Disney's streaming losses have widened

Disney's streaming losses have ballooned as the company has aggressively invested in taking on Netflix for streaming supremacy.

Why it matters: The streaming gold rush was built on the idea that short-term losses would turn into long-term profits, but that ideal looks less likely in the eyes of investors than it did two years ago.

• Disney set an ambitious target of reaching at least 230 million subscribers across its streaming services including Hulu and ESPN+, but Wall Street increasingly is not impressed by subscriber growth alone.

Driving the news: Disney rounds out another quarter of media earnings Wednesday, and investors will care the most about how Disney plans to actually make money from streaming and not just spend it.

• Disney's direct-to-consumer segment lost $887 million last quarter, the most since the quarter when it first launched Disney+ at the end of 2019.
• Disney has said it expects losses to peak sometime next year and by 2024 start to become profitable.