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Fox News host Greg Gutfeld had a field day roasting the leftist C-suite hacks at the disenchanted Walt Disney Company for their ongoing obsession to out-woke themselves despite their bottom line taking a financial beating. Gutfeld blasted the “sad bastards” at Disney following news that the company was cutting 7,000 jobs and slashing $5.5 billion in costs during the Feb. 9 edition of Fox News’ Gutfeld. “This is what happens when you go woke — the saying is — ‘you go broke,’” Gutfeld said. “You can blame the cowardly execs who let the woke turn Disney into the joke it...

Bob Iger will step down as Disney CEO and assume the role of executive chairman, Disney announced on Tuesday. Bob Chapek, who most recently served as chairman of Disney parks, experiences and products, will assume the role of CEO, effective immediately, Disney announced. Shares of Disney fell about 2.5% after hours. Iger will remain executive chairman of Disney through the end of 2021, according to the company. He has been instrumental in making Disney a media powerhouse with key acquisitions and content plays. He launched Disney+, immediately making Disney a popular streaming service provider. Disney said the service had 26.5...

The time has come for all Americans to realize that the Media, which at one time was a form of the check and balances for the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branches of the U.S. Government. As we have seen recently, Ted Koeppel believes that the use of the American troops who have died in Iraq should be a cornerstone for his new book. The real evil entity is the Walt Disney Corporation that has used the ABC network to be populated with anti-Americans like Peter Jennings, Martha Raddatz, and Ted Koeppel. We all know that John Kerry, an anti American...

Friday, March 14, 2003 - Entertainment giant Walt Disney Co. arrives in Denver next week for its annual shareholders meeting - a move its critics say is intended to avoid angry stockholders. Mickey Mouse, Goofy and other Disney characters will greet shareholders Wednesday as they enter the Colorado Convention Center, the site of Disney's meeting. Inside, huge television screens will tout images from Disney's famous subsidiaries: ABC television network, ESPN cable network, theme parks, Miramax films and Pixar animators, all of which helped Disney generate $25.3 billion in sales last year. Yet one piece of technology will be missing: a...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - AOL Time Warner Inc. on Thursday ruled out any further consideration of merging its CNN cable news network with ABC News, saying a combination proved too problematic to pursue. The decision, announced on the air by CNN's "Moneyline" host Lou Dobbs and followed by a brief corporate statement, came months after word first surfaced of merger talks between CNN and ABC, a unit of Walt Disney Co. The two sides had said a potential merger could help the two companies save money and leverage their combined resources in the face of increasingly heated competition among television...

Filed at 10:45 p.m. ET LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Walt Disney Co. paid Chairman and Chief Executive Michael Eisner $6 million last year and gave President and Chief Operating Officer Bob Iger a package, including a promotion-related bonus, worth more than $18 million, company filings showed on Tuesday. Disney's board said it had rewarded Eisner for steering the company through tough times and laying the groundwork for future growth with a $5 million bonus, and it gave Iger options worth nearly $13 million after he extended his contract last year and to reflect new responsibilities. The company, which reports its...

The debut of ABC's NBA telecasts, largely depicted as a "loss leader" for the network, turned out to be no leader at all Wednesday night as a double-header wound up in third place with an average 3.6 rating and a 7 share, falling behind the umpteenth rerun of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer on CBS (4.3/9) and a repeat of The West Wing on NBC (4.0/7). The top-rated show of the night was a rerun of NBC's Law & Order (6.8/13), which gave NBC a slight edge in the overall ratings for the night, as it scored a 4.8/10 to CBS's...

LOS ANGELES, Dec. 3 — The Walt Disney Company announced several changes today to its board, including one that could reduce the influence of a chief critic of Michael D. Eisner, the chief executive. Disney also said it was lowering its 2002 earnings estimate because of the disastrous performance of the animated "Treasure Planet," which cost $140 million to make but took in only $17 million at domestic theaters over the holiday weekend. As part of the boardroom changes, Disney will add a new independent director, Robert Matschullat, a former Wall Street banker and top media company executive. It will...

NEW YORK - This morning as guests gathered at a media breakfast to hear Michael Eisner, chairman and CEO of the Walt Disney Co., the weather outside was cold and nasty. But, if you were an employee of Disney subsidiary ABC, the biggest chill was inside when the raspy-voiced Eisner stated that he did not see the third-ranked network being around in "four to five years." Eisner has been under increasing pressure from shareholders to bolster the company's stock price, which is trading in the $17 range, lower than where it was five years ago and more than 60% off...

Ted Turner, hard of hearing and approaching his 64th birthday, has got his groove back. The billionaire "Mouth of the South," who spent much of last year demoralized and complaining about having been fired, is now looking much more like the corporate rabble-rouser he used to be. "A great leader has two key qualities," Turner said in a speech this month at the University of Rochester in New York. "He knows where he wants to go; he's able to persuade others to go with him." After a year of virtual corporate exile, Turner has figured out the first part and...

BURBANK, Calif. (Reuters) - Two titans of their industries, The Walt Disney Co. and Microsoft Corp., on Thursday banded together to launch a family friendly Web service in a challenge to AOL's leading role as an Internet service provider. By pairing up with Disney in the new service called Disney on MSN, Microsoft's new MSN 8 service gains access to the Walt Disney's movie properties like hit film "Monsters Inc.," ABC broadcast TV network, ABC News, ESPN cable TV sports channel, and Radio Disney. AOL, a unit of No. 1 media company AOL Time Warner Inc., has the largest number...

f you were out enjoying the city last weekend, you might have stumbled, quite literally, across a new low in advertising. Big corporations like Nike and ABC were promoting themselves by pasting large plastic posters, known as street decals, on the sidewalks. This renegade marketing is offensive and illegal, and Nike wisely decided yesterday to remove its decals. There is a long tradition of graffiti artists, "guerrilla marketers" and fringe political groups painting, stenciling or otherwise inscribing their messages on the streets and sidewalks. This sort of defacement has always been illegal, but in the case of fly-by-night offenders it...

Three years ago, when it appeared that nothing could get worse at Disney -- fleeing executives, share-price collapse (and this was during the boom), dismal results at ABC, and a CEO involved in a bitter, costly, and very public lawsuit with a former subordinate -- I wrote that "Michael Eisner's extraordinary reign" at Disney was "coming to an end." Two weeks ago, some media bigs I know were out for a little retreat at Herb Allen's place in Sun Valley and, over drinks, put together a friendly pool about whether Michael would last the year. When I dismissed Eisner, I...

BURBANK, Calif. (CBS.MW) -- Shares of Walt Disney Co. stumbled Friday after Standard & Poor's downgraded the company's long-term credit to "BBB-plus." S&P lowered the rating from "A-minus,"citing Disney's difficulties in getting its theme park and television network businesses back on their feet. S&P also said it was concerned about Disney's cash flow, which is expected to be lower for its 2002 fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30. Disney shares were off 79 cents to $15.21 in recent trading, a decline of 4.9 percent. S&P analyst Heather Goodchild said Disney might not be able to get cash flow levels back...

Peter Jennings' "In Search of America" is a book in search of readers. Despite heavy promotion by the publisher, a weeklong tie-in series on ABC and big pushes by the ABC anchorman and coauthor Todd Brewster, the coffee-table book looks like the first high-profile stumble of the fall publishing season. After a month in stores and stiff competition from Sept. 11 books, "In Search of America" has yet to make The New York Times best-seller list and failed to place last week among USA Today's top 150 sellers. As a result, publisher Hyperion is offering to share with retailers a...

NEW YORK (CBS.MW) -- AOL Time Warner, the world's largest media and Internet company, may sell its three sports franchises to bolster its financial position, its chief executive officer said. AOL spokeswoman Tricia Primrose confirmed Monday that CEO Richard Parsons had told securities analysts Friday the company is searching for ways to strengthen its balance sheet, and offered up the sports teams "as an example of a non-core asset." However, Primrose stressed that "no discussions" are under way for such a sale. AOL, whose stock has fallen 63 percent in the past year, is under pressure to boost revenue and...

Filed at 9:42 p.m. ET LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - On the day the Anaheim Angels clinched a playoff berth for the first time in 16 years, the Walt Disney Co. hired an investment bank to market the baseball team and the Mighty Ducks hockey franchise to potential buyers. Disney has long discussed selling the two sports teams to a buyer who would keep them in Anaheim but the entertainment giant's announcement on Thursday that it had retained Lehman Brothers marked a firm step toward that goal. ``Lehman is the investment broker that is looking for a buyer as of this...

<p>NEW YORK -- We'll return to our regularly scheduled program right after this brief message. And before we get to that brief message -- well, here's a briefer one.</p> <p>Pop!</p> <p>As an "NYPD Blue" rerun unspools on Court TV, the screen shrinks and shifts. Up from the bottom rises a message: This episode of the famed cop show is brought to you by Planters' nuts, the salty Kraft Foods Inc. snack. As a movie plays on AOL Time Warner Inc. cable-counterpart TNT, a quiz runs across the bottom of the screen, asking viewers a question about the film. It's sponsored by United Parcel Service Inc. Earlier this year, TNT tested a tactic that had a message from an American Express Co. financial-services operation appear -- just as Steve Martin faced a particularly thorny money decision during "Father of the Bride II."</p>

It's not your imagination: Clutter is getting worse. Even with TiVo and other digital video recorders now holding out the promise of a commercial-free viewing experience, the leading broadcast networks continue to pack more and more advertising spots into each hour of television, according to the latest MindShare Clutter Watch report, released this week. ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox all aired more commercial time per hour in the first quarter of 2002 than during the same period last year. Fox increased its commercial time the most, averaging 8 minutes 39 seconds per hour, 10 percent more than in first quarter...

This summer, copies of a nearly 200-page screenplay wrapped in a glossy white cover discreetly made their way around Hollywood. "Uma Thurman is going to KiLL BiLL," read the hand-written, red-and-black scrawl on the cover — a chilling promise of the relentless mayhem inside. The violent movie being born from these pages will not be released by the Walt Disney Company's Miramax Films unit until October 2003, if all goes according to plan. But the second coming of the film's director, the long-absent Quentin Tarantino — and the inevitable debate about his prospects in what was supposed to be moviedom's...