The House of Mouse is reportedly considering divesting from some major TV networks, including ESPN, ABC, FX, National Geographic, and Freeform, and all for the reasons you probably already expect.
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None other than Disney’s top dog, Bob Iger, spilled the beans. He recently appeared on CNBC, saying that Disney is hunting for partners interested in investing in these networks which, he hinted, may not be at the heart of Disney’s strategy anymore.
“After coming back, I realized the company is facing a lot of challenges, some of them self-inflicted,” said Iger.
Iger also dded that Disney will have to take an “expansive” look at all of it’s properties, some of which “may not be core to Disney.”
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“The challenges are greater than I had anticipated,” Iger continued. “The disruption of the traditional TV business is most notable. If anything, the disruption of that business has happened to a greater extent than even I was aware.”
Iger was the CEO some years back, took a hiatus, and then made a comeback after Bob Chapek was shown the exit. And boy, did he return to a heap of issues. Disney owns a whopping 80% stake in ESPN, with Hearst Communications owning the remaining 20%. Will we see Hearst taking a bigger piece of the pie? Time will tell.
Oh, and let’s not forget Disney+ in this drama. Despite all the hype and high hopes, it’s not exactly skyrocketing like they anticipated. Seems like they’re feeling the burn of trying to compete with streaming heavyweights like Netflix and Amazon while also putting out watered down, poor quality content as seen in the recent slew of Marvel Studios movies and shows that have marked a low point for the mighty franchise.
Bob Iger via CNBC YouTube
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For close to a decade now, ESPN ratings alone have been collapsing year to year as the network shifted away from objective sports and commentary and began to dedicate much of their talent and resources to pushing radical leftist social agendas which have completely turned away sports fans who didn’t want to be lectured too or chastised by those who through rocks from high towers.
Whether it was on-air talent losing their mind about the rise of Donald Trump, empowering the violent Black Lives Matter movement, disrespecting the national anthem or attempting to simply stick it to everything most Americans hold dear, ESPN has earned every failure and drop in ratings that has come its way, and the numbers show that.
According to ENVZONE.com:
Across all ESPN network properties, the loss of nearly eight million subscribers will lose the network almost $1 billion a year in recurring revenue. Even though it represented the greatest yearly subscriber loss in ESPN history, the data, which was disclosed by the business itself just before Thanksgiving in late November of 2021, went mostly unnoticed by the mainstream media.
This isn’t new, but the folks at Disney aren’t going to admit that one of their biggest properties is a dumpster fire because that would be to admit that they did something wrong in the first place.
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