Walt Disney Co.

Walt Disney’s ESPN sports network could secure an enterprise value of $24 billion and attract investment interest from sports leagues, tech firms like Apple and telecom majors including Verizon, according to BofA Global Research. In a bid to lure an outside investor, the media giant last month disclosed the financials of ESPN that revealed declining sales and profit at the network considered to be the crown jewel of its traditional TV business.

Charter CEO Chris Winfrey said the company’s recent Disney carriage fight cost the company 320,000 video customers in the third quarter, but the resulting deal represents “a significant step forward for the video ecosystem.” Speaking during the company’s third-quarter earnings call, Winfrey said the agreement showcased “a new hybrid distribution model is good for consumers.” The companies agreed to terms after a 10-day blackout that kept ESPN, ABC stations and other networks off Spectrum systems just as college football season was starting. The new pact “better aligns video content and DTC apps, which will be included for free in our video packages. … We created a glide path to bridge from linear video to new growth.”

Disney has named Tinisha Agramonte its new chief diversity officer and senior vice president, effective immediately. Agramonte replaces Disney‘s former head of diversity, equity and inclusion operations Latondra Newton, who stepped down from the role in June. She will report directly to Sonia Coleman, Disney’s senior executive vice president and chief human resources officer.

As part of a larger move by Walt Disney Co., all of the company’s New York properties are slated to move in 2025 to a building in downtown New York in a neighborhood known as Hudson Square. That will include some programs already ensconced in well known studios, such as Good Morning America and Live with Kelly and Mark. The move isn’t scheduled to take place for some time, but staffers are already coming to grips with how it might affect the program’s standing in TV’s nonstop morning-news wars.

The sports unit had revenue of $16 billion and profits of $2.9 billion in 2022 — more than Disney’s entire entertainment business that year — as the company prepares a new financial reporting structure.

Disney attorneys want to question a previous administrator of the governing district that provides municipal services to Walt Disney World as part of its defense against a state lawsuit brought by a board made up of appointees of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Over the last century, the influence of the Burbank giant on entertainment and pop culture — not just in the U.S. but also globally — has been profound. The company has shaped the very nature of entertainment through its movies, theme parks that have become vacation destinations, merchandising strategies and television networks.

Disney will donate $2 million to humanitarian groups working in Israel following the devastating terrorist attack by Hamas and subsequent military conflict engulfing Gaza and southern Israel, the company announced Thursday night.

After making it known in September that he’s interested in acquiring ABC from Disney for a price tag of $10 billion, Byron Allen says he still has his eyes set on ABC and promises he’s ready play ball when Disney is ready to sell. “I think ABC’s a real possibility. They say they’re not ready,” Allen said at the UCLA Department of Neurosurgery’s Visionary Ball on Wednesday night. “When they’re ready I’m going to chase it down like a lion chases down a gazelle.” (Greg Doherty/Getty for Allen Media Group)

Disney’s legendary CEO came out of retirement to save the company — right in time for its 100th birthday. Nothing has gone his way.

With live sports TV programming taking on more importance with TV advertisers, Walt Disney says its upcoming NHL season on all its TV networks and streaming platforms is “nearly sold out,” inking 26 deals for presenting sponsorships. Disney Advertising was to get five new sponsorships: Chewy, GoDaddy, Kohl’s, Procter & Gamble and T. Rowe Price. This adds to the list of 21 presenting sponsorship brands from American Express, Apple, Mercedes-Benz USA, Taco Bell, Verizon, Fidelity and Kohl’s among others.

Nelson Peltz is planning a fresh push for board seats at Disney following a relentless slide in the entertainment giant’s shares. The activist investor’s Trian Fund Management, now one of Disney’s largest investors with a stake worth upward of $2.5 billion, is expected to request multiple seats — including one for Peltz, according to people familiar with the matter.

Media entrepreneur Byron Allen, one of many parties interested in acquiring ABC and other linear TV assets from Disney, said he has “access to plenty of capital,” and Disney’s internal deliberations are the next hurdle to be cleared. Rather than financing, Allen maintained that the “real commodity is certainty of close,” given the current regulatory and industry landscape. “That’s the magic trick.”

Reports that Disney CEO Bob Iger is in talks to sell the ABC network are greatly exaggerated, according to sources — and some have a hard time seeing how a deal gets done at all. Insiders emphasize that no banker has been hired and no sales book is circulating. As for reported potential buyer Nexstar, the TV station conglomerate isn’t in a good position to pay what Disney would likely be asking for ABC, according to sources close to the situation.

The storied television network and its stations have been part of Disney for 27 years. But the company’s streaming ambitions may put the unit on the block.

The company said in a regulatory filing on Tuesday that the planned investment is nearly double what it spent in the prior 10-year period. The Disney Parks, Experiences and Products segment continues to do well for the company, with revenue rising 13% in its fiscal third quarter. That’s helped to offset the struggles in its Disney Media and Entertainment Distribution unit, which saw revenue dip 1% in the period.

Usually when a person or company sells something, the primary motivation is getting back as much money as possible. Disne’s motivation to potentially sell ABC and its owned affiliates, linear cable networks and a minority stake in ESPN isn’t predicated on what these assets will fetch in a sale. It’s about signaling to investors the time has come to stop thinking about Disney as old media.

The Disney-owned newsroom was jolted on Thursday after a report suggested that the outlet could soon be expelled from the Magic Kingdom. Bloomberg’s Christopher Palmeri and Thomas Buckley reported that Disney has “held exploratory talks” about selling ABC to Nexstar Media Group. The duo also reported that media mogul Byron Allen has also spoken with Disney about a possible deal.

The Walt Disney Co. said in a statement Thursday that it is “open to considering a variety of strategic options for our linear businesses,” but shot down a report that it was in active discussions to sell its ABC broadcast network and stations. “At this time The Walt Disney Company has made no decision with respect to the divestiture of ABC or any other property and any report to that effect is unfounded,” the statement continued.

Comedian and media mogul Byron Allen has made a $10 billion offer for ABC and other linear networks owned by the Walt Disney Co., a spokesman for Allen and Allen Media Group confirmed. TV station owner Nexstar, which bought the CW Network, also has expressed interest in buying ABC and its stations from Disney.

Walt Disney Co. has held exploratory talks about selling its ABC network and TV stations to local broadcaster Nexstar Media Group Inc., according to people familiar with the discussions. The talks are preliminary and haven’t involved a specific valuation, according to one of the people, who asked not to be identified because the discussions aren’t public. Nexstar would only be interested at the right price. A spokesperson for Nexstar declined to comment.

Jessica Fischer also told an investor conference that she was bullish on having a model to “moderate” content cost increases in future carriage deals.

Bundles will come with streaming, but networks from Disney Junior to Syfy are in jeopardy.

Alex Sherman: Charter and Disney finally reached a rights deal, and the media industry was duped. The details of Charter’s pact with Disney, announced in a press release Monday, don’t really suggest any earthshaking changes were the result. Disney will receive a higher programming fee increase as part of the deal. Charter will be able to include ad-supported Disney+ and ESPN+ for no additional charge to certain consumers of its cable TV programming, as part of a wholesale agreement with Disney. That’s kind of it.

The blackout fight between cable giant Charter Communications and Disney is over. Hours ahead of Monday Night Football, which airs on Disney’s ESPN, the companies reached a deal that would allow millions of Charter cable customers to watch the game, CNBC’s David Faber reported Monday, citing sources. Charter and Disney’s stocks, as well as media peers including Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Global traded higher on Monday morning. Representatives for Disney and Charter didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

ESPN’s first NFL game of the season is caught in the carriage dispute. Charter is now pushing customers toward Fubo.

It has been an anxious summer in Burbank, Bristol and the rest of the Disney-ESPN empire thanks to ongoing cutbacks, movie box office disappointments and strategic uncertainties. Disney stock recently sank to a nine-year low. Help is on the way, though, as the U.S. Open Tennis Championships kick off Monday and college football and the NFL also deliver their annual fall injections of must-see live events.

Amazon has had early talks with Disney about working on the streaming version of ESPN it is developing, said people familiar with the matter. The tech giant could offer the service through one of its streaming offerings, helping to expand its distribution, while possibly also taking a minority stake in ESPN. Such an arrangement could shore up ESPN’s status as the biggest force in sports media, even as declining TV viewership and advertising, combined with rising sports programming costs, have squeezed the sports channel and Disney, its majority owner. It could also reposition the tech behemoth, which has been trying to make a dent in sports streaming, as more friend than foe to ESPN. And it could weaken the sports leagues’ bargaining power.

Bob Iger: “So, anything that is to be done would be done with an eye toward maintaining a rich flow of content to fuel our growth business — and that would be streaming.”

Disney saw direct-to-consumer losses shrink and adjusted EPS top estimates for the three months ended in June as CEO Bob Iger said the company’s on track to exceed $5.5 billion in anticipated cost savings. Total revenue of $22.3 billion (down 2%) was shy of forecasts. Linear television was softer — a trend Iger called out in a controversial CNBC interview last month.

On the eve of its latest quarter earnings release, Disney Advertising has closed its upfront advertising deal-making for the new TV season that starts next month at a revenue volume “in line with the prior year,” according to the company. A year ago, Walt Disney amassed $9 billion from upfront advertising revenue commitments for the 2022-2023 TV season, Disney said.

When Bob Iger returned to the helm of Disney nine months ago, after a brief retirement, the company and its shareholders seemed to breathe a collective sigh of relief. Finally, “Dad” is back to get everything in order. He signed on for a two-year contract — plenty of time to execute on his two-prong mission of shoring up Disney’s stock price and lining up a new successor. It’s not going great.

Executives from NBCUniversal Local, Disney Advertising Sales Local, E.W. Scripps, Tegna and Ticker News will share the revenue upsides and expectations they’re framing up for different streaming platforms in a panel at TVNewsCheck’s TV2025: Monetizing the Future conference at the NAB Show New York on Oct. 25. Register here.

The sports juggernaut continues to earn billions of dollars for Disney, but profits are down and opportunities for growth have dwindled.