Disney Lays Off Staff At Pixar, ESPN, ABC & National Geographic
Disney, much like many major corporations right now, continues to scale back its workforce as it looks to reduce costs and increase profits. It’s been revealed that a third wave of job cuts has now begun at Disney in many divisions, including Disney Entertainment Television, National Geographic, Pixar and ESPN.
About 100 people were laid off at Disney Entertainment Television, with National Geographic losses being felt in many areas, including cable networks, editorial and operations. Much like with many studios, National Geographic has been drastically reducing the number of shows it makes for linear and Disney+. ABC News also lost about 12 members of staff.
Pixar continues to undergo a reduction in staff, as the studio has been reducing the number of people working in production and operations, following a decrease in content being created, especially for Disney+.
At the ESPN division, the majority of the layoffs have come from the incorporation of the NFL Media division into ESPN, with ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro saying in a memo to employees, explaining the layoffs at ESPN:
“Over the past several months, we’ve made significant progress integrating the NFL assets that we acquired into ESPN. Throughout this process, we have taken the time to carefully evaluate our collective teams, resources and organizational structure to best position us for the future. As a result, we had to make some difficult decisions about job impacts that we will be communicating today. While most of the job impacts are tied to the acquisition, we will also notify colleagues in other parts of the company today that their positions have been impacted. We are committed to treating employees with compassion and respect and to providing support as they navigate this transition.”
Roger’s Take: It’s never good to hear about layoffs at Disney. The ESPN layoffs due to the merger of NFL Media was expected, but it’s a shame that Pixar continues to get hit following the box office success of “Toy Story 5” but it also highlights how Disney drastically expanded its workforce during the launch phase of Disney+, as each studio was increasing its output of content, which wasn’t sustainable nor profitable, which is why we’ve seen so many layoffs over the last year or so, as Disney can’t drop its output by a third or half, without that impacting how many people it needs. Unfortunately, I doubt this will be the last wave of job cuts.
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