The Walt Disney Co. is cutting hundreds of jobs across the company as it continues a corporate streamlining that began in earnest earlier this year
Some corporate functions, ESPN, Disney Entertainment Television and film studios are all expected to be impacted, with Pixar said to be the film studio seeing the most cuts, and Nat Geo most heavily impacted at DET, The Hollywood Reporter has learned
Pixar has released two films this year: The original film Hoppers, and Toy Story 5, which is among the biggest movies of the year so far
The cuts also include some notable on-air talent at ESPN, including longtime SportsCenter anchor and Baseball Tonight host Karl Ravech, who has been with the channel since 1993, and Ryan Clark, a former NFL player who has been an analyst for the channel’s football coverage for over a decade
That being said, most of the layoffs at ESPN are behind-the-scenes staff, connected to its acquisitionof the NFL network earlier this year
“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,” ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro told staff in a memo Tuesday morning, which was obtained by THR. “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.”
Employees that are being let go are being notified Tuesday morning
The cuts will be the third round of layoffs this year as Josh D’Amaro and his senior leadership team reorient the company around the “One Disney” structure the CEO is putting into place
In January, Disney unified all of its marketing departments under Asad Ayaz, leading to some cuts in those areas
Then in April, D’Amaro notified employees of a larger restructuring, with around 1,000 employees impacted. The new round of cuts is a bit smaller in scale, but nonetheless underscores how the company continues to re-evaluate its structure amid immense technological change
D’Amaro is not believed to have sent a memo about the latest round of cuts, but he addressed his thoughts in a memo sent back in April:
“Over the past several months, we have looked at ways in which we can streamline our operations in various parts of the company to ensure we deliver the world-class creativity and innovation our fans value and expect from Disney,” D’Amaro wrote in his memo. “Given the fast-moving pace of our industries, this requires us to constantly assess how to foster a more agile and technologically-enabled workforce to meet tomorrow’s needs.”
