Iger Is Succeeding in 2024

With all the recent talk of Disney succession, there’s one subject largely overlooked by the general public.

Even Wall Street analysts have fallen victim to this oversight, as many of them have already moved on to the next thing in their heads.

At this moment, nobody is really worried about Disney anymore despite the fact that executives recently suggested a theme park slowdown.

After a momentary bit of headline hysteria, analysts pored over the financials and realized Disney Experiences is rock solid.

So, Disney has gone silent beyond the occasional Disney+ arbitration snafu or Venu Sports setback.

In a way, Wall Street and Hollywood alike have ceded what is an obvious point. Disney CEO Bob Iger is succeeding in 2024.

Let’s talk about Iger’s remarkable comeback after a shaky first year.

How It Started

When Bob Iger returned in November 2022, he stepped straight into a real-life version of the This Is Fine meme.

Disney’s house was on fire, and Bob Chapek’s firefighter handbook apparently suggested he should pour gasoline on everything.

Iger had run Disney from 2005 through February 2020, which made Chapek’s sudden promotion somewhat shocking.

On a normal day, Disney suddenly revealed that Chapek was in charge of the entire company.

Iger stayed on as Executive Chairman, but his main task was handling the creative parts of Disney.

In that regard, Iger actually struggled mightily, as we learned in 2023 when most of those projects disappointed at the box office.

However, Iger’s setbacks paled in comparison with those of Chapek, a man seemingly cursed with bad luck and poor judgment.

If everything Iger touched turned to gold, Chapek seemingly transformed said gold into coal.

By the end of Iger’s first week back as CEO in 2022, he realized just how total Chapek’s failures were.

In Iger’s own assessment, he believed that he would need roughly a year to restore Disney back to what it had been before the pandemic.

Impressively, The Hollywood Reporter published this article 50 weeks after Iger’s comeback.

In the story, Iger referenced the fact that he had finished securing the Disney fortress.

From that point forward, Disney entered the building phase, which is where we’re at now.

So, with the benefit of hindsight, we can say that Iger is either A) quite lucky with the timing or B) he nailed the timeline completely.

Given that Iger has proven his leadership skills for nearly 20 years now, I lean toward the latter.

Based on what I see, Iger performed an honest division-by-division review of Disney and admitted the company’s weaknesses.

Iger’s Fixes Part One

Fast forward to today, ten months after that Hollywood Reporter article.

Many of the issues raised at the time have seemingly vanished.

Okay, vanished may be an overstatement in a couple of instances, but everything we viewed as broken in 2023 isn’t now.

We can take this division by division to prove the point, and it’ll make you realize just how far Disney has come in ten months.

One year ago, Disney was bleeding money in its Direct-to-Consumer (DtC) division, with losses of $420 million for the quarter.

Stunningly, that total was roughly $1 billion less than the division’s losses during the same quarter in 2022. Bob Chapek really blew it.

For the most recent two quarters, Disney has turned a slight profit with DtC.

In other words, since Iger’s return, Disney turned a business losing an average of $500 million per month into a profitable one.

I could full-stop right there, and you’d get the point.

Currently, Disney’s streaming business is breaking even and even eking out a slight profit.

By this time next year, barring something unforeseen, the business will be well on the way to being a bankable venture.

Iger has accomplished that feat in less than two years. The key was looking in the mirror and being honest about what wasn’t working.

For example, Disney’s Star India business had seemed lucrative when Disney acquired those assets from Fox. In practice, it was a disaster.

The streaming division is saving itself a fortune by offloading those assets in a planned deal with a competitor.

DtC also dialed down the number of original titles airing on Hulu and Disney+, which sucks for subscribers but vastly improves the bottom line.

No fan likes that short-term move, but it’ll change once DtC has grown profitable.

Iger’s Fixes Parts Two

Hollywood is a land of sudden ascensions, sudden declines, and heroic comebacks.

Somehow, studios naturally cycle between the three, which leads to make melodramatic headlines about how nothing will ever be the same.

In 2023, Disney received that treatment worse than any studio had in a while, and the reason why was simple.

When you’re at the highest heights, you have the farthest to fall.

In Disney’s case, the perennial success of its Marvel and Pixar content established lofty standards.

During the pandemic, the entire theater industry suffered mightily, which naturally impacted Disney titles as well.

Last year, Disney suffered a rare number of high-profile failures, all of which cost a fortune.

Everyone involved with the process understood the reason for the budget overlays. Running pandemic sets proved expensive.

Disney had also chosen exactly the wrong time to take a chance on several first-time directors, many of whom were in over their heads.

Even industry veteran James Mangold couldn’t bring Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny in at budget, running way over it.

What hope did relative neophytes like Nia DaCosta have? So, Disney’s box office suffered some expensive misfires. It happens.

Since Disney had been above reproach for nearly a decade, the knives came out for a studio that had the audacity to finish second last year.

I can assure you that nobody is saying anything today, as Disney is carrying the entire theatrical industry

The studio has released Deadpool & Wolverine and Inside Out 2, the top two box office hits of 2024.

In addition, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes currently claims ninth place, and Alien: Romulus should be in the top ten soon.

Those four films alone have earned nearly $3.5 billion. Disney is dominant in 2024.

Iger’s Fixes Parts Three

For the past decade, no joke, investors have assailed Disney over the erosion of its Linear Networks.

Those who follow the money know that Disney’s lucrative cable channels and ABC have generated massive profits for 30 years.

The evaporation of cable television as a thing has threatened Disney with financial ruin, at least according to some.

These critics have sworn the sky was falling on Disney since basically the moment Hulu debuted.

Well, we’ve reached a time when the doomsayers are getting close to right, which has forced Disney to make some hard choices.

The company cannot compete with the deep pockets of businesses like Apple, Google, and Amazon.

Thus, when sports broadcasting fees are negotiated, Disney must play its hand tighter than its opponents.

When Iger returned, Disney was facing the renewal of the NBA, the end of some college sports rights, and rapid viewer erosion.

All that has happened since then is that Disney has renewed its NBA rights into the 2030s, something Warner Bros. Discovery couldn’t manage.

Even better, ESPN secured the rights for the WNBA in the process. It’s THE growth league for viewership.

You should know why by now, but the Caitlin Clark phenomenon is real.

Her feud with Angel Reese teases the possibility of a modern Magic Johnson/Larry Bird feud, which makes for great ratings.

ESPN sagely secured many years of college championship sports rights as well.

Thus, we know what ESPN will sell in the future. It’s the home for all climactic events for college sports, the NBA, and sometimes even the NFL.

Iger’s Fixes Part Four

Also, Disney has prepped Flagship, an over-the-top streaming service that will disconnect ESPN from cable.

As Iger has stated, Disney will provide viewers with the chance to find content wherever they choose.

So, (presumably older) fans may continue to watch ESPN on cable television, the upcoming Venu Sports, or Flagship.

Disney is currently cultivating a detailed methodology to empower viewers with unprecedented search capabilities.

According to CNBC’s Alex Sherman, viewers may “search more than 10,000 events across dozens of networks and streaming services.

Some partner networks will be directly linked with one-click access to games, such as NESN and Monumental Sports. All ESPN games will have one-click access.”

ESPN will allow users to search more than 10,000 events across dozens of networks and streaming services. Some partner networks will be directly linked with one-click access to games, such as NESN and Monumental Sports. All ESPN games will have one-click access. https://t.co/29JI3BnA8p

— Alex Sherman (@sherman4949) August 28, 2024

As the older 2023 Tweet indicates, these plans have been underway since only a few months after Iger’s return.

Now, they’re ready to come to fruition as ESPN preps for its fully digital future.

During Iger’s return, ESPN has thought about not just what people want now but how consumers will behave in a few years.

This forward-thinking approach allows Disney to pivot into a new broadcasting era without alienating anyone.

The former ESPN problem is now a future-proofed solution.

How It’s Going

I think these results speak for themselves.

Currently, Disney’s core divisions are Disney Entertainment, Disney Experiences, DtC, and ESPN.

I haven’t touched on Disney Experiences much because we discuss that segment all the time on MickeyBlog.

You already know that Disney will soon spend $42 billion expanding its theme parks and adding new cruise ships to its fleet.

So, that division borders on foolproof at the moment. Everyone had expressed concern over the rest of Disney’s vast empire.

Now, Iger has demonstrated that the rest of Disney’s house is in order.

ESPN now feels like something that can run on autopilot until about 2030.

Disney Entertainment is once again producing blockbuster hits and has an enviable lineup of upcoming titles in 2025 and 2026.

On the streaming side, DtC is breaking even now while creating buzzworthy shows like Shogun and The Bear that attract new viewers.

Not coincidentally, Wall Street has largely shut up about Iger and Disney. That’s what happens when a company is winning.

People take its success for granted. Then, they dramatically overreact at the first sign of trouble.

So, we’ve really just started the cycle anew with Disney once again on top under Iger.

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Feature Photo: Variety