Posted on 12/03/2020 5:24:16 PM PST by MountainWalker
"It's a bloodbath." That's how two longtime Disney staffers have described the wave of layoffs happening at the company Thursday.
The staff reductions are taking place in Disney's General Entertainment Content unit, overseen by Peter Rice, and Dana Walden's Walt Disney Television division, including ABC and studio 20th Television. Sources say more than 100 staffers have been impacted by Thursday's layoffs. "I'm sure Disney's seen worse, but it feels pretty significant," said one longtime executive familiar with the cutbacks. Disney declined comment. (THR will update this post with more information as it becomes available.)
Longtime ABC exec Vicki Dummer, who has spent nearly a quarter-century at Disney and most recently served as head of current for the broadcast network, is among the senior executives who have been impacted by the layoffs. ABC's exec vp scheduling Andy Kubitz, an eight-year network veteran, is also among those who lost their jobs Thursday. Kubitz most recently patched together ABC's schedule after the scores of holes were created when the pandemic forced production to shut down.
On the studio side, Dan Kupetz — who joined 20th TV in January to fill the void created by longtime studio co-chief Howard Kurtzman's retirement — was also let go.
Another source noted that Hulu executives are also among those worried about their jobs after Disney earlier this week gave Hulu head of originals Craig Erwich oversight of ABC as well. Disney continues to restructure and consolidate its workforce to better position the company for the streaming future while eliminating staff redundancies for cost-saving purposes. The changes are the latest in a wave of structural repositioning across Disney that started Oct. 12 when new CEO Bob Chapek shifted the company's priority to streaming. As part of the effort, Chapek tapped former consumer products president Kareem Daniel to oversee a new Media and Entertainment Distribution Group. That gave greater content control to studio leaders, including Rice, while handing Daniel oversight of distribution, ad sales and such other business functions as budgets. The changes created what one top literary agent dubbed a "content czar and Supreme Court of buyers" at Disney.
As part of the moves, Rice centralized departments including marketing, publicity, scheduling and media planning into three distinct groups overseen by Shannon Ryan (Hulu and linear networks), former Twitter head of global creative Jayanta Jenkins (Disney+) and Stephanie Gibbons (FX/FX on Hulu). That means that networks like Freeform and ABC will no longer have dedicated teams overseeing areas including scheduling.
This week, Walden reorganized her group and folded Touchstone Television (formerly Fox 21) into 20th Television. ABC Entertainment president Karey Burke was tapped to oversee 20th TV, bumping Carolyn Cassidy to the No. 2 at the former Fox studio and sending longtime Fox 21 president Bert Salke back to producing.
With Erwich expanding his purview to include Hulu and ABC, and Burke now at the studio, it's unclear how the development process at Disney will work going forward. The restructuring empowered studio chiefs to develop content across Disney's portfolio. Still to be determined is if Disney will merge creative development teams — i.e., heads of current, drama, comedy and so on — into one larger group that oversees all content and could effectively end the age-old process of getting notes from both the studio and network side.
Such a move would position Disney similar to the changes that have taken place this year at NBCUniversal, which centralized business functions under Frances Berwick and entertainment content under Susan Rovner. The duo together oversee a portfolio that includes NBC, USA, Syfy, Bravo, Oxygen and E!, among others. NBCUniversal continues to have its studio counterparts, with separate leadership of Universal Television and Universal Content Productions.
Thursday's layoffs are the latest to come at Disney, which like other entertainment titans, is under tremendous financial pressure as a result of the novel coronavirus. With Disneyland in Southern California remaining shuttered and most movie theaters pinched by the pandemic, Disney this month announced additional furloughs for theme park employees and executives. That unknown tally will join the 28,000 park employees who were laid off in September. Disney reported a $3.1 billion third-quarter loss this month, following a $4.7 billion hit during Q2. Other Disney brands, including ESPN, have also been impacted by layoffs as the pandemic touches every corner of the entertainment sector and upends Hollywood's old way of life.
It’s a smaller world after all.
Agreed - Feel good story of the day.
Housecleaning to fill Disney with more pierced freaks, gays, BLM pukes, SJW @sshats and Trannies?
Karma! Remember all the hullabaloo over the Trump presidential mannequin in Disney World? Payback is a_____!
Back when I respected the Disney name, it would have indeed been sad.
Now, hold on while I light fireworks.
Nice to see a leftist company bleed money.
JoMa
“...Nice to see a leftist company bleed money....”
Yes, indeed!!!
And AT&T has that rotting CNN albatross hanging around their necks.
Hopefully, they can’t spin it off, and that it remains around their necks stinking for a good long time....
With what they are doing to Alan Dean Foster and the rest of the people who wrote movie tie-ins for Lucas Films and Fox, die mouse die!
It will only accelerate Disney’s spiral to oblivion.
May the same happen to Comcast and AT&T.
How’s that woke business strategy working for you?
DIE xx DIE xx DIE!
(Reference to a song by Dope. Had to censor of course)
learn to code
They are protected! Now to eliminate the straight whites.
This definitely sucks for those laid off.
Disney has become a morally bankrupt operation. And of course it owns ABC news — its hostile apparatus used to attack conservative America.
Has anyone noticed if the MSM is covering the Black Table Ballots video?
Hulu and Netflix may lose my business over original programming that has loving portrayals of Obama, Michelle, and RBG, while only portraying conservatives negatively.
Tubi, which is free, has a bunch of old shows. However it includes the best show in our current line-up. “Sue Thomas FBeye” is based on a real life agent who was deaf, but more than made up for it by reading lips.
I heard Disney hires warm bodies.
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