NEW YORK - Disney reported a loss for the most recent quarter, with the number of subscribers to its streaming service shrinking again, but a pledge to crack down on password sharing sent shares higher in after-market trades.
The falling Disney+ subscriber numbers -- for the third consecutive quarter -- came as a crippling writers and actors strike hits the US entertainment industry, threatening the company's ability to produce content key to the streaming service's appeal.
"It is my fervent hope that we quickly find solutions to the issues that have kept us apart these past few months," chief executive Bob Iger, whose contract has been extended through 2026, said of negotiations with striking actors and writers.
"I am personally committed to working to achieve this result."
Hollywood television and movie writers went on their first strike in 15 years in May, only to be joined in mid-July by actors.
The last time Hollywood writers laid down their pens and keyboards, in 2007, the strike lasted 100 days and cost Los Angeles's entertainment economy around $2 billion.
This time, the two sides are clashing as writers demand higher pay, minimum guarantees of stable employment and a greater share of profits from the boom in streaming, while studios say they must cut costs due to economic pressures.
The current double whammy of actors and writers is the first since the 1960s.
At issue for both labor groups in the age of streaming is better pay and residuals, and the role of artificial intelligence, which they fear the studios would like to use to replace them.
As things stand, neither the unions nor the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), the body that represents the studios, seems prepared to give ground.