The short version

Michael Nathanson predicted on November 21, 2019: “Our view here is that the next five years are going to be great for consumers, for producers, for people who own facilities, anyone doing hair and makeup. There’s never going to be a more plentiful time for quality content. Disney’s going to go from almost twenty billion dollars to twenty-four billion in…

Prediction by

Michael Nathanson

On November 21, 2019

“Our view here is that the next five years are going to be great for consumers, for producers, for people who own facilities, anyone doing hair and makeup. There’s never going to be a more plentiful time for quality content. Disney’s going to go from almost twenty billion dollars to twenty-four billion in the next four or five years on original content — that’s going to fuel Disney Plus and Hulu and ESPN Plus. AT&T had an investor day earlier this month; they’re also gonna grow by another about four or five billion dollars. Netflix, in our model, there’s another five or six billion dollars of P&L to come… so together there’s about twenty billion dollars or more in program expense to come. What’s gonna happen in the next five years: this industry is going to create another Disney in order to try to win the hearts and minds of all those consumers who are cutting the cord because the price is too high.”

Follow-up

Disney, Netflix, WarnerMedia/AT&T and other streamers did substantially increase content spending by many billions of dollars, launching and expanding Disney+, HBO Max, Peacock, Paramount+, etc.; industry analyses widely document a roughly $20B+ incremental streaming content arms race over this period, consistent with his “create another Disney” framing. Consumers saw an unprecedented “plentiful time for quality content” with dozens of high-budget streaming originals. However, by 2022–2024, the industry shifted from “growth at all costs” to profitability discipline and content spending pullbacks, especially at legacy media streamers that accumulated heavy DTC losses—so the first half of his five-year window was strongly validated, while the latter half brought a correction.

From the High Caliber AI network — see the AI for PR module in the course.