland with my family just before Halloween and the celebration was phenomenal. Tickets for Mickey's Very Merry Christmas party at Walt Disney World has now officially gone on sale and over half of all dates have already sold-out.
As you know, we are about to embark on the company's 100th anniversary celebration. The fun kicks off at our parks on January 27 at Disneyland where we'll unveil new platinum infused decor, premier two all new nighttime spectaculars, and open the highly anticipated Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway attraction. This is only one part of what will be the largest cross-company celebration in Disney's history with activations around the world. And we're so excited for fans and families to join us.
At our international parks, Disneyland Paris is enjoying a great resurgence. Our fantastic new Marvel's Avengers Campus opened on July 20th and guests love the highly immersive and dynamic environment of the first-ever Marvel theme land in Europe. Prior to the recent closure of Shanghai Disney Resort, we are seeing positive momentum there and at Hong-Kong Disneyland. We are hopeful that the situation will improve and are thinking of all of our employees their as we manage through the challenging COVID environment.
Our Disney Cruise Line is showing strong signs of recovery. The new Disney Wish is in high-demand, and we've seen a ramp-up in bookings for our base fleet.
This quarter was also exceptionally strong in terms of creative excellence across our content engines. Our teams received 57 Emmy awards spread across a remarkable 37 different titles, emanating from a wide range of brands, franchises and distribution channels. ABC ended the season as number-one in entertainment programing for the third consecutive year and ABC News continues to be the most trusted source of news with number-one positions across all dayparts.
Theatrically, Thor Love and Thunder, the characters for stand-alone film, earned over $760 million worldwide. This is our first time we released a fourth film-based on single Marvel character, and Thor's longevity is a great sign for Marvel and her ability to tell stories based on its characters long into the future.
The fourth-quarter was also the first time in Disney history that we released tentpole original content from Disney, Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar and National Geographic, an indication that we are now at full cadence of new releases as we hit our steady-state. As evidence, Hocus Pocus 2 was a smash hit, becoming not only the most-watched premiere on Disney Plus, but also a new record-setting streaming movie with 2.7 billion minutes viewed in its first weekend.
In Marvel Studios, Ms. Marvel completed its run in July. And She Hulk Attorney at Law debuted in August, contributing to subscriber growth and driving substantial engagement. Lucasfilm's Andor, a spy thriller that explores the back story of Cassian Andor, a popular character from Rogue One earned rave reviews and showcases our ability to extend stories from the big screen to our streaming services.
Turning to general entertainment. The critically acclaimed Prey from 20th Century Studios was Hulu's biggest premier ever across all films and series and was the most-watched film premiere on Star Plus in Latin-America and Disney Plus under the Star banner and all other territories. Looking ahead, we are thrilled that audiences are returning to the box office for blockbuster films and we have big plans for the big screen in the fiscal year 2023.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever opens this Friday and Ryan Coogler has delivered yet another culture defining powerful film. The reaction to this films premiere a few weeks ago was incredible and fan anticipation is very-high as indicated by the strength of advance ticket sales.
Up next, is Strange World from Walt Disney Animation Studios, which opens in theaters this Thanksgiving. The highly-anticipated Avatar: The Way of Water opens on December 16 and is the sequel to the highest-grossing film of all-time. James Cameron and his team have once again created something truly magical using groundbreaking technology. Audiences are as excited as we are to return to Pandora, and given the strong performance of September re-release of the original Avatar, we can't wait for the film to hit screens.
Our Searchlight studio continues to deliver critically acclaimed films and three fantastic titles will be in theaters this quarter. The Banshees of Inisherin, which has earned critical acclaims since it's Venice premiere. The Menu, starring Ralph Fiennes and Anya Taylor-Joy. And the Empire of Light from Academy Award winner Sam Mendes.
Looking even further into 2023, we'll see theatrical releases of three highly-anticipated Marvel films Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, and The Marvels. And we could not be more excited about Disney live-action's The Little Mermaid, a reimagining of one of the most popular animated films of all-time, starring Halle Bailey, whose rendition A Part of Your World has already lit up the internet. We're also bringing 999 Happy Haunts to life with a hilarious, new live-action haunted mansion featuring an all-star cast.
Pixar will debut an all new original feature Elemental, and Harrison Ford is back in the eagerly awaited fifth Indiana Jones film, which is going to be spectacular. Of course, all of our theatrical titles will eventually make their way onto our streaming platforms, complementing our robust slate of original content. Zootopia Plus, a new series from Disney Animation debuts tomorrow along with Save Our Squad, an original series from the UK that sees soccer David Beckham return home to mentor a grassroots team of young boys struggling to survive in their league.
On November 18, Disney Plus will release Disenchanted, based on the successful Enchanted that came out 15 years ago. Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special will follow right after. And Willow, another long-awaited sequel from Lucasfilms will premiere the following week. We are so fortunate to have an abundance of content from all of our creative engines paired with a wealth of knowledge and insight into what resonates with our fans. As we move forward, we will increasingly leverage that knowledge to refine our distribution decisions in order to best serve our audience and maximize the return on our content investments.
Turning to sports. ESPN was the number one cable network in total day in prime viewing amongst audiences aged 18 to 49 in Q4. And the Walt Disney Company was responsible for 40% of sports hours watched amongst that age bracket, the biggest share of any family of networks. ESPN continues to lead with its multiplatform sports ecosystem with reach across linear, streaming, digital and social media serving fans at massive scale. With the power and support of the Walt Disney Company behind it, ESPN is an unequaled reach machine. And the business is well-positioned to our strategic portfolio of long-term rights agreements with an eye to remaining disciplined in our approach.
We recently-announced an extension with Formula One through 2025, which is one of the fastest-growing sports properties and is on pace to surpass last year's record audience on ESPN. The 2022 college football season is off to its best nine week start in five years across our networks. And thanks to our incoming SEC agreement in 2024, we will remain the leading college football platform with over 60% of the college football market. And our new long-term NFL agreement includes Super Bowls, an annual ESPN Plus exclusive match up, and more regular-season playoff games and better scheduling.
On October 30, we marked another milestone moment in our DTC streaming services and the growth of ESPN Plus when the Broncos vs Jaguars NFL game from London became our most viewed ESPN Plus event ever.
Finally, we are exactly one month from the US launch of Disney Plus's ad-supported subscription offering, which is a win for audiences, advertisers and shareholders. The launch will bring fans a new slate of subscription plans across Disney Plus, Hulu, ESPN Plus and the Disney Bundle, giving viewers flexibility in choosing an option that suits their needs. The offering also adds a key component to our total company advertising portfolio and advertiser interest has been strong.
We have been a leader in streaming advertising for some time and our bringing our years of experience leading ad-tech and relationships to this important opportunity. Disney Plus has secured more than 100 advertisers for our domestic launch window spanning a wide range of categories and our company has over 8,000 existing relationships with advertisers who will have the opportunity to advertise on Disney Plus.
Strong based pricing reflects the value advertisers put on our audience, our brand safe environment for their messages and our sales experience. We also have proven technology to deliver a great advertising experience on day-one. And importantly, we have the ability to scale and innovate for audiences and advertisers alike. We are incredibly excited about the launch of our new ad-supported subscription offering for Disney Plus, which rolls out on December 8th.
2022 was an important year of recovery coming out-of-the pandemic as we made foundational investments in our long-term success. As we celebrate the three-year anniversary of Disney Plus this week, I can't help but reflect upon how our commitment to and substantial investments in our DTC business has helped create the world's most powerful suite of streaming services with the ability to reach hundreds of millions of viewers around the world with must-see content.
Services which aren't just Content Delivery Systems, but platforms that bring us closer to audiences than ever before and enable consumers to access more of the Walt Disney Company's total offering. With our unmatched brands and franchises, robust pipeline of content capable of filling all of our distribution channels, unique experiences and strong connections to audiences around the world, I believe we are well-positioned for future long-term growth and I'm confident in the path forward.
With that, I'll turn it over to Christine to talk in greater detail about our quarter and the year ahead.
