Domestic subscription rates for Disney’s flagship streaming service have slowed to a crawl after the entertainment conglomerate engaged in left-wing political causes.
Although Disney reported on Wednesday that total subscriptions for Disney+ increased from 87.6 million to 93.6 million during the third quarter of its current fiscal year, the vast majority of the growth arose from international users, with only 100,000 new subscriptions coming from Americans. The latest figures represent a significant slowdown from the 1.5 million new domestic subscribers added by Disney during its fiscal second quarter.
Indeed, toward the conclusion of the second quarter — which, for Disney, ended on April 2 — the company leaped into the fray of contentious left-wing political battles. Beyond vowing to “take action” against the state of Texas for officials’ orders to investigate transgender procedures upon children as child abuse, Disney opposed parental rights legislation in Florida signed by Republican Governor Ron DeSantis banning classroom instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity from kindergarten to third grade.
“Our goal as a company is for this law to be repealed by the legislature or struck down in the courts, and we remain committed to supporting the national and state organizations working to achieve that,” a Disney spokesman told The Daily Wire.
Despite its fervent activism, Disney appeared to be drastically out of step with the American public. In an exclusive poll from The Daily Wire, 64% of Americans — including 62% of Democrats and 57% of independents — supported the Florida law.
In response, DeSantis repeatedly vowed that Disney would “never run this state” during his tenure and signed legislation nixing the Reedy Creek Improvement District — a 39-square-mile special governing and tax district near Orlando, Florida, that hosted Disney World.
“Someone said Disney has all these special perks,” DeSantis explained. “Should you retaliate against them for them coming out and demagoguing this bill? I don’t believe you ‘retaliate,’ but I think what I would say is, as a matter of first principle, I don’t support special privileges in law just because a company is powerful, and they’ve been able to wield a lot of power.”
Meanwhile, a Disney producer openly boasted about her “not-at-all secret gay agenda,” as well as the company’s efforts to infuse children’s productions with LGBTQ content. Disney launched a “Pride collection” of rainbow-colored merchandise for children in late May.
Disney is by no means the only American corporation facing backlash from consumers for promoting LGBTQ content. Insurance company State Farm was forced to back down after outrage over its plan to donate books about transgenderism to schools and public libraries for children as young as five years old, while streaming service Netflix elected to take a hardline stance against censorship amid employee backlash to a comedy special from Dave Chappelle critical of transgenderism.
Though many Americans want companies to advance certain causes beyond their bottom lines, another exclusive poll from The Daily Wire recently showed that most American investors would rather see companies pursue profits rather than pontificating on political matters. While 29% of respondents to the poll agreed it is a “good thing” for companies to leverage their financial power for political or social means supported by executives, 58% — twice as many — said it is a “bad thing.”
(Disclosure: The Daily Wire has announced plans for kids entertainment content.)
Source: Dailywire
