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It is one of America's biggest and most famous companies and, to nobody's great surprise, one of the biggest corporate casualties of COVID-19.

Apart from being the world's biggest entertainment company, Walt Disney is also the world's biggest operator of theme parks, a sector in which activity has been hammered by coronavirus.

That was borne out in quarterly results published by the Mouse House, as it is referred to on Wall Street, for the three months to 28 March.

Net profits came in at $475m (£379m), down 91% on the same period a year ago, with Bob Chapek, the chief executive, telling analysts that coronavirus had cost the company around $1.4bn (£1.1bn) in lost profits so far.

Of that, around $1bn (£800m) alone came from the parks, experiences and products division, which includes the famous Disneyland resorts and the company's cruise line.

The restrictions put in place around social distancing mean that, when resorts can be reopened, they will not be as profitable as they were before the crisis.

As an example, Mr Chapek cited Disneyland in Shanghai, which closed on 25 January.

Before the crisis, he said, the resort typically welcomed 80,000 visitors a day but, when it reopens on Monday next week, visitor numbers will be restricted for at least a few weeks to just 24,000 a day.

There will also be other precautions, such as temperature checks, put in place.

Worse may be yet to come in the division during the current quarter as Disneyland Paris and Disneyland California only closed on 14 March - meaning that the impact of their closure only affected a couple of weeks on the most recent three monthly reporting period.

There were also other headwinds for the company due to coronavirus.

Film releases were cancelled, cinemas were closed and plays staged on Broadway, such as The Lion King, were also disrupted.

So, too, was production of TV shows and films for future release while the company's sports network, ESPN, suffered a drop in advertising revenues as sports events were cancelled.

Ad revenues were also lower at the ABC television network.

Yet it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good and Disney could also point to one conspicuous success in its results.

Its streaming service, Disney+, launched in November and has already signed up 54.5 million subscribers.

By any stretch of the imagination, that represents a huge achievement, since Disney said at the time of the launch it expected to take five years to reach between 60-90 million subscribers.

To put it in context, in just four months, Disney has signed up as many subscribers as Netflix did in its first seven years.

Disney, which in 2018 completed the acquisition of 20th Century Fox's film and television assets, is not the only media company to have updated investors during the last 24 hours.

The New York Times Company, publisher of one of America's most famous newspapers, exemplified an issue UK newspaper publishers have also noted.

Demand for news during the crisis has been strong and is driving growth in readers but, at the same time, advertising revenues are lower.

The company reported a 21% drop in operating profits, to $27.3m (£21.8m), for the first three months of the year.

That was despite winning 587,000 new digital subscriptions during the quarter, most of them for the core news product as opposed to apps such as the crossword puzzle, which was a record.

But Mark Thompson, the chairman and chief executive, admitted the gains in subscription revenues had partly been offset by a 15% drop in advertising revenues.

Mr Thompson, a former director-general of the BBC, added: "We saw advertising fall rapidly towards the end of the quarter and believe that advertising in the second quarter will fall between 50% and 55% compared to a year ago with limited visibility beyond that."

On this side of the Atlantic, meanwhile, one of the UK's best known media companies was highlighting a similar phenomenon.

ITV, the UK's leading terrestrial commercial broadcaster, reported a 2% rise in total viewing hours - comprising viewing on live television, video on demand, recordings or on the online ITV Hub service - during the first three months of the year.

However, as the UK entered lockdown towards the end of March, advertising began to fall away.

ITV said total advertising, which had been down by 1% in January and up by 8% in February, was flat in March and, in April, down by a thumping 42%.

It meant an overall decline of 9% for the four months to the end of April.

The company added: "The situation remains uncertain and therefore we are not in a position today to give guidance for May and June."

ITV also faces formidable headwinds as production of some of its most popular shows, such as Coronation Street and Love Island, has been hit by the lockdown.

The company said on Tuesday that the next series of Love Island has been pushed back to 2021 while Coronation Street, which will celebrate its 60th anniversary this December, has gone down from six to three episodes a week.

So too has Emmerdale, with Kevin Lygo, ITV's director of television, warning last week that, unless production resumes quickly, ITV will run out of new episodes to screen by the end of May and with Coronation Street reaching that position in June.

Emmerdale has reportedly asked its scriptwriters to prepare "two hander" episodes in which just two characters appear - something regarded as revolutionary when the BBC's EastEnders first tried it in 1986 - so they can be filmed quickly and in full observation of social distancing rules.

However, like Disney, ITV could also point to some positives on the streaming front. Britbox, the digital video subscription service launched last November in partnership with the BBC, was said to have enjoyed good take-up.

These are challenging times for media companies on both sides of the Atlantic.

Locked-down audiences are hungrier than ever for news and entertainment just as it has become harder, due to social distancing protocols, to produce and just as advertising revenues have lurched downwards.

Sky, the owner of Sky News, and its US parent Comcast have not been immune - last week reporting a revenue hit blamed on the pandemic.

Paradoxically, though, there has never been a better time for news and entertainment providers to showcase their work and build their brands for the future.