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PRE-MKT · 04:25 ET
Market ClerkRecap
Thu Oct 22 · pre-market2 signals on Oct 21108 insider buys this week · $250.3MCIRO short report next: Oct 31The week ahead

DIS

Walt Disney Co
NYSE · CONSUMER DISCRETIONARY · SERVICES-MISCELLANEOUS AMUSEMENT & RECREATION
111.83
+0.16 +0.14%
USD · Oct 22, 04:20 a.m. ET

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MKT CAP $193.1BP/E 23.1DIV YIELD —FCF YIELD 4.29%REV TTM $98.9B +4.6%NET INCOME $8.6B −25.5%NET DEBT $36.8B52W 92.42 – 116.65NEXT EARNINGS Nov 12 EST.SEC XBRL · TTM TO Invalid Date

How DIS rewrote its risk factors

10-K ITEM 1A · FY2024 → FY2025
Text kept
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Dropped
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New in FY2025

  • CRITICAL ACCOUNTING POLICIES AND ESTIMATES We believe that the application of the following accounting policies, which are important to our financial position and results of operations, require significant judgments and estimates on the part of management.
  • For a summary of our significant accounting policies, including the accounting policies discussed below, see Note 2 to the Consolidated Financial Statements.
  • Produced and Acquired/Licensed Content Costs We amortize and test for impairment capitalized film and television production costs based on whether the content is predominantly monetized individually or as a group.
  • See Note 2 to the Consolidated Financial Statements for further discussion.
  • Production costs that are classified as individual are amortized based upon the ratio of the current period’s revenues to the estimated remaining total revenues (Ultimate Revenues).
  • With respect to produced films intended for theatrical release, the most sensitive factor affecting our estimate of Ultimate Revenues is theatrical performance.
  • Revenues derived from other markets subsequent to the theatrical release are generally highly correlated with theatrical performance.
  • Theatrical performance varies primarily based upon the public interest and demand for a particular film, the popularity of competing films at the time of release and the level of marketing effort.
  • Upon a film’s release and determination of the theatrical performance, the Company’s estimates of revenues from succeeding windows and markets, which may include imputed license fees for content that is used on our DTC streaming services, are revised based on historical relationships and an analysis of current market trends.
  • With respect to capitalized television production costs that are classified as individual, the most sensitive factor affecting estimates of Ultimate Revenues is program ratings of the content on our licensees’ platforms.
  • Program ratings, which are an indication of market acceptance, directly affect the program’s ability to generate advertising and subscriber revenues and are correlated with the license fees we can charge for the content in subsequent windows and for subsequent seasons.
  • Ultimate Revenues are reassessed each reporting period and the impact of any changes on amortization of production cost is accounted for as if the change occurred at the beginning of the current fiscal year.
  • If our estimate of Ultimate Revenues decreases, amortization of costs may be accelerated or result in an impairment.
  • Conversely, if our estimate of Ultimate Revenues increases, cost amortization may be slowed.
  • Production costs classified as individual are tested for impairment at the individual title level by comparing that title’s unamortized costs to the present value of discounted cash flows directly attributable to the title.
  • To the extent the title’s unamortized costs exceed the present value of discounted cash flows, an impairment charge is recorded for the excess.
  • Produced content costs that are part of a group and acquired/licensed content costs are amortized based on projected usage, typically resulting in an accelerated or straight-line amortization pattern.
  • The determination of projected usage requires judgment and is reviewed on a regular basis for changes.
  • Adjustments to projected usage are applied prospectively in the period of the change.
  • Historical viewing patterns are the most significant input into determining the projected usage, and significant judgment is required in using historical viewing patterns to derive projected usage.
  • If projected usage changes we may need to accelerate or slow the recognition of amortization expense.
  • Cost of content that is predominantly monetized as a group is tested for impairment whenever events or changes in circumstances indicate that the fair value of the group may be less than its unamortized costs by comparing the present value of the discounted cash flows of the group to the aggregate unamortized costs of the group.
  • The group is established by identifying the lowest level for which cash flows are independent of the cash flows of other produced and licensed content.
  • If the unamortized costs exceed the present value of discounted cash flows, an impairment charge is recorded for the excess and allocated to individual titles based on the relative carrying value of each title in the group.
  • If there are no plans to continue to use an individual film or television program that is part of a group, the unamortized cost of the individual title is written down to its estimated fair value.
  • Licensed content is included as part of the group within which it is monetized for purposes of impairment testing.
  • The amortization of multi-year sports rights is based on projections of revenues for each season relative to projections of total revenues over the contract period (estimated relative value).
  • Projected revenues include advertising revenue and an allocation of affiliate revenue.
  • If the annual contractual payments related to each season approximate each season’s estimated relative value, we expense the related contractual payments during the applicable season.
  • If estimated relative values by year were to change significantly, amortization of our sports rights costs may be accelerated or slowed.
  • Revenue Recognition The Company has revenue recognition policies for its various operating segments that are appropriate to the circumstances of each business.
  • Refer to Note 2 to the Consolidated Financial Statements for our revenue recognition policies.
  • Pension and Postretirement Medical Plan Actuarial Assumptions The Company’s pension and postretirement medical benefit obligations and related costs are calculated using a number of actuarial assumptions.
  • Two critical assumptions, the discount rate and the expected return on plan assets, are important elements of expense and/or liability measurement, which we evaluate annually.
  • Other assumptions include the healthcare cost trend rate and employee demographic factors such as retirement patterns, mortality, turnover and rate of compensation increase.
  • The discount rate enables us to state expected future cash payments for benefits as a present value on the measurement date.
  • A lower discount rate increases the present value of benefit obligations and increases pension and postretirement medical expense.
  • The guideline for setting this rate is a high-quality long-term corporate bond rate.
  • We increased our discount rate to 5.45% at the end of fiscal 2025 from 5.06 % at the end of fiscal 2024 to reflect market interest rate conditions at our fiscal 2025 year-end measurement date.
  • The Company’s discount rate was determined by considering yield curves constructed of a large population of high-quality corporate bonds and reflects the matching of the plans’ liability cash flows to the yield curves.

and 799 more.

Gone since FY2024

  • REGULATION Federal Communications Commission Regulation Television broadcasting is subject to extensive regulation by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) under federal laws and regulations, including the Communications Act of 1934, as amended.
  • Violation of FCC regulations can result in substantial monetary fines, limited renewals of licenses and, in egregious cases, denial of license renewal or revocation of a license.
  • FCC regulations that affect linear channels include the following: • Licensing of television stations .
  • Each of the television stations we own must be licensed by the FCC.
  • These licenses are granted for periods of up to eight years, and we must obtain renewal of licenses as they expire in order to continue operating the stations.
  • We (and the acquiring entity in the case of a divestiture) must also obtain FCC approval whenever we seek to have a license transferred in connection with the acquisition or divestiture of a station.
  • The FCC may decline to renew or approve the transfer of a license in certain circumstances and may delay renewals while permitting a licensee to continue operating.
  • Although we have received such renewals and approvals in the past or have been permitted to continue operations when renewal is delayed, there can be no assurance that this will be the case in the future. • Station ownership limits .
  • The FCC imposes limitations on the number of television stations and radio stations an entity can own in a specific market, on the combined number of television and radio stations an entity can own in a single market and on the aggregate percentage of the national audience that can be reached by television stations.
  • Currently: ◦ FCC regulations may restrict our ability to own more than one television station in a market, depending on the size and nature of the market.
  • We do not own more than one television station in any market. ◦ Federal statutes permit our television stations in the aggregate to reach a maximum of 39% of the national audience.
  • Pursuant to the most recent decision by the FCC as to how to calculate compliance with this limit, our eight stations reach approximately 20% of the national audience. • Dual networks .
  • FCC rules currently prohibit any of the four major broadcast television networks — ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC — from being under common ownership or control. • Foreign ownership .
  • The Communications Act generally restricts foreign individuals or entities from collectively owning more than 25% of the voting or equity interest in a U.S. entity that controls a broadcast television license.
  • FCC approval is required to exceed the 25% threshold. • Regulation of programming .
  • The FCC regulates broadcast programming by, among other things, banning “indecent” programming, regulating political advertising and imposing commercial time limits during children’s programming.
  • Penalties for broadcasting indecent programming can be over $400,000 per indecent utterance or image per station.
  • Federal legislation and FCC rules also limit the amount of commercial matter that may be shown on broadcast or cable channels during programming designed for children 12 years of age and younger.
  • In addition, broadcast stations are generally required to provide an average of three hours per week of programming that has as a “significant purpose” meeting the educational and informational needs of children 16 years of age and younger.
  • FCC rules also give television station owners the right to reject or refuse network programming in certain circumstances or to substitute programming that the licensee reasonably believes to be of greater local or national importance. • Cable and satellite carriage of broadcast television stations.
  • With respect to MVPDs operating within a television station’s Designated Market Area, FCC rules require that every three years each television station elect either “must carry” status, pursuant to which MVPDs generally must carry a local television station in the station’s market, or “retransmission consent” status, pursuant to which the MVPDs must negotiate with the television station to obtain the consent of the television station prior to carrying its signal.
  • The ABC owned television stations have historically elected retransmission consent. • Cable and satellite carriage of programming.
  • The Communications Act and FCC rules regulate some aspects of negotiations between programmers and distributors regarding the carriage of networks by cable and satellite distribution companies, and some cable and satellite distribution companies have sought regulation of additional aspects of the carriage of programming on their systems.
  • New legislation, court action or regulation in this area could have an impact on the Company’s operations.
  • The foregoing is a brief summary of certain provisions of the Communications Act, other legislation and specific FCC rules and policies.
  • Reference should be made to the Communications Act, other legislation, FCC rules and public notices and rulings of the FCC for further information concerning the nature and extent of the FCC’s regulatory authority.
  • FCC laws and regulations are subject to change, and the Company generally cannot predict whether new legislation, court action or regulations, or a change in the extent of application or enforcement of current laws and regulations, would have an adverse impact on our operations.
  • Privacy and Data Protection Regulation Our businesses are subject to various privacy and data protection laws and regulations in most of the domestic and international jurisdictions in which our businesses operate.
  • Those laws and regulations govern our use, collection, storage, retention and sharing of personal information and vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, including within the U.S. at the federal level and among the 50 states.
  • This patchwork of domestic and international laws creates different obligations that are, at times, inconsistent with one another.
  • While there is no comprehensive privacy law in the U.S. at the federal level, there are a number of sector-specific federal privacy laws applicable to our operations, such as the Video Privacy Protection Act, which restricts the ability to share personal information along with specific viewing information with third parties.
  • In addition, various U.S. states, including California, have passed comprehensive data privacy laws that establish various consumer rights with respect to their personal information, including the right to opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information with third parties, to gain access to the personal information that companies hold about them, to delete personal information and to limit the use and disclosure of sensitive information.
  • We are also subject to privacy legal and regulatory requirements in many jurisdictions outside the United States, including the General Data Protection Regulation in the European Union and similar comprehensive data privacy legislation in the UK.
  • These laws require organizations that process the personal data of EU and UK citizens to comply with certain data protection standards and privacy rights, including requirements to implement privacy by design; parental consent for processing children’s data; detailed privacy notices and related consents; breach notifications; and data subject rights to enforce access, rectification, objection, restriction, portability and deletion.
  • We also are subject to laws and regulations that are intended to protect the privacy of children online, including the Children’s Online Protection Privacy Act, a U.S. federal law that requires websites and online services to obtain parental consent before collecting personal information from children under 13, as well as codes of conduct relating to the design of digital products and services likely to be accessed by children, such as the UK’s Age Appropriate Design Code.
  • These laws, regulations and codes of conduct have an impact on the marketing of our products and services, the advertising on certain of our and third-party digital platforms that distribute our content and the design of certain of our new media offerings.
  • In addition, U.S. state laws and many international data protection laws require notifications to consumers and regulators in the event of a data breach, mandating that businesses provide consumers and/or government agencies notice of unauthorized access or disclosure of certain information.
  • Interpretation of privacy and data protection laws and enforcement priorities continue to evolve and in some cases, regulators seek to apply novel interpretations of existing laws.
  • Compliance with privacy and data protection laws and regulations entails significant investments and is costly and requires us to employ dedicated compliance personnel and processes.
  • In addition, many of these laws and regulations provide for substantial fines, private rights of action for damages and other relief.

and 255 more.

Sentence-level comparison of Item 1A in the two most recent 10-Ks (FY2024 ↗, FY2025 ↗). A reworded sentence counts as one dropped and one added, so heavy edits read as low “kept”. Headings and page furniture are stripped; nothing is summarised by a model.

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