Two entertainment behemoths -- The Walt Disney Company (DIS - Analyst Report) and News Corp. (NWSA - Analyst Report) -- reported quarterly earnings after the bell Thursday. While Disney posted a fiscal Q4 2015 earnings beat of 3 cents per share to $1.20 on slightly lower-than-expected revenues of $13.51 billion, News Corp. reached 5 cents per share on $2.01 billion in sales in its fiscal Q1 2016 results -- both below the Zacks Consensus estimates.

Disney has not missed quarterly earnings in more than 2 years, going back to the windfall days of its blockbuster hit Frozen (one of the top film enterprises of all time, rivaled only by giants like the Star Wars franchise -- which Disney also currently owns). In an interesting twist on the quarter, the breakout number occurred in the company's Media group -- especially the ESPN sports network. This was the sole source of investor worry regarding Disney stock: would cord-cutting negatively impact Disney's Media business?

In a word: No. ESPN grew 30 percent in the fiscal Q4, in fact, and Media overall gained 27 percent year over year. Media easily topped estimates of $5.47 billion with $5.83 billion, on higher ad revenues. Increased program costs and some decline in subscribers did exist, but Media was the big winner among Disney businesses in the quarter.

The other segments -- Parks and Resorts, Studio Entertainment, Consumer Products and Interactive -- actually underperformed expectations in the quarter, though the Studio business did rise 100 percent year over year. But none of these had much effect overall -- Disney's revenues rose 35 percent year over year. And this is prior to Star Wars: The Force Awakens release on December 18 of this year, which is one of the most highly anticipated motion pictures in history.

Disney shares are trading down slightly in the after-market, though the ESPN story is welcome news to investors. Disney stock is up nearly 9 percent in the past month and roughly 20 percent year to date; I'm not sure anyone is fretting this company will be going away any time soon. About the only risk to the company in the near term is if the new Star Wars film does not live up to expectations, but it's tough to make that call -- even the lousy Star Wars movies drew huge crowds.

News Corp. missed on both its top and bottom lines; estimates had been for 7 cents per share and revenues of $2.11 billion. Zacks Earnings ESP had expected an earnings miss, and it proved correct. News Corp. shares are flat in late trading, but this is a stock that has not grown much -- aside from a 14 percent pop in the last month, it is down 2.2 percent year to date, -1.7 percent over the past 5 years and -1.66 over the last 10 years.