Conglomerate: The Walt Disney Company

ABOUT THE WALT DISNEY COMPANY

The Walt Disney Company, commonly known and shortened to Disney, are a mass media conglomerate who produce, distribute and exhibit primarily TV and Film. 

Founded by Walt Disney and Roy O Disney in California in October 1923, they are the second largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. 

The company started out as Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, and established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before venturing into live-action film production, television, and theme parks. 

Taking on its current name in 1986, it began expanding to theater, radio, music, publishing, and online media which has lead to it's global success and maintained relevance.

Disney is best known for the products of its film studio, The Walt Disney Studios, which is now one of the largest and best-known studios in American cinema and has arguably ruled the childhoods of kids across the world.

WHAT DO THEY OWN? 

As one of the top six leading conglomerates in today's industry, often referred to as part of "The Big Six", Disney are not owned by any other company and nobody gets a share of their profit, which allows them to branch out and continuously expand what they own.

As you can imagine, they have a breathtaking amount of subsidiaries including; Disney Enterprises, The Walt Disney Studios, Walt Disney Animation Studios, Walt Disney Theatrical, The Walt Disney Company India, Pixar Animation Studios, Marvel Entertainment, Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, The Muppets Studio, Disney-ABC Television Group, Radio Disney, UTV Software Communications, Maker Studios and 80% of ESPN Inc, 50% of A+E Networks and 32% of Hulu. 

Evidently, cross-media ownership is their strongest aspect and are the reason they are one of the world's leading media conglomerates. 

Other than Comcast who surprisingly beat them to the number one spot, Disney hold a monopoly over independent companies because they have the profit to be able to purchase more and claim more. 

For example, Maker Studios was an independent company who Disney purchased for $500 Million, and Maker already had a lot of success through YouTube. However, Disney need to make sure they stay relevant and therefore purchased something with ties to a very new and modern aspect of the media industry and with a crucial teen/young adult demographic. 

Disney employs the use of both vertical and horizontal integration. Vertical integration is where the production company owns the companies that produce, distribute and exhibit the films which Disney does, and they also receive all of the profit. Horizontal integration is where production companies can buy out other companies to distribute and exhibit their productions which is what Disney have done with Marvel Entertainment in a $4.24 Billion takeover. The general rule is that acquiring bigger companies like Marvel and Lucasfilms won't directly affect these companies' products or change them in any way shape or form but it is instead about the money aspect. 

Their purchase of Lucasfilms lead to a seventh instalment of the franchise which was released in December 2015 and further films have been scheduled, bringing another huge franchise back to life in the modern day with a fresh take on the story. 

HOW IS DISNEY DIVERSIFIED? 

Similar to cross-media ownership, diversification means that a company expands and branches out into different areas of the media industry. 

Disney is a prime example of a company that has diversified and they make plenty of money from things other than films, television and radio.

Disney have so much to their company that people forget about; it's not all about the films. They also have: 

• Toys & merchandise (Pop Vinyls, stuffed animals, clothing)
• Events (Disney On Ice)
• TV (Disney Channel)
• Resorts (including cruise ships)
• Games (Disney Infinity)
• Films (Pixar)

Surprisingly, only 49.2% of Disney's revenue comes from the media aspect of the business with a massive 31.3% coming from the multiple theme parks they have in the US, Europe and Asia with another opening in June of 2016. 

These parks are a huge aspect of Disney's reputation and kids worldwide dream of going on holiday to experience the magic that it brings and meet their favourite characters. 

One of the less successful aspects of the company is the interactive sector, including Disney Infinity which was actually discontinued this year in an attempt to make budget cuts and free up money for other things.

Consumer products are also a huge aspect although obviously don't bring in anywhere near as much profit as the media and the parks.

In most big cities, you'll find a Disney store, and the ones in huge tourist spots go all out with the decor to make kids feel like they're somewhere filled with the classic Disney magic that they grew up believing in. For example when I went to the Times Square store, the entrance had props to make you feel like you were actually in Frozen and there were Peter Pan and Tangled paintings all up the walls on the stairs to tie in the classics with the new generation of films. These stores are, as you would expect, filled with Disney merchandise. This includes merchandise for Marvel and Star Wars and ranges from clothing and lunch boxes to collectable figures and blankets.

WHO IS IN COMPETITION WITH DISNEY?

Disney being part of 'The Bix Six" means that their only competition is the other five leading media conglomerates; News Corporation, Time Warner, Viacom, CBS Corporation and the one that overtook them, Comcast. 

They have some competition from DC Comics due to owning Marvel, another comic book based company, but in recent years these two companies, or the fans at least, hold mutual respect and so a lot of it is about figuring out how both can exist and make a profit at the same time.