Hollywood is far better positioned to survive and thrive as the markets for television and movies evolve online than Wall Street expects, according to a new report from analysts at Morningstar.
Investors have grown concerned that the big producers of movies and TV shows face tough times ahead as the number of subscribers to traditional cable and satellite TV shrink. Younger adults are far less likely to subscribe and even older families are cutting back, as more and more viewership shifts to online entertainment like Netflix (NFLX), Hulu, and Google’s (GOOGL) YouTube.
Now, a host of new Internet-based cable replacement services are arriving from Sony (SNE), Dish Network (DISH), and others.
But Walt Disney, Time Warner, and Twenty-First Century Fox produce enough must-see TV programs and cable channels along with plenty of desirable older content in their libraries that they will be able “to remain relevant to any bundle and to render irrelevant any bundle without them,” the Morningstar report concludes. “We expect the impact of declining traditional bundle subscribers to be largely offset by subscribers to the new bundles over the long run.”
Get Data Sheet, Coins2Day’s technology newsletter.
The share prices of big entertainment companies have been extremely volatile over the past year as investors try to assess the winners and losers in the changing video ecosystem. Disney’s (DIS) stock is down 15% over the past year, while shares of Time Warner (TWX) and Twenty-First Century Fox (FOXA) have each lost 16%.
That has left the companies dramatically undervalued, Morningstar says. Disney would have to rise 36% to reach the analysts’ “fair value” for the stock of $134. Time Warner would have to gain 15% to hit its target of $85. Twenty-First Century Fox is 28% undervalued versus its target of $35, the analysts underscored.
To see how Star Wars is aiding Disney, watch:
The report looked at recent events that have demonstrated the value of content produced by the big three studios. Those three and other media firms forced Sony to pay slightly higher fees per subscriber for their channels than cable system owners pay. They also imposed limits on how many subscribers could sign up for packages from Dish’s online service, Sling, that include their channels. Disney largely forced Verizon Communications (VZ) to scale back its discounted cable TV packages on its FiOS service.
