The Walt Disney Company plans to increase its overall spending on content to US$33 billion for its fiscal year of 2022, which began on October 1, Variety reported. Details on the company’s previous year and forecast for the coming year were revealed in its annual report, which was filed to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Wednesday.
The US$33 billion figure marks an uptick of approximately US$8 billion to the company’s fiscal 2021 spending, which reportedly tallied up to $25 billion. The boost is driven by the company’s intention to expand its reach on streaming through its Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ platforms, but it also includes sports rights and other content.
“The increase is driven by higher spend to support our DTC expansion and generally assumes no significant disruptions to production due to Covid-19,” the company wrote in the annual report. As of October 2, the group had around 179 million subscribers across its three main streaming products: Disney+ (118 million, up from 73.7 million a year ago), Hulu (44 million, up from 36.6 million), and ESPN+ (17 million, up from 10.3 million).
The company also disclosed how many films and TV shows it plans to release in 2022. Disney’s Studios division plans to present around 50 titles for theatrical release and on its direct-to-consumer platforms, while its General Entertainment division intends to produce or commission 60 unscripted series, 30 comedy series, 25 drama series, 15 docuseries/limited series, ten animated series and five made-for-TV movies in fiscal 2022.
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