Spring allergy season has begun. Where is it worse in Canada?
The spring allergy season has started early in many parts of Canada, with high levels of pollen in some cities already. Experts weigh in on which areas have it worse so far this season.
Walt Disney Co. said Wednesday it is raising prices for streaming subscribers in the U.S. who want to watch Disney+ without ads, as more viewers switch to what CEO Bob Chapek described as the “best value in streaming.”
The price increases are tied to a new tiered service Disney will launch in December for U.S. subscribers. The basic Disney+ service today costs $7.99 per month. Starting in December, that basic service will run ads, so a subscriber who wants no ads will have to upgrade to a premium service that starts at US$10.99 per month, a 37.5% rise over current prices. An annual plan will cost $109.99.
“We expect the ad tier to be popular and we expect some people to want to stay with ad-free,” Chief Financial Officer Christine McCarthy said on a conference call with analysts.
Netflix's most popular streaming plan in the U.S. is now $15.50 per month, and its top-of-the-line plan is $20 per month. That follows several rate hikes to help pay for its original programming, which has become even more important since Disney pulled its programming and classic movies from Netflix after licensing agreements between the companies expired.
Disney said it added 14.4 million subscribers to its Disney+ streaming service in the April-June fiscal quarter. In total, subscribers to all Disney streaming services, which include Hulu and ESPN+, amounted to about 221 million, putting the entertainment giant slightly ahead of Netflix in the streaming wars.
Netflix ended June with 220.7 million subscribers after losing nearly 1 million subscribers in the past quarter.
Disney said paid subscriptions for Disney+ grew by 31%, much of that internationally, over the same time last year. But revenue growth was not as strong due to operating losses from “higher programming and production, technology and marketing costs.”
Disney's growing streaming sales, combined with a recovering theme park business after pandemic-era shutdowns, led the Burbank, California-based entertainment giant to beat Wall Street expectations with quarterly earnings Wednesday.
Disney reported revenue of $21.5 billion in the three months through July 2, up 26% from the same time last year.
Earnings per share came to $1.09 when excluding certain items. Analysts polled by FactSet projected adjusted earnings of 97 cents per share on revenue of $20.99 billion for the quarter, according to FactSet Research.
Disney said sales at its parks, experiences and products segment grew to $7.39 billion, up 70% from $4.34 billion a year earlier. The numbers represented an ongoing comeback from COVID-19 restrictions that temporarily shuttered all of Disney's parks in 2020, reduced capacity through much of 2021 and have continued to affect some locations such as Shanghai Disneyland, which was open for just three days in the April-June quarter.
The spring allergy season has started early in many parts of Canada, with high levels of pollen in some cities already. Experts weigh in on which areas have it worse so far this season.
Premier Doug Ford says that lawsuits launched by four Ontario school boards against a trio of social media platforms are “nonsense” and risk becoming a distraction to the work that really matters.
Multiple flight attendants from Pakistan International Airlines have abandoned their jobs and are believed to have sought asylum in Canada in the past year and a half, a spokesperson for the government-owned airline says.
A New Brunswicker will go to bed Thursday night much richer than he was Wednesday after collecting on a winning lottery ticket he let sit on his bedroom dresser for nearly a year.
Calgary police have shut down a number of bridges into and out of the downtown core as officers deal with a distraught individual.
King Charles III gave public remarks for Maundy Thursday, addressing the importance of acts of friendship, following his and Catherine, Princess of Wales’ cancer diagnoses.
Peggy is a stout and muscular Staffordshire bull terrier, and Molly is a magpie, an Australian bird best known for swooping on humans during breeding season, not for befriending dogs. But in an emotional video posted online, Peggy’s owners announced that the animals had been separated.
A Toronto restaurant introduced a surprising new rule that reduced the cost of a meal and raised the salaries of staff.
Rainfall warnings of up to 90 millimetres, air quality advisories and other alerts have been issued for seven Canadian provinces, according to the latest forecasts.
Newfoundland’s unique version of the Pine Marten has grown out of its threatened designation.
A Toronto restaurant introduced a surprising new rule that reduced the cost of a meal and raised the salaries of staff.
A Toronto man is out $12,000 after falling victim to a deepfake cryptocurrency scam that appeared to involve Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
It started small with a little pop tab collection to simply raise some money for charity and help someone — but it didn’t take long for word to get out that 10-year-old Jace Weber from Mildmay, Ont. was quickly building up a large supply of aluminum pop tabs.
There’s a group of people in Saskatoon that proudly call themselves dumpster divers, and they’re turning the city’s trash into treasure.
Ontario is facing a larger than anticipated deficit but the Doug Ford government still plans to balance its books before the next provincial election.
The owner of an e-bike business says he has doubts police will find the roughly $500,000 worth of product that was stolen from a shipping container last week, while police say he “complicated” their investigation by posting video of the theft.
At least one Costco store in Ottawa has implemented a digital card scanner for member entry, a departure from the traditional in-person card check, in an effort to crack-down on shoppers who have not paid a membership fee.
With the solar eclipse just a week away, it’s time to think about how to safely view the celestial show.