Revenue 2023: US$ 88,898 billion (€ 82,214 billion)

Overview

The Disney Group is divided into three core business areas: Disney entertainment (film studios, ABC (one of the three major terrestrial TV networks in the USA), numerous special-interest channels, etc.), Sports (the sports channels of ESPN), and Disney Experiences (Disneyland theme parks).

General Information

Headquarters:
500 South Buena Vista Street
Burbank, CA 91521
USA
Telephone: 001 818 5601000
website: corporate.disney.go.com

Branches of trade:: Film, streaming, free-TV/pay-TV channels, TV production, rights trading, TV broadcasting stations, video/DVD, radio, multimedia, internet services, book publishers, magazines, merchandising, theme parks, hotels
Legal form: Stock Company
Financial year: 01.10. – 30.09.
Founding year: 1923 (Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio), 1986 (Walt Disney Company)

Basic economic data (in US$ million)

	2023	2022	2021	2020	2019
Revenue	88.898	82.722	67.418	65.388	69.570
Profit (Loss)	4.769	5.285	2.507	(2.442)	10.913
Stock price (year end, in $US)	90,90	86,88	154,89	181,18	146,50
Employees	225.000	220.000	190.000	203.000	223.000

Turnover by divison (in million US$)

	2023	2022
entertainment	40.635	39.569
Sports	17.111	17.270
Experiences	32.594	28.085

Executives and Directors

Management:

• Robert A. Iger, Chief Executive Officer, The Walt Disney Company
• Tinisha Agramonte, Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer, The Walt Disney Company
• Asad Ayaz, Chief Brand Officer, The Walt Disney Company and President, Marketing, The Walt Disney Studios and Disney+
• Alan Bergman, Co-Chairman, Disney Entertainment, The Walt Disney Company
• David L. Bowdich, Senior Vice President and Chief Security Officer, The Walt Disney Company
• Rebecca Campbell, Chairman, International Content and Operations, The Walt Disney Company
• Jenny Cohen, Executive Vice President, Corporate Social Responsibility, The Walt Disney Company
• Sonia Coleman, Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer, The Walt Disney Company
• Josh D'Amaro, Chairman, Disney Experiences, The Walt Disney Company
• Carlos A. Gómez, Executive Vice President, Corporate Finance and Treasurer, The Walt Disney Company
• Horacio Gutierrez, Senior Executive Vice President, Chief Legal and Compliance Officer, The Walt Disney Company
• Hugh Johnston, Senior Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer, The Walt Disney Company
• Jolene Negre, Associate General Counsel and Secretary, The Walt Disney Company
• James Pitaro, Chairman, ESPN, The Walt Disney Company
• Alexis Quadrani, Executive Vice President, Investor Relations, The Walt Disney Company
• Kristina Schake, Senior Executive Vice President, Chief Communications Officer, The Walt Disney Company
• Dana Walden, Co-Chairman, Disney Entertainment, The Walt Disney Company
• Brent Woodford, Executive Vice President, Controllership, Financial Planning and Tax, The Walt Disney Company

 
Supervisory Board:

• Mark G. Parker, Nike
• Mary T. Barra, General Motors
• Safra A. Catz, Oracle Corporation
• Amy L. Chang
• Jeremy Darroch, Reckitt Benckiser Group plc.
• Carolyn N. Everson
• Michael Froman, Mastercard
• James P. Gorman, Morgan Stanley
• Robert A. Iger
• Maria Elena Lagomasino, WE Family Offices
• Calvin McDonald, lululemon athletica inc.
• Derica W. Rice, CVS Health
  

History

It all began in 1923 in a back room in Hollywood, where 21-year-old Walter ‘Walt’ Elias Disney founded the Disney Brothers cartoon studio with his brother Roy. Three years later, the company had its own studio on Hyperion Avenue and called itself the ‘Walt Disney Studio’. In 1928, Disney brought out his first Mickey Mouse cartoon Steamboat Willie in cinemas, also one of the first sound films. The mouse was the central figure in the development of one of the strongest brands in the global media business and the starting point for the Disney Group's extensive merchandising business. Animated feature films such as Snowwhite or Bambi became cinema successes and made other figures popular, which could be marketed in retail outlets or amusement parks. The first Disneyland was opened in California in 1955. Disney has been able to establish itself on television since the 1950s with the weekly show Disneyland on the nationwide ABC network and with the Mickey Mouse Club was established.

A strong brand philosophy was already developed under founder Walt Disney. "Uncle Walt", who grew up in poor conditions on a farm in Missouri, loved the perfect, puritanical world that he had not been granted. Accordingly, he created the Disney brand, which was based very much on the purity of the products and became an American myth. Erotic promiscuity and depictions of violence were considered taboo in Disney productions, which were successful as "films for the whole family". Walt Disney shaped the company until his death in 1966. Later, however, the ever-present "spirit of Walt" hampered development. Modernization was missed for a long time; actors and authors considered Disney old-fashioned and dusty. Promising projects such as Spielberg's "ET" were rejected, and unsuccessful films were produced instead, following a familiar pattern. In the 1980s, Disney fell into a deep crisis.

The share price fell and a hostile takeover and subsequent sell-off threatened. In 1984, however, Disney management was able to persuade Texan real estate mogul Sid Bass to invest in the ailing company. The "Team Disney" around Michael Eisner (previously Paramount) and Frank Wells (formerly Warner Bros.) managed to modernize the company, combined with a revival of the film studio in the late 1980s. Disney expanded. A decisive step was the $19 billion takeover of the Capital Cities/ABC group in 1997, which secured the Disney group control of numerous TV stations, including the national broadcasting chain ABC and the sports cable channel ESPN.

CEO Michael Eisner was particularly influential in shaping the development. With his unconventional management methods, he was able to make Disney a powerhouse of the entertainment industry again. However, in the last years of his tenure, the company's profits fell. In addition, there were management errors such as the faulty planning of the prestige project Eurodisney. Eisner was also criticized for his complacent dealings with creative production partners such as Miramax and Pixar. The formerly independent studio Miramax was taken over by Disney in 1993 and was behind Oscar-winning successes such as Shakespeare in Love and the films of Quentin Tarantino. The animation studio Pixar (part of Apple) produced box office hits such as Toy Story, whose distribution was taken over by Disney. At the end of 2004, there was a revolt among the shareholders, led by Disney's nephew Roy E. Disney. Eisner fought doggedly to remain in office, but had to step down after more than 20 years at the helm of the company.

Robert Iger was introduced as Eisner's successor in March 2005. The former weatherman and TV manager had earned his spurs at ABC and worked his way up at Disney, most recently as COO alongside Michael Eisner. Iger's overall strategy consisted primarily of strengthening the core brand Walt Disney. In autumn 2007, Disney's worldwide film distributor Buena Vista International was renamed Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures in order to standardize all of the brands. The business areas were bundled into one marketing cycle across all distribution levels. Iger's most important official act was probably the takeover of Marvel Entertainment (2009) and LucasArts (2012). In addition to Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Co., the company now also held the rights to all Marvel superheroes, Star Wars and Indiana Jones. After acquiring the companies, Disney began to establish a "Marvel Cinematic Universe" consisting of 23 feature films and various TV series and to produce sequels, prequels and spin-offs of the Star Wars saga. "The Force Awakens", the seventh part of the series released at the end of 2015, is now the fourth most commercially successful film of all time, after "Avatar", "Avengers: Endgame" and "Titanic" (as of June 30, 2021).

In the recent past, Disney made headlines with a mega-merger: After the purchase process was completed in March 2019, a large part of Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox was transferred to the Disney Group for 71.3 billion dollars. For Hollywood, this meant that Fox was the first major studio to disappear since the end of MGM in the 1980s. And only five remain: the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group, Warner Bros (AT&T), Sony Pictures Entertainment, Paramount (Viacom) and Universal (Comcast). The venerable 20th Century Fox studio (co-founded by legendary Hollywood producer Darryl F. Zanuck in 1935) no longer exists; it is now part of Disney.

management

Disney's long-time CEO Bob Iger, born in 1951, in office since 2005, one of the highest-paid managers in the industry (in 2018, for example, he earned $66 million including bonuses) has been alternately described as a smart, reserved doer who runs his company in a team- and consensus-oriented manner rather than ruling autocratically or – as journalist James B. Stewart put it in his book DisneyWar – as a characterless upstart who, despite incompetence and choleric outbursts, finally prevailed in the internal power struggle in 2005 as the only candidate to succeed Michael Eisner. 

As early as 2018, Iger said he wanted to step down soon. At the beginning of 2020, however, he was still at the helm. Further postponed resignations followed, with December 2021 being set as the new date. Iger said on the ABC talk show "The View": "I've always said I missed retirement. But now it just feels right." Unexpectedly, things happened faster. On February 25, 2020, Iger resigned with immediate effect and Disney shares fell by four percent. Then came Corona. The first mysterious lung diseases appeared in Wuhan, China. At the end of January 2020, a few days after Shanghai Disneyland had to close, Bob Chapek was chosen as CEO: born in 1960, with Disney since 1993.

When the change in leadership was completed at the end of February 2020, the Dow Jones was in free fall. And in mid-April 2020, the Disney Board of Directors made Bob Iger the Executive Chairman; he was initially supposed to support the new CEO Bob Chapek. So Iger took control again. Hardly any other media group was so affected by the pandemic, was "so dependent on the social, physical proximity of its customers as Disney with its associated theme parks and cruise lines." (New York Times) The transfer of screen entertainment to personal experiences made Disney particularly vulnerable. Another example: ESPN's sports channels, very lucrative for Disney's TV division. That too was canceled, and they had to fall back on "athletes in front of their Playstations." Or the film studio: film premieres that had to be postponed, cinemas that had to close.

Bob Iger on Corona: "A crisis of this magnitude and its impact on Disney inevitably leads to me actively helping Bob Chapek and the company to deal with it, especially since I led the company for 15 years." He is concentrating on designing a new Disney. A Disney that can emerge from the Corona pandemic. Robert Chapek, who is considered to be uncharismatic, was most recently responsible for the amusement parks, among other things, but nevertheless became the seventh CEO in Disney's 100-year history.

Business segments

Disney Media & Entertainment Distribution (DMED)
DMED consists of international film and television production and distribution activities, and various streaming services. The central DMED business areas are: Linear networks such as the ABC Network, Disney Branded Television, ESPN, Freeform, FX, National Geographic; international broadcasters such as Disney, ESPN, Fox, National Geographic; the 50% stake in the A+E Television Networks (A+E, HISTORY, Lifetime); direct-to-consumer: e.g. Disney+, Disney+ Hotstar, ESPN+, Hulu; Content Sales/Licensing (TV, cinema, DVD, music distribution, stage/live entertainment on Broadway and around the world um).

Disney Parks, Experiences and Products (DLEP)
The theme park division has gained importance within the group in recent years. Disney currently operates seven parks and resorts as well as a cruise line itself: Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California (1955); Walt Disney World in Florida (1971); Tokyo Disney Resort (1983); Disneyland Paris (1992); Hong Kong Disneyland Resort (2005); Aulani, a Disney Resort & Spa in Hawaii (2011), Shanghai Disney Resort (2016); Disney Cruise Line.

Current developments

"Extremely embarrassing: Bob Chapek and Bob Iger have fallen out, barely speak to each other anymore - and the rift threatens to endanger the future of Disney," CNBC headlined on March 20, 2022, summarizing the difficult phase between the Disney bosses over the past two years. Chapek had not expressed any desire for additional help. Then, after the crisis-ridden, loss-making 2020 fiscal year, Disney made a profit again, mainly thanks to the booming streaming business. And Bob Iger finally resigned on December 31, 2021.

Or so we thought. But on November 21, 2022, the news came: "There is a surprising change of management at entertainment giant Disney: longtime company leader Bob Iger is returning to the top. Iger has agreed to take over the leadership again for two years." Streaming is making big losses ($1.47 billion in the third quarter), CEO Bob Chapek is stepping down, Bob Iger (71) is back.

literature

• Richard Snow: Disney's Land: Walt Disney and the Invention of the Amusement Park That Changed the World. New York, 2019
• Aaron H. Goldberg: The Disney Story: Chronicling the Man, the Mouse and the Parks. Quaker Scribe 2016
• Neal Gabler: Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination. New York, 2007
• James B. Stewart: DisneyWar. London, 2006
• Bob Thomas: Building a Company: Roy O. Disney and the Creation of an Entertainment Empire. New York, 1998