NEWS: Disney Lays Off Over 100 Television Division Employees

[Disney4me]

Layoffs have hit Disney once again. 

©Disney

On Wednesday, July 31st, Disney announced a massive round of layoffs. The cuts will affect roughly 140 employees – – or 2% of the company’s workforce – – across the television division according to Variety. 

The cuts will cut across almost all corners of the company’s television operations including local stations, the Freeform cable network, and general marketing and publicity departments. However, the largest cuts were reserved for National Geographic. The iconic nature magazine-turned-content brand was acquired by Disney as part of their 20th Century Fox purchase in 2019. NatGeo saw 13% of its staff — 60 employees — let go. 

©NatGeo

The cuts come just months after Disney CEO Bob Iger shared that the company planned to radically change how they spend for television. After years of investing heavily, in Iger’s words “too much” in streaming programming, the company announced that they would be “dramatically” reducing spending on content, particularly that which was aimed at traditional networks. In addition, the company announced they would be “aggregating greater audience and amortizing costs” but putting recently premiered episodes of network shows on streaming services like Hulu quicker than they had in the past. At the time, Iger said the strategy was working, and drawing in “unduplicated audiences.”

©Hulu

Despite these changes, however, the television division isn’t the only corner of Disney to be hit by layoffs as part of the company’s $7.5 billion cost reduction plan. In May, 175 Pixar employees (approximately 14% of the division’s workforce) were let go as part of these strategies. The Pixar cuts in particular were due to mandates to “to scale back on direct-to-consumer series in favor of feature films.”

All of these 2024 cuts come on top of the 2023 cuts, which saw Disney let go of almost 4% of its global workforce as a cost-cutting measure. 

©Disney

Unfortunately, Disney is far from the only media and tech company to engage in mass layoffs in 2024. The BBC, Fox Entertainment, Warner Brothers Discovery, CNN, Deadspin, Electronic Arts, Vice, Buzzfeed, Paramount, Sirius, YouTube, Pitchfork, Universal Music Group, NBC News, Audible, Google, and Amazon among others have all let go of scores of employees over the first half of 2024. 

©Disney

Disney’s latest round of layoffs has hit the company’s television division hard, with 140 employees losing their jobs. We here at DFB wish those affected by these layoffs the best. Stay tuned for further coverage of Disney’s ongoing business dealings. 

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The post NEWS: Disney Lays Off Over 100 Television Division Employees first appeared on the disney food blog.

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