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PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   26585 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 4, 2023

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Inside Disney and internal corporate boardroom drama. Iger appointed Chapek as his successor but ended up decided coming back. It touches on the fight with Desantis, the prior generation deciding not to retire, internal power struggles, managing a business where no one has the skillset for all of the businesses (creative, running parks, international, finance, sports, launching a streaming business). About a 15-20 min. Iger seems more interested in the Desantis fight than Chapek who just wanted to play nice.

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2023/09/06/disney-succession-mess-iger-chapek.html

Interesting article, but I'm surprised they didn't mention the large payment Disney is contractually obligated to make for Hulu. Even at the floor valuation $9 billion is a mountain of cash for a company saddled with an enormous debt load from the Fox acquisition and whose net cash flow hasn't been great over the last 7 quarters and has had all the cash they've generated going into debt repayments.

Not to defend Chapek, but seems to me most of Disney’s problems were Iger problems.

  1. Iger did the disastrous Fox deal.

  2. Iger pushed into the disastrous streaming business.

  3. Iger forced a fight with DeSantis over culture war issues that have soiled the Disney brand.

I don’t know why an activist investors hasn’t put two and two together that Iger is the one who needs the boot.

You're forgetting the most important aspect for an entertainment company. Disney under Iger produced good content. Disney under Chapek didn't.

Early Iger or late? Disney don't have much good content since the great wokisation began in the mid 2010-s

It is clear from the article that Iger is very much a social creature. So when the environment went woke so did Iger.

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