A bill requires signed by Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, requires him to appoint a five-member board to oversee the government services that the Disney district provides in its sprawling theme park properties in Florida. The takeover of the Disney district began last year when the entertainment giant, facing intense pressure, publicly opposed “Don’t Say Gay,” which bars instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade and lessons deemed not age-appropriate.
DALLAS (AP) — Dave Hollis, who left his post as a Disney executive to help his wife run a successful lifestyle empire, has died at his home in Texas. He […]
The company is opening two exhibitions that will tour the globe until 2028. It comes at a moment when its formidable stature in the culture has shown a few cracks.
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.”
Activist investor Nelson Peltz said this morning that he’s ending his proxy fight againt Disney after CEO Bob Iger announced sweeping restructuring and cost cutting plans yesterday alongside the company’s latest quarterly earnings.
Exclusives
The restructuring creates a new division called Disney Entertainment headed by TV content chief Dana Walden and movie studio boss Alan Bergman. The ESPN businesses will be a separate unit, run by current chief James Pitaro. And the Parks, Experiences and Products division will continue to be run by Josh D’Amaro. Those execs will be tasked with finding cost-cuts eventually totaling $5.5 billion annually. And that includes cutting some 7,000 jobs.
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.
Walt Disney Co. is exploring more licensing of its films and television series to rival media
outlets as pressure grows to curb the losses in its streaming TV business. The entertainment giant is seeking to earn more cash from its content library, according to people familiar with the discussions who asked not to be identified as the talks are private. The move would represent a shift in strategy, as Disney has in recent years tried to keep much of its original programming exclusively on its Disney+ and Hulu streaming services.
Activist investor Nelson Peltz escalated his criticism of the Walt Disney Co.’s board and advocated for the removal of director Michael B.G. Froman, blaming him for backing governance and compensation decisions that Peltz says have harmed the company.
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.
Disney Advertising and EDO, one of a growing handful of upstart companies hoping to offer new method of counting video viewers, have struck a pact that will have EDO examine audience engagement acorss Disney’s streaming assets, starting with Hulu.
Disney Advertising said it plans to hold a big event to close out its upfront process at New York’s Javits Center on the Tuesday of upfront week, May 16. Last year, Disney held an upfront event downtown at Basketball City on PIer 36. Disney says the event will show off its array of entertainment and sports programming. It also said ABC latenight star Jimmy Kimmel is expected to return to New York to roast network executives and media buyers.
Disney’s prowess as an entertainment powerhouse is undisputed. Aaron LaBerge, chief technology officer of the Disney Media & Entertainment Distribution (DMED) division, argues that the company also has also built an industry-leading competency in ad tech. Over the last several years, LaBerge’s team has created its own advertising-delivery stack from the ground up, centered on the proprietary Disney Ad Server. The company deployed the new Disney Ad Server on Hulu last year — and it’s now also powering Disney+ with ads, which launched last month. Currently, the Disney Ad Server delivers some 500 million ad impressions per day.
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.”
The company also details severance payments due Geoff Morrell, who was fired as head of corporate affairs in April 2022.
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.
Nelson Peltz wants the company to revamp its streaming business and focus on increasing profits. Disney wants shareholders to vote against his effort to get a seat on the board.
Walt Disney Co. has named a new chairman of the board, and indicated it’s also in for a proxy fight as Nelson Peltz’s Trianon Group seeks a director’s chair for the activist investor in opposition to the company’s slate.
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.”
In an open letter to Disney CEO Bob Iger, Parents Television and Media Council (PTC) President Tim Winter urged him to steer the company away from creating, producing and distributing programming that sexualizes children.
The version of the iconic character from Steamboat Willie will enter the public domain in 2024. But those trying to take advantage could end up in a legal mousetrap.
“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.
Automation And Cloud Drive Studio Workflows
Technology executives from Disney, CBS Television Stations, Fox’s WTTG Washington and Amagi said they’re turning to private and public clouds to find new efficiencies in production workflows at TVNewsCheck’s NewsTECHForum on Tuesday, a transition one sees as “scaling” in. Pictured (l-r): CBS Television Stations’ Jeff Birch, WTTG Washington’s Jim Beahn, Disney’s Fabian Westerwelle and Amagi’s Stephen Bach (Alyssa Wesley photo). Read a full report here and/or watch the video above.
While he may be waving away any deal talk, the incoming CEO built the company with a slew of splashy buys — Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, 21st Century Fox — and could have another big idea up his sleeve.
The Walt Disney Co. has officially acquired 100% of BAMTech, the streaming video technology company that it acquired majority ownership of in 2017 from Major League Baseball. According to a footnote in the company’s annual report, which it filed Tuesday, Disney paid Major League Baseball $900 million for its 15% stake in the company, now known as “Disney Streaming,” earlier in November.
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.
The reinstalled CEO also addressed reports of a merger with Apple at a town hall with employees Monday.
Bochner’s exit is probably not much of a surprise, given that he had been behind much of former Disney CEO Bob Chapek’s messaging as the leader’s speechwriter. Bochner had served as Chapek’s chief of staff until this past August, and more recently had been moved to a vice president of strategic communications position as Chapek faced mounting controversies — including his response to the Florida “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which first angered Disney staffers.
Iger’s Return To Disney Begs Question Whether Content Is Still King
“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.
A lawsuit filed on behalf of YouTube TV subscribers across four states accuses Disney of using its market power to unfairly jack up prices on their virtual pay TV service. The proposed antitrust suit, filed in a San Francisco federal court on behalf of YouTube TV subscribers in California, Arizona, Indiana and Kentucky, alleges that Disney uses its control of virtual MVPD service Hulu+Live TV, along with its ownership of the most coveted asset in the pay TV ecosystem, ESPN, to dictate pricing in the virtual pay TV market.
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.
Kareem Daniel is leaving Disney as head of its Media and Entertainment Distribution division, one day after the ouster of CEO Bob Chapek. Newly reappointed CEO Bob Iger disclosed the news in a letter to employees Monday afternoon. Iger said he has tasked Dana Walden, Alan Bergman, Jimmy Pitaro and Christine McCarthy to design “a new structure that puts more decision-making back in the hands of our creative teams and rationalizes costs.” That initiative, he added, “will necessitate a reorganization of Disney Media & Entertainment Distribution.” Walden, Bergman and Pitato are chairs of Disney General Entertainment Content, Disney Studios Content ESPN and sports content, respectively. McCarthy is chief financial officer of the Walt Disney Co.
