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Bob Iger’s Return to Disney Shocks a Discontented Kingdom



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But Disney has one problem that its competitors do not, and it involves Mr. Chapek’s biggest move during his time as chief executive.In 2020, Mr. Chapek restructured Disney to give priority to the company’s streaming services (Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+). He took away profit-and-loss responsibility from the executives who run Disney’s movie and television studios, and gave it to a protégé, Kareem Daniel, who was named chairman of a new division, Disney Media and Entertainment Distribution.The loss of that turf — along with control over when and how films and shows would be released — upset longtime Disney executives, including Alan Bergman, the chairman of Disney Studios Content. Making the situation more touchy, Mr. Daniel had little experience in the vast area he was given to oversee. Mr. Chapek repeatedly insisted that his deeply unpopular reorganization was, in fact, the opposite, with “100 percent buy-in” from Disney managers.Mr. Daniel’s division is notably the one that contributed the $1.5 billion in “peak” streaming losses fo …

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