Welcome back to What I’m Hearing+, live from The Beacon Theater in Manhattan for Tim Robinson’s I Think You Should Leave tour. Robinson, who never really broke out on SNL during the Cecily Strong/Kate McKinnon era, is one of the best examples of Netflix’s ability to create international stars. Almost as added proof of concept, Robinson and ITYSL co-creator Zach Kanin announced a new series today—at HBO, home of the comedy giants.

Tonight, however, we’re talking about Disney. On the eve of the shareholder proxy vote pitting Bob Iger against Nelson Peltz, an evaluation of how the company’s streaming business is really performing: what Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+ are getting right; where Iger has gone wrong; and what the company needs to focus on now.

But first… a quick Netflix legal update from my partner Eriq Gardner…

• Inventing Rachel: Netflix is once again in hot water over a dramatization of a true story. In Delaware federal court, a judge has given the green light for libel claims over Inventing Anna, the Shonda Rhimes-produced series about Instagram influencer Anna Sorokin, also known as Anna Delvey, who masqueraded as a wealthy German heiress, duping New York’s affluent circles. The suit was filed by Rachel Williams, a former Vanity Fair staffer who felt unfairly portrayed as an opportunistic and avaricious Sorokin confidante. (Williams is also the author of her own memoir, My Friend Anna.) Netflix defended its portrayal, arguing that much of the content was truthful and that something like “disloyalty” cannot be proven false. Well, guess again. U.S. District Court Judge Colm Connolly deemed Williams’ libel claim to be plausible, particularly the scenes showing her semi-fictional counterpart leaving Sorokin in a distressed state.

  This is just the latest in a litany of defamation cases faced by Netflix, a trend I’ve previously highlighted and will do so until people understand that the No. 1 libel target in America actually isn’t owned by Rupert Murdoch. (Psst… Netflix is headed to a libel trial on May 6!) Notably, this case, like others, revolves around a peripheral character. It’s often the fringe people who pose the most significant legal threats to dramatizations and biopics. Remember, Sony had to pay off a former girlfriend of Mark Zuckerberg following the release of The Social Network. —Eriq Gardner

Indeed, Disney’s subscriber growth has stagnated across its platforms in the U.S., hovering around the 45-46 million mark over the past year and a half—about 43 percent below Netflix’s 80 million members in the U.S. and Canada. Meanwhile, Disney’s international growth has also paled in comparison to Netflix’s. And while Disney is cutting costs and moving toward profitability in the D.T.C. division, it simply hasn’t created enough new initiatives to push the business into its next stage of adoption (further growth) and engagement (longer session times). According to Nielsen, Disney+ also hasn’t surpassed 2 percent of streaming viewership share in the U.S. over the past year, while the percentage of total time spent on streaming in general has continued to increase.

Even more concerning: Competitors are coming from all directions. Previously underestimated rivals, like Peacock, are seeing strong growth, according to Antenna, led by live sports. But the free, ad-supported platforms, like YouTube and Tubi, are where the potential next generation of Disney fans are really spending their time. YouTube, which retained Nielsen’s top streaming destination spot in January for the 12th month in a row, is absolutely dominating children’s viewership time.

Consequently, the value perception of streaming services is changing. As former WarnerMedia C.E.O. Jason Kilar noted this weekend on X, the “two metrics that reveal the health and direction of media properties” are the number of people who used a service yesterday, and how long they stayed on the platform.

Disney’s streaming platforms—Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+—need to perform better on both of those metrics, for the sake of growing ad revenue, and to reduce churn and justify higher pricing. But the path to profitability won’t be found on a proxy battle slide deck. As ever, the devil is in the details… and it will also require revisiting some of the cardinal philosophies governing not only Disney+, but Disney as a whole.

Bundling its various services is an obvious differentiator. And while some of these synergies are still coming to fruition—to wit: Hulu on Disney+ or the inevitable ESPN OTT bundle—the parent company does have the unique potential to package its offerings to create a more frictionless experience that reduces churn, increases engagement, leverages one tech stack, and optimizes advertising across platforms. Imagine an interface that permits a picture-in-picture screen, launched via Disney+, that allows for a Monday Night Football game in one window and an episode of Bluey in the other, keeping the entire family on one screen and advertisers reaching more than one group.

Brand recognition is one of the most vexing challenges in streaming, but Disney+ and Hulu have two of the highest familiarity scores among consumers, according to a survey conducted by The Quorum for Puck last year. Additionally, Disney owned three of the five highest-recalled series (shows that respondents could correctly place on the corresponding platform) in The Mandalorian, Loki, and Only Murders in the Building. By juxtaposition, Netflix and Amazon each had one (Wednesday and Jack Ryan, respectively).

And no one does buzz like Disney. Even in a down year, Disney had three of the top 10 grossing movies in theaters, more than any other studio, and six of the top 10 positions on the Nielsen Pay-1 rankings (e.g., movies that came to streamers after a theatrical release), with 343 million minutes of viewing, according to analyst Entertainment Strategy Guy. Netflix, which has a Pay-1 deal with Sony, placed three titles in the top 10, with 127 million minutes amassed. Meanwhile, Disney has embedded its I.P. everywhere, both on and off its channels: Mandalorian and Loki are part of Disney’s most identifiable verticals. These I.P. houses don’t just generate significant coverage or dominate social media feeds, but they take over full attention cycles. Baby Yoda appears in Minecraft. Captain America is playable in Fortnite. Comic book tie-ins are created. All roads lead back to Disney+.

Recall that when the streaming wars began in earnest, back in 2019, companies like Disney, Apple, Paramount, NBCUniversal, and WarnerMedia all tried to lean on top I.P. and A-list casting to steal attention from Netflix and convert paying subscribers—and fast. Back then, Disney+ signed up more than 10 million customers within its first 24 hours on the back of nothing more than library titles and The Mandalorian. And, of course, a launch partnership with Verizon. But as those companies continued to mine their I.P.—often spending north of $10 million an episode for limited series—Netflix pivoted, reducing its spend on originals and licensing library programming from competitors who needed cash to invest in their ostensibly streaming-first futures.

Amid this reorientation, Disney’s streaming mistakes—creative missteps, an inability to meet expectations, and a lack of supportive slate building—became more glaring. Outside of animated classics, the Disney+ catalog hasn’t generated significant, ongoing demand. Its new original series have a relatively short life. Willow, National Treasure: Edge of History, The Crossover, Turner & Hooch, American Born Chinese, and The Muppets Mayhem each ran only one season. Other series, like the gender-swapped remake of Doogie Howser, ran for two seasons but never charted on Nielsen. Marvel miniseries like The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and WandaVision did chart, but cost more than $100 million to produce and demonstrated strong decay—that is, audiences rarely revisit them, which is the case with most premium dramas.

What’s really been lost in Disney’s streaming strategy is slate building—the effort to keep audiences engaged over many months, with multiple sessions throughout the week. That’s difficult for all streamers; it’s even more difficult for Disney+, a niche product compared with Netflix or Hulu. Meeting this challenge requires strong creative execution, data collection, machine learning, and personalization to meet the specific interests of viewers while still programming for the cultural zeitgeist. It’s a reminder that Disney needs to return to what people want from their TV time. Presumably, both Iger and Peltz agree on this. And if the company’s TV chief, Dana Walden, executes on the right strategy, she’ll likely take pole position in the Iger succession bake-off.

Short term, Disney needs to find ways to increase overall engagement on its platforms domestically and determine what countries are good targets for direct streaming investment versus partnerships or licensing. Long term, however, Disney must turn its services into command centers. You’re already seeing this play out with teases of ESPN’s OTT platform, which is set to feature integrated betting, directories for regional sports networks, and fantasy sports. Even if ESPN is directing you elsewhere, the goal is to make it the home app for all your sports needs. (This isn’t a novel idea, of course. Apple and Amazon are also trying to build the same type of command centers.)

But it can’t just be ESPN. Disney could link directly to Epic Games’ new digital Disney universe directly via the app; it can partner with platforms like TikTok to identify clips that include Disney-owned content and, instead of issuing copyright takedowns, attach “Watch more on Disney+” buttons to try and convert that attention. Disney is struggling to figure out how to capture more time spent with video, but long-term success is determining how to be the focal point of attention on a device, regardless of what people are trying to use it for.

The reality is that Disney’s success in streaming requires another transformational moment. Perhaps that explains the anxiety that undergirds both the proxy battle and the succession question. The Disney that exists now can’t be the Disney that exists in a decade, but the company can’t lose what makes it a quintessential brand in the process. That’s something Nelson Peltz doesn’t seem to understand.