Disney Earnings Coverage Disappoints
NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- You don't have to be a financial journalism forensic specialist to chip away at media coverage of
Disney's
(DIS) - Get Report
earnings, reported yesterday.
Reuters, for example, said right in their first sentence that the company's movie studio put in a "poor showing," later adding that company also has been trying to boost the movie studio's performance, which implies a failed effort.Ouch. That take is simply too harsh and simplistic. The New York Times, by contrast, got it right with this more measured assessment: "Moviemaking was more of mixed picture."
Revenues in the division were light, but, as The Financial Times made clear in its first sentence, Disney purposefully released fewer movies. That was part of an ongoing strategy to firm up profitability (and it's already helping), as well as adding a greater degree of predictability to results. As everyone besides the media seems to know, movies add a crapshoot element to earnings. Toward that end, Motley Fool added what The Financial Times failed to: "The studio segment faced the impossible task of replacing both Tangled and Tron: Legacy."
That was good. The media falls for it all the time, but you can't get too up or down by the performance of a studio division. There is a random element to movie performance. Comparisons help keep it all in perspective.
While Reuters fell short on the movie issue, the company was one of the few who at least mentioned Disney's cruise business as something to keep an eye on, considering the
Carnival Cruise
(CCL.N)
tragedy and cases of mass stomach illness that are already impacting
Royal Caribbean
(RCL.N)
. In the final estimation, Disney's cruise business might forge on untouched. But it doesn't cost anything to stay vigilant.
At the time of publication, Fuchs had no positions in any of the stocks mentioned in this column.
Marek Fuchs was a stockbroker for Shearson Lehman Brothers and a money manager before becoming a journalist who wrote The New York Times' "County Lines" column for six years. He also did back-up beat coverage of The New York Knicks for the paper's Sports section for two seasons and covered other professional and collegiate sports. He has contributed frequently to many of the Times' other sections, including National, Metro, Escapes, Style, Real Estate, Arts & Leisure, Travel, Money & Business, Circuits and the Op-Ed Page.
For his "Business Press Maven" column on how business and finance are covered by the media, Fuchs was named best business journalist critic in the nation by the Talking Biz website at The University of North Carolina School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Fuchs is a frequent speaker on the business media, in venues ranging from National Public Radio to the annual conference of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers.
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