Walt Disney Co.

Disney’s broadcasting business — its ABC Television Network and its stations — rose 10% in revenues to $1.6 billion in the period, due to the higher number of advertising units sold at higher prices. ESPN’s advertising revenues were up 5% for the its fiscal fourth-quarter reporting period ending Oct. 3.

When Disney and other media stocks crumbled last month, the home of Star Wars seized on the opportunity to buy back its stock at what looked like dirt cheap prices. Disney went big, aggressively repurchasing $2.4 billion in shares, Thomas Staggs, the company’s chief operating officer, told analysts at a conference on Thursday.

NBC’s $200 million investment in BuzzFeed and Vox shows the outline of a new media world that may prove life-threatening for big companies. Aside from Comcast, the media companies scrambling to escape disaster and crack the digital code include Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox empire (which comprises Fox studios, the Fox broadcast network, and the FX, National Geographic and Fox News cable channels), Time Warner (Warner Bros., CNN, HBO and the various Turner channels), and the Walt Disney Co. (Disney studios, ABC and ESPN).

The Broadcasting unit, with ABC, was fell short of analysts’ forecasts with $300 million in operating income, down 15%, and revenues of $1.63 billion, up 4%.  Disney attributes the weakness to higher programming costs and lower ad sales — especially in news and daytime — partly offset by higher affiliate fees.

Like many successful corporate leaders, Disney CEO Rpbert Iger, 64, decided early on to try to control events rather than react to them. To be “fearless,” as he put it recently. Former colleagues say Iger possesses an expansive vision for Disney and is daring enough to act on it.

The news and pop-culture multi-platform outlet has received commitments from its owners — Disney and Univision — for $30 million in additional financing, sources say. The 19-month-old TV, streaming and online news outfit, which is in 40 million homes, was initially aimed at English-speaking Latinos but now is looking to broaden its audience.

Disney’s media networks business, which includes sports powerhouse ESPN, the Disney channels and ABC, reported a 13% rise in revenue to $5.81 billion, helped by higher ad sales and affiliate fees. Higher programing and production costs at ESPN, however, pushed the unit’s operating income down 2%.

The complaint filed today in New York’s state Supreme Court alleges Verizon is breaching its contract with ESPN, owned by Walt Disney Co., by unbundling the sports channel from the main programming line-up of Verizon’s FiOS TV.

Verizon has been banished from the Magic Kingdom. Disney’s television networks and radio stations are refusing to accept ads for Verizon FiOS’ new slimmed-down cable TV package.

Disney said Tuesday that Frozen would begin to air across many of its TV holdings — ABC, ABC Family. Disney Channel, Disney XD and Disney Junior — in  February of 2016.  It’s just the latest distribution window being tapped to keep the film fresh in consumers’ minds as the company works to monetize it via consumer products and other related content.

Disney’s long corporate runoff has come to an end with the promotion of Tom Staggs to chief operating officer. The Walt Disney Parks and Resort chairman has long been seen as the front-runner for the post that  squarely positions him as the heir-apparent to Bob Iger as Disney’s CEO once the chief executive’s contract expires in mid-2018.

The company’s broadcast television division reported a 35% increase in operating income, to $240 million, due in large part to the sale into syndication of Disney-owned programs like Criminal Minds, Scandal and Once Upon a Time. Disney’s broadcast network, ABC, notched advertising declines, however.

Disney Chairman-CEO Robert Iger’s compensation jumped to $43.7 million in 2014. The change came in the form of a larger bonus: $22.8 million, up 68% from the year before. The company disclosed the compensation package Friday in its annual proxy statement filed with regulators.

A new multi-year deal adds expanded video-on-demand content to customers at home and on-the-go. Included are Fusion, Longhorn Network, ESPN Goal Line, ESPN Buzzer Beater, ESPN3, SEC Network + via DirecTV Everywhere and authenticated Watch services.

Companies including Walt Disney, CBS and Viacom have asked the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to step in and block an FCC decision that would forcethem to reveal the terms of their business deals. Those deals are part of the public review of Comcast’s $45 billion bid to buy Time Warner Cable and AT&T’s $48 billion plan to buy DirecTV.

The broadcast operation, with ABC, generated $1.44 billion in revenue, up 5%, with operating income up 3% to $163 million. Advertising fell, Disney says, “due to fewer units sold” at ABC. That offset increases from program sales for Shark Tank, America’s Funniest Home Videos, My Wife and Kids– and a drop in costs following the cancellation of Katie.

Anne Sweeney, who is stepping down as co-chair, Disney Media Networks, and president, Disney/ABC Television Group, early next year, used her keynote interview at Mipcom to explain her reasons for leaving the Mouse House. Sweeney said that she had decided that, as her contract was up for renewal, that what she wanted to do next would be on the creative side.

He will remain chief executive until June 2018, a reflection of the company’s success under his leadership.

Shares of the entertainment giant closed Tuesday up 12 cents to $90.09 a share. It was the first time in more than 15 years that the stock ended a trading day above $90 a share.

Walt Disney Co. is planning to sell 23 radio stations and will begin distributing much of its Radio Disney content digitally, the company said Wednesday. As a result of the expected sales, Radio Disney, which targets children and families with an array of programming, will lay off about 200 people.

On Disney’s earnings call, chief executive Robert Iger admitted that TV advertising is not as hot as it once was. As a result, he wants Disney, which owns ABC and ESPN, to rely less on advertising in the future.

Walt Disney Co. Chairman-CEO Bob Iger said he won’t rule out the appointment of a president or chief operating officer, positions he held before ascending to the top job. “Right now, I’m comfortable with the way the company is structured,” Iger, 63, said when asked about those posts. “But we don’t rule that out.”

Disney gets the bulk of its profit from its TV division. Operating income at the unit, which includes ESPN, ABC and the Disney Channel, was little changed at $2.3 billion, as sports programming costs increased. While ABC earnings increased, profit at the much larger cable operation fell 7% because of higher costs at ESPN, the sale of a U.K. unit at ESPN and the shift in the timing of some revenue.

Walt Disney Co., Discovery Communications and CBS Corp. are being asked for information by U.S. antitrust officials probing Comcast Corp.’s planned purchase of Time Warner Cable Inc., according to three people familiar with the matter.

Sources say it’s between Tom Staggs, the chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, and Jay Rasulo, the senior EVP and chief financial officer of The Walt Disney Co.

NEW YORK (AP) — The season finale of ABC’s comedy “The Middle” proved the power of corporate synergy: the network owned by the Walt Disney Co. gave prime-time attention to […]

Sales at the ABC broadcasting operation were essentially flat at $1.5 billion but operating income was up 15% to $159 million as retransmission consent fees compensated for a drop in primetime ad revenues. Cable network revenue was up 5% to $3.6 billion.

Walt Disney Co. is buying Maker Studios, the digital media company behind YouTube successes such as Epic Rap Battles of History and PewDiePie. Disney will pay $500 million to Maker shareholders. Maker Studios has about 55,000 YouTube channels with 380 million subscribers and 5.5 billion views per month.

Ben Sherwood, the current president of ABC News, will become co-chairman, Disney Media Networks and president, Disney/ABC Television Group in February 2015. Anne Sweeney, co-chair, Disney Media Networks and president, Disney/ABC Television Group, will remain in that capacity through January 2015. Sherwood will also continue to oversee ABC News until a successor is named.

DirecTV is in talks with Walt Disney Co. to license the rights to offer Disney’s broadcast and cable channels as part of an Internet-based product, DirecTV said on Wednesday. The deal would mirror a first-of-its kind agreement that Disney and satellite rival Dish Network Corp announced earlier this week.

DirecTV is in talks with Walt Disney Co. to license the rights to offer Disney’s broadcast and cable channels as part of an Internet-based product, DirecTV said on Wednesday. The deal would mirror a first-of-its kind agreement that Disney and satellite rival Dish Network Corp announced earlier this week.

Less than 24 hours after Charlie Ergen’s Dish Network signed a groundbreaking deal with Disney that gave the satellite TV service the building blocks of an Internet TV operation, a second company waded into the sector. Verizon is looking to sign deals with content partners to bring a mobile Internet TV service to its FiOS customers, CEO Lowell McAdams said at a conference on Tuesday.

ABC struggled, with revenues falling 2% to $1.5 billion and operating income down 32% to $178 million. Ad sales were hurt by lower ratings. The broadcast operations also had higher writeoffs for programming, and higher costs including a “contractual rate increase” for Modern Family.

A Walt Disney Co. spokeswoman confirmed Tuesday that SOAPnet would indeed fade away on New Year’s Eve, despite protests from hundreds of soap fans who relied on the channel to catch up with such daytime dramas as General Hospital, The Young and the Restless and Days of Our Lives.

Bob Iger received compensation valued at $34.3 million for the year, down from $37.1 million last year.His compensation fell because the Walt Disney Co. didn’t exceed internal goals by as much this year as it did in 2012, according to a company regulatory filing made Monday.

When it lost a summary injunction back in September, the network said it wasn’t done trying to get Dish Network’s Hopper service shut down and on Wednesday ABC took another swing at it. In a brief dated Nov. 12 and filed yesterday (read it here) with the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, ABC and Disney Enterprises went after the satellite provider’s ad-jumping DVR service again.

Dish Network Chairman Charlie Ergen said he’s still “cautiously optimistic” about reaching a long-term deal with Disney for ABC stations and ESPN and other cable channels, saying Dish is looking for a way to deliver ads to Hopper DVR customers that would make more money for the programmer.

Broadcast revenue rose to $1.37 billion. Overall, the company’s net income was $1.39 billion, or 77 cents per share. That’s up from $1.24 billion, or 68 cents per share, in the same months a year ago. Revenue grew 7% to $11.57 billion.