Earlier this year, Disney CEO Bob Iger revealed one of the ways that the company is looking to reduce costs and try to save over $5 billion dollars, is to start cutting back on the amount of general entertainment content that they produce, as has raised concerns about undifferentiated general entertainment and how that competes with other platforms like Netflix and Amazon.

While Disney is still looking to focus on its core franchises, when it purchased 20th Century Fox, it acquired a number of additional studios that create general entertainment content, such as National Geographic, Searchlight Pictures, FX and 20th Television.  Since Bob Iger has returned to Disney, he has restructured the company into three core divisions, Entertainment, ESPN and Parks/Resorts/Consumer Products and begun layoffs of thousands of employees.

Recently, during an interview with Time magazine, Bob Iger was asked about having ambitious spending on creativity, while also trying to shrink expenditures, saying:

If you look at the reductions that we’re making, they’re designed to invest the right amount of money in great creativity. The more efficient you are at running a company, the more you can spend on what is the most necessary. In this case, it’s quality and creativity.

He added, when asked about the influences on curating Disney’s output:

We want to continue to make programs that don’t necessarily fit into one of our core brands, but we probably should make less of them. I think actually curation is a good thing, because it probably forces more discipline on us in terms of quality. The more you make, typically, you dilute quality. And we’re looking to do the opposite.

When asked about clarification on making fewer, bigger things, Bob replied:

Not necessarily bigger. Fewer, better.

While the current lineup of new shows and films will probably not be impacted, we are seeing Disney slow down its release schedule, spreading out its existing content and moving forward, we are going to see a lot fewer new series and films that fall within the general entertainment category.   If you put together all of the shows and films coming out of all of Disney’s studios, there is a lot.  And now, with the push toward profitability, making so many new shows and films for its streaming services and linear television networks, expect to see more sharing between the platforms, like the upcoming original series, “A Small Light”.

What do you think of Disney slowing down its general entertainment output?

Roger Palmer

Roger has been a Disney fan since he was a kid and this interest has grown over the years. He has visited Disney Parks around the globe and has a vast collection of Disney movies and collectibles. He is the owner of What's On Disney Plus & DisKingdom. Email: Roger@WhatsOnDisneyPlus.com Twitter: Twitter.com/RogPalmerUK Facebook: Facebook.com/rogpalmeruk

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