Walt Disney Co. launched another deep round of layoffs on Monday, notifying several hundred Disney employees in the U.S. and abroad that their jobs were being eliminated amid an increasingly difficult economic environment for traditional television.
People close to the Burbank entertainment giant confirmed the cuts, which are hitting film and television marketing teams, television publicity, casting and development as well as corporate financial operations.
The move comes just three months after the company axed 200 workers, including at ABC News in New York and Disney-owned entertainment networks. At the time, the division said it was trimming its staff by 6% amid shrinking TV ratings and revenue.
Disney declined to specify how many workers were losing their jobs. The cutbacks — the fourth round of layoffs in less than a year — come after Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger acknowledged to Wall Street that Disney had been pumping out too many shows and movies to compete against Netflix.
The programming buildup accelerated as the company prepared to launch Disney+ in late 2019, and it bulked up its staff to handle the more robust pipeline.
But the company has since retrenched, recognizing the need to focus on creating high-quality originals that meet Disney’s once lofty standards.
Disney has faced significant budget pressures after promising investors that its direct-to-consumer services — Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ — would achieve profitability last year. The company lost billions of dollars over several years in its strategic shift to streaming, but it reached its goal to make money on streaming last fall.
Still, streaming subscribers can be fickle, creating a daunting new reality for the company that could long count on cable TV subscriptions as one of its most reliable economic pillars. Cord-cutting has taken a heavy toll.
The entertainment giant — one of Southern California’s largest private sector employers — has eliminated more than 7,000 jobs since 2023.
The traditional TV and film units felt the brunt of the downsizing during the last year. In July, the company slashed about 140 workers, primarily in its Disney entertainment unit. The company’s TV stations also lost staff members and ABC News shed about 40 employees last October.
ABC News largely escaped this week’s cuts, according to one knowledgeable person who was not authorized to discuss the internal moves.
ABC News still boasts healthy audiences for its newscasts, but the ABC television network and Disney-owned entertainment channels have seen dramatic viewer defections as consumers switch to streaming services, including Netflix, Paramount+ and Disney+.
ABC’s prime-time schedule has lost considerable steam. For the just-ended broadcast television season, ABC mustered only three shows in Nielsen’s top 20 rankings. “Monday Night Football on ABC” ranked seventh by averaging more than 10 million viewers, “Saturday Night Football” ranked 18th with 7.4 million viewers and freshman drama “High Potential” made the cut at 20th with an average audience of 7.1 million, according to Nielsen.
Monday’s eliminations come three weeks after Disney presented its fall lineup to advertisers, leaning heavily on its sports stars including Peyton and Eli Manning rather than actors from its entertainment programming.
ESPN was spared the ax as the sports unit is preparing for its high-stakes launch this fall of a stand-alone ESPN streaming service, the knowledgeable person said.
The move comes amid a strong run for Disney’s film studio, which has celebrated blockbuster box office results from its live-action “Lilo & Stitch,” which has earned $610 million in ticket sales globally, according to Box Office Mojo.
A month ago, Disney issued strong fiscal second-quarter earnings. The company reported $23.6 billion in revenue for the three months that ended March 29, a 7% increase compared with the same quarter a year earlier. Earnings before taxes totaled $3.1 billion, up $2.4 billion from last year.
Hollywood trade site Deadline first reported the news of the latest Disney cuts.
The landscape has been increasingly challenging for traditional companies. In addition to Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount Global and even such tech companies as Amazon and Apple have fired workers.
In late May, NBCUniversal cut 54 jobs in Los Angeles, according to state employment records. Six Flags Entertainment Corp. laid off 140 workers.
Disney shares closed down 9 cents to $112.95.
