Theme park visitors boost Disney profits

Disney has reported rising profits due to strong theme park attendance and income from its television channels.

The global media giant reported profits of $1.6bn (£1.05bn) for the period between July and September compared with $1.5bn at the same time last year.

Television revenue has climbed, despite Americans dropping cable subscriptions in favour of on-demand providers such as Netflix.

Revenue for Disney's parks and resorts reached $4.4bn.

The company attributed the growth to increased visitor numbers at parks in the US and Disneyland Paris.

The company's television channels also saw a rise in revenue, which climbed 12%.

Investors had been concerned because audiences have been abandoning traditional television, but in the event profits from cable TV increased by $381m for the quarter to $1.7bn.

ESPN factor

Analysts had been watching to see what Disney would say about the number of ESPN subscribers, which were down last quarter.

Disney said subscribers had increased in this quarter and attributed the growth to the new ESPN affiliate channel, SEC Network, which launched in August 2014.

The sports network makes up 40% of Disney's revenue.

Last month ESPN announced it was cutting 300 employees or 4% of its global workforce.

The film arm of Disney came in flat bringing in $1.8bn in revenue during the quarter.

The company is expecting a marked increase in this area next quarter when it releases the latest film in the Star Wars series.

"The next focus for investors is how much Star Wars is going to bring in," said Martin Pyykkonen senior research analyst at Rosenblatt Securities.

"There has been a lot of hype, pre-order ticket sales have been high and there will be a lot of merchandise that flows from that," he said.