Bob Iger

Corporate America is closely watching to see whether one of the country’s most powerful companies can face down a threat to its self-governance and free speech.

Disney CEO Bob Iger has offered to talk about his company’s dispute with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R). “I do not view this as a going-to-mattresses situation for us,” Iger said. “If the governor of Florida wants to meet with me to discuss all of this, of course, I would be glad to do that.”

Disney CEO Bob Iger called succession top priority as he moves to turn the company around and, with the board, name a new chief executive before the end of his two-year contract. New board chairman Mark Parker heads the succession committee, which Iger noted met yesterday. “We all know that not only is it an important decision but that we don’t have endless amount of time to make it, and we are mindful of that,” he said. “Conversations have been great. I am confident that we will identify the right successor at the right time.”

Disney CEO Bob Iger said today that he’s open to selling Hulu — instead of forking over billions of dollars to buy out Comcast’s stake in the streaming platform. Asked on CNBC about his plans for Hulu as a 2024 deadline to buy it or sell it approaches, he said: “Everything is on the table right now, so I am not going to speculate whether we are a buyer or a seller of it. But I obviously have suggested that I’m concerned about undifferentiated general entertainment, particularly in the competitive landscape that we are operating in, and we are going to look at it very objectively and expansively.”

As The Walt Disney Co. gets closer to announcing earnings on Wednesday and holding Bob Iger’s first call with analysts since his return to the company, predictions about what will transpire are heating up. Evercore ISI media analyst Vijay Jayant is expecting Disney to beat consensus expectations with its first-quarter numbers. More importantly, Jayant is predicting Iger will come through on the cost cuts Wall Street and investors are looking for.

The company reports quarterly earnings on Wednesday, and Wall Street is expecting it to lay out a new streaming strategy and operating structure.

The initial exuberance and relief following Bob Iger’s return as Disney CEO has been replaced by anxiety as speculation about a pending corporate restructuring is intensifying — and with it, rumors about the layoffs that are likely to follow. Rumblings of a new organizational chart unveiling are growing louder amid mounting pressure on the company (including from activist investor Nelson Peltz) to stage a rebound with Iger back at the controls.

In a security filing, Disney was harshly critical of Nelson Peltz, saying he had “no strategy, no operating initiatives, no new ideas and no plan.”

During the last several months, Walt Disney Co. has replaced its chief executive, promised a dramatic restructuring, embarked on a major cost-cutting effort and elected a new chairman. But all that has not satisfied the demands of Nelson Peltz, a billionaire activist investor who has waged a months-long — and so far unsuccessful — campaign to join the Disney board of directors.

Disney’s newly returned CEO Bob Iger said employees currently working a hybrid schedule will be asked to spend four days a week on-site as of March 1, targeting Monday through Thursday as in-person workdays, saying it’s his “belief that working together more in-person will benefit the company’s creativity, culture, and our employees’ careers.”

“We think Bob Iger is returning to Disney to make big changes. Spinning [off] ESPN/ABC is the best path forward, and we see it as a reasonably probable late-’23 event.” Wells Fargo analyst Steven Cahall opened a Tuesday report on The Walt Disney Co., led again by Iger as CEO, with a big call that is certain to cause debate.

The former Walt Disney Co. chief executive undermined and then succeeded the man he had handpicked to lead the entertainment giant.

Discussions regarding the plan were under way in the weeks leading up to Nov. 20, when Disney’s board of directors fired Bob Chapek as chief executive and replaced him with his predecessor, Robert Iger.

Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Bob Iger said on Monday one of his top priorities is to make the company’s streaming business profitable. Iger is responsible for Disney’s all-in embrace of streaming, and the launch of its marquee service, Disney+, but he acknowledged the measurement of success has changed. Wall Street investors now focus on profitability, not merely subscriber gains.

“Content is king” is a now well-worn bit of conventional wisdom most closely associated with the late media mogul Sumner Redstone. But does it hold up anymore? The stunning return of Bob Iger to the helm at The Walt Disney Co., perhaps the most venerated media company in the world, might be the right move at the right time for that particular institution. But that corporate turmoil is only one data point in a sea of challenges that raise real questions about the broader content businesses and almost all of its putative kings.

Compared to how much he was making when he last held the job, Bob Iger is a bargain in his second tour as CEO of Walt Disney Co. According to a filing with the SEC, Iger will have a $1 million annual salary and an annual  bonus that could earn him up to another $1 million. As part of the company’s long-term equity-based incentive plans, Iger is also eligible for an yearly award with a target value of $25 million.

Iger’s successor as CEO, Bob Chapek, was fired Sunday after the company posted lower than expected earnings in the last quarter. Hollywood’s creative community had grumbled about Chapek’s cost-cutting measures and sometimes blunt approach to talent, while theme park regulars had been unhappy with price hikes. So, it’s back to Iger for the next two years.

Late Sunday, the Walt Disney Co. said Bob Chapek, who succeeded Iger in 2020, had stepped down from the CEO position. “The board has concluded that as Disney embarks on an increasingly complex period of industry transformation, Bob Iger is uniquely situated to lead the company through this pivotal period,” board Chair Susan Arnold said in a statement from Disney.

Bob Iger, the former chief executive officer of Walt Disney Co., said traditional TV, including broadcast, cable and satellite, “is marching to a distinct precipice, and it’s going to be pushed off.” But, he added, while streaming TV is gaining viewers, that doesn’t mean all online services will do well.

Bob Iger shared a pessimistic outlook on the future of movies and traditional TV in an interview Wednesday at the Code Conference in Los Angeles. The former Disney CEO was, however, particularly bullish on the growing number of streaming services embracing Madison Avenue, including Disney+, but predicted that not all of the current market entrants would survive in the long term.

Iger, who turns 71 in February and who began his career at age 23 at ABC, is one of only six CEOs to lead Disney since its founding in 1923 until Bob Chapek assumed the role in February 2020. Ten days from now, Iger can step away knowing that few, if any, media leaders can claim as impressive a track record at any one enterprise as he achieved over his time atop Disney with such pivotal creative and accretive transactions as the acquisitions of Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm and 21st Century Fox.

CNBC spoke with 10 media executives who anonymously predicted one significant industry event for next year. Projections included Bob Iger returning as Disney CEO, Shari Redstone selling or merging ViacomCBS and Apple buying a movie studio. One executive predicted Roku will buy Lionsgate’s film and TV production studio.

Susan Arnold will succeed Bob Iger as chairman of the board at Disney, the company announced Wednesday afternoon. Arnold, a 14-year member of the Disney board who has served as its independent lead director since 2018, will succeed Iger when he leaves at the end of the year.

Bob Iger, executive chairman of the Walt Disney Co., sold about $100 million worth of the company’s stock on June 1. The sale represented about half of Iger’s holdings in the company he headed as CEO until last year. According to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Iger sold 550,570 shares at prices averaging just over $179 a share. The shares were sold in 173 separate transactions resulting from two sell orders.

The executive also talked about the backstory behind the surprise succession announcement in an interview with SiriusXM’s Alan Fleischmann.

“It has been a very trying year. The most difficult we’ve had in recent memory, if ever,” said Bob Iger, first up Tuesday at the company’s virtual annual shareholders meeting. Sounding moved, he noted that it would be his last as he prepares to exit after 16 years as CEO and, more recently, executive chairman, and well over 40 years at the company.

Disney disclosed the total compensation for its top executives in a year that saw the company hit hard by the pandemic right after Bob Chapek took over as CEO.

The former CEO thought he was riding into the sunset. Now he’s reasserting control and reimagining Disney as a company with fewer employees and more thermometers.

The Walt Disney Co. said on Monday that executive chairman Robert Iger will forgo his entire salary and recently named CEO Bob Chapek will take a 50% pay cut amid the coronavirus pandemic, according to an email from Chapek sent to employees obtained by The Hollywood Reporter.

After transforming ABC, Disney’s outgoing CEO made four big acquisitions that changed the company forever.