Disney’s CEO succession plan has to work this time
Disney’s CEO succession plan has to work this time
The House of Mouse is well-positioned for the future as Bob Iger prepares to vacate the CEO chair. Josh D’Amaro still faces a tight rope walk.
Disney’s latest quarterly earnings report is a good demonstration of just how far the company’s streaming segment has come in recent years. Disney+ and Hulu generated a record $450 million operating income during the quarter, and the company has a clear strategy plotted for the years ahead to ensure it’s still standing after the coming wave of consolidation in streaming.
Current Disney CEO Bob Iger can be proud of the work he’s accomplished since returning to the job in 2022. But now that he’s officially chosen a successor in Disney Experiences chairman Josh D’Amaro, Iger will soon have to let go of the controls at Disney and hope that his succession plan goes better this time around than it did the last time he tried to step away.
Iger’s first tenure as Disney CEO ended in early 2020, when he stepped down and turned the role over to his chosen successor, Bob Chapek. Immediately after Chapek took the job, however, the COVID-19 pandemic forced the shutdown of Disney theme parks and TV and movie productions. Internally, questions arose about Chapek’s leadership style, and Disney’s cautious response to the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill in Florida drew much public criticism. By 2022, Disney’s streaming arm had still not shown clear progress toward profitability, losing more than $1 billion per quarter under Chapek’s watch.
The Disney board made the shocking decision to bring Iger back as chief executive, though in the years since, he has mostly followed the streaming roadmap first laid out by Chapek. It was Chapek’s intention, for example, to fully integrate Disney+ and Hulu once Disney had finished its purchase of the latter streamer; Disney will complete that integration later this year. Chapek also made it a priority to launch a direct-to-consumer version of ESPN that allowed viewers to watch all sports on ESPN cable channels without pay TV, a product that now exists in the form of ESPN Unlimited.
With those big steps already taken, or near completion, D’Amaro will step into the CEO role at a time when Disney’s streaming future seems to be on a strong footing. But the political and business environments he will face are fraught, with a president in office who bears down hard on any media outlets he thinks cover him unfavorably and an industry undergoing major changes.
Disney has made some big moves of its own in recent months, closing a couple of highly consequential deals. In October, it completed the merger of Fubo and Hulu + Live TV, and on the final day of January, the company’s deal to sell a 10% equity stake of ESPN to the NFL in exchange for a selection of NFL Media assets officially closed. D’Amaro will be tasked with overseeing the future of those deals, ensuring they continue to drive Disney’s streaming business’s success.
But the competitive environment will be fierce. Netflix and Paramount Skydance are still in a tug-of-war over which will be able to consummate a purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery, and every other major streaming service is thinking about ways to find any advantage they can. Disney has to keep an eye not only on its own success but also on what competitors are doing to secure their own streaming futures.
That’s why it’s crucial that D’Amaro maintain a good relationship with Dana Walden, who was seen as his main competition for the CEO job. Walden will assume the new position of President and Chief Creative Officer, with final say on content strategy and programming for Disney+ and Hulu. Much of the success Disney streamers have enjoyed recently is thanks to Walden’s leadership, and she will be a key ally for D’Amaro.
There’s no turning things back over to Bob Iger again if the transition doesn’t go as planned, however. He’s probably looking forward to whatever comes next, having left Disney in a very good position to compete in an uncertain future. But Disney can’t afford to whiff on the D’Amaro selection if it wants to keep its place in a shifting entertainment landscape.
Disney+
Disney+ is a video streaming service with over 13,000 series and films from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, National Geographic, The Muppets, and more. It is available in 61 countries and 21 languages. It is notable for its popular original series like “The Mandalorian,” “Ms. Marvel,” “Loki,” “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” and “Andor.”